When We Dead Awaken by Henrik Ibsen
"When We Dead Awaken" is a play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, written in 1899 that explores themes of artistic ambition, existential despair, and the search for meaning in life. The story follows Professor Arnold Rubek, a celebrated sculptor, and his wife, Maia, as they return to Norway after years abroad. While they initially seek to escape their boredom through a summer voyage, Rubek encounters Irene, a woman from his past who was once his muse. Their reunion brings forth unresolved emotions and reflects on the impact of art on personal relationships.
As Rubek grapples with his artistic legacy and the significance of his past choices, the narrative delves into the complexities of love, desire, and the inevitability of death. The characters are confronted with their existential realities, leading to a dramatic climax that challenges their perceptions of life and mortality. The play is characterized by Ibsen's signature exploration of societal norms and psychological depth, making it a poignant piece that resonates with themes of rebirth and the human condition.
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When We Dead Awaken by Henrik Ibsen
First produced:Naar vi døde vaagner, 1900; first published, 1899 (English translation, 1900)
Type of work: Drama
Type of plot: Psychological symbolism
Time of plot: Nineteenth century
Locale: A coastal town of Norway
Principal characters
Arnold Rubek , a sculptorMaia Rubek , his wifeIrene von Satow , his former modelUlfheim , a landed proprietor and hunter
The Story:
Professor Arnold Rubek, a noted sculptor, and his young wife Maia return to their home on the coast of Norway after four years abroad. At the baths and the hotel they admit to being bored, and to break the summer tedium they plan to sail northward around the coast. Rubek becomes world-renowned with the fashioning of his masterpiece, “The Resurrection Day,” and success brings him worldly riches. Other visitors at the baths are a sportsman named Ulfheim, called the bear-killer, and a strange pale woman, Madame von Satow, who, with a companion dressed in black, takes the nearby pavilion for the summer. As Rubek and Ulfheim converse, the dark Sister passes from the pavilion to the hotel, and Ulfheim says her passing is a portent of death. Maia accepts his invitation to see his sledge dogs fed, but Rubek remains seated on the lawn. The lady in white emerges from the pavilion. Rubek feels strangely drawn to her. Years before, he wanted to create a sculpture that would represent Woman awakening from the dead on the Resurrection Day after the sleep of death. After he found Irene, he saw in her the perfect model for his composition, and she became his great inspiration. Irene wanted his human love, but he felt that if he touched her his soul would be profaned.
Now Rubek recognizes the strange woman in white as Irene. When he questions her about her life since she left him, she declares that she died then and is not really alive now, though she married a South American diplomat who later committed suicide, and then a Russian who owned gold mines in the Urals. Rubek admits that after she left him he made no marble creations of lasting beauty but instead began doing portrait busts that were, literally, double-faced, because behind the visible face he hid the face of the animal that the artist maliciously considered the subject of the portrait to be. He tells Irene that he and Maia are leaving the next day on a sea voyage. She suggests that he might prefer the mountains where she is going. At that moment Maia returns and announces that she will not make the sea voyage; instead, she wants to go to the mountains with the bear-killer. To her surprise Rubek does not object. Maia runs out to inform Ulfheim. Meanwhile, unseen near the pavilion door, the Sister of Mercy watches intently.
The next day the bear-killer goes off to hunt with his dog trainer Lars and his dogs, and Maia accompanies them. Before they leave, Rubek tells Maia that he can no longer live a life of indolent enjoyment with her.
Rubek finds Irene near a brook. She says she returned from the dead and made the journey for the sake of the statue, which she calls their child. She loves it and wants to see it. When Rubek implores her not to, saying he altered it since she left, Irene covertly unsheathes a knife but stays her hand as he explains the changes he made and tells how he also is in the altered sculpture, a man eaten by remorse, imprisoned in a hell from which he can never rise. At this she sheathes her knife, rejoicing that he suffers. She bitterly reminds him that when he finally finished the statue he shrugged off their years together.
Together they stand and watch the sun go down. He then asks her to return and live with him in his villa, to help him find his real life again, but Irene says that for the life they led there is no resurrection. Suddenly Irene challenges Rubek to dare the mountain heights and spend a summer night with her. Joyfully he agrees. As he does so a face stares down at Irene, the face of the Sister of Mercy. On the wild mountainside, cut by sheer precipices and overhung with snow-clad peaks, Maia and Ulfheim quarrel but make up as they tell each other of the disappointments of their youth. When the dangerous mountain mist begins to close in, they decide to journey down together, but as they make ready to descend they see Rubek and Irene climbing up. Ulfheim warns them of the impending storm and the dangers ahead and urges them to take shelter in a nearby hut. He says that he will send them help; he himself can assist only one person at a time down the precipice.
After Ulfheim and Maia go, Irene, terrified not by the approaching storm but that she might be taken away, that the woman in black might seize her, shows Rubek her knife ready for such an emergency. She adds that the knife was intended for him the previous evening. Startled, he asks why she did not use it; she tells him she then realized that he is already dead. Rubek passionately assures her that their love is not dead, for he realizes with glaring certainty that she is the woman of his dreams. Irene says that such a love comes too late, that desire for life is dead in her, and that she looks on him, too, as dead.
With his whole soul Rubek calls on her, even if they both seem dead, to awaken and live life to its fullest before they are forever put away in the grave. Exalted, they spurn the safety of the hut and joyously fight their way up to the peaks, through mist and storm, toward the sunrise. Far below the voice of Maia sings out free as a bird. The Sister of Mercy suddenly appears. As Rubek and Irene are carried along and buried in the snow, she makes the sign of the cross and wishes that peace be with them.
Bibliography
Binding, Paul. With Vine-Leaves in His Hair: The Role of the Artist in Ibsen’s Plays. Norwich, England: Norvik Press, 2006. Examines the character of the artist-rebel in When We Dead Awaken and four other Ibsen plays. Binding demonstrates how this character represents the tensions of contemporary society.
Bloom, Harold, ed. Henrik Ibsen. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1999. The interpretive essays include analyses of When We Dead Awaken and several other plays.
Durbach, Errol.“Ibsen the Romantic”: Analogues of Paradise in the Later Plays. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1982. An exploration of the lingering presence of romantic elements in Ibsen’s later plays. Provides an interesting discussion of the relationship between man and woman in When We Dead Awaken.
Holtan, Orley I. Mythic Patterns in Ibsen’s Last Plays. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1970. A study of the mythic content in Ibsen’s last seven plays, the book offers valuable insights to beginners and to more experienced readers. The chapter on When We Dead Awaken is focused on the resurrection myth.
Lyons, Charles R. Henrik Ibsen: The Divided Consciousness. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1972. A study of how many of Ibsen’s protagonists are simultaneously drawn to a life of thought and one of sensuous experience. Includes a good chapter on When We Dead Awaken.
McFarlane, James, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Ibsen. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Collection of essays, including discussions of Ibsen’s dramatic apprenticeship, historical drama, comedy, realistic problem drama, and working methods. The references to When We Dead Awaken are listed in the index.
Meyer, Michael. Ibsen: A Biography. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1971. A standard biography of Ibsen. Contains a chapter on When We Dead Awaken that is a good introduction to the play and a useful summary of various critical attitudes toward it.
Robinson, Michael, ed. Turning the Century: Centennial Essays on Ibsen. Norwich, England: Norvik Press, 2006. Collection of the essays published in the journal Scandinavica during the past four decades, including discussions of Ibsen’s style, language, and the reception of his plays in England. One of the essays analyzes When We Dead Awaken.
Templeton, Joan. Ibsen’s Women. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Templeton examines the women characters in Ibsen’s plays and their relationship to the women in the playwright’s life and career. Chapter 12, “The Revolt of the Muse: When We Dead Awaken,” analyzes this play.
Weigand, Hermann J. The Modern Ibsen: A Reconsideration. New York: Henry Holt, 1925. Reprint. Salem, N.H.: Ayer, 1984. Long a standard in Ibsen criticism, this volume covers each of the last twelve plays and presents a careful reading of Ibsen’s final drama.