易卜生筆下的女性
——對中國語境的特別觀照

克努特·布萊恩西沃茲威爾

（挪威奧斯陸大學(xué)，奧斯陸）

易卜生筆下的女性
——對中國語境的特別觀照

克努特·布萊恩西沃茲威爾

（挪威奧斯陸大學(xué)，奧斯陸）

本研究聚焦亨里克·易卜生戲劇中的女性人物，從她們在劇中的婚姻狀況探討夫妻之間存在的不平衡性。研究表明，娜拉對父權(quán)專制的反抗為挪威女性解放運動鋪平了道路。對于中國女性反抗男性壓迫的運動，易卜生也起到了開啟反抗意識大門的作用。此外，文章還提及了茱莉亞·克里斯托娃對中國女性及其婚姻狀況的分析。

包辦婚姻，女下屬，母性，失樂，自殺，沉默的奴性，男性化，女性主義第三次浪潮

In the following I will focus on a number of issues concerning female problems and female characters in Henrik Ibsen's contemporary dramas，hereby paying attention to questions which may have a special importance regarding the situation of women in contemporary China.Before I go into any further details，I want to give a short outline of the coming into being and the development of Ibsen's modern family plays.The first time Ibsen dealt with topics like love，marriage and questions of family life from the point of view of his own time was in the play Love's Comedy from the year 1862，aplay which is not very well known outside of Norway.I regard this play to be a kind of prologue to Ibsen's 12 last plays，all of which can be looked upon as case studies to the disasters of family life first depicted in Love's Comedy.The title of this drama may actually prove to be a little bit misleading.Ibsen never intended to joke with serious love affairs and examine the comical features of love.On the contrary，he is concerned with love's ability to survive under the conditions of bourgeois marriage and his main figure，the young poet Falk，draws the consequences of his sceptical attitude and cancels after a few weeks of joint happiness his relation to Svanhild，his girl－friend，convinced that their mutual love otherwise will fall victim to the love－killing institution of marriage.Thus Ibsen's Falk questions if marriage as the social institution of love relations is able to conserve the original attractions between the sexes and keep it in a way that resists the threats from the trivialities of every day obligations.The critical approach in Love's Comedyis a satirical one，making bourgeois and middle class marriage responsible for the decline of love.The one who blames society for giving to love an insufficient framework for the growth of conjugal life is himself a representative of free love，who prefers to enjoy short time relations and rejects the idea of lasting relations in view of the prevailing conditions of matrimony.The dramatic structure of this early play reflects the dialectics of an aesthetic and an ethical concept of love highly influenced by the works of the Danish philosopher S?ren Kierkegaard who states that the ethical stage of love performed by average people，who adapt their affections to the necessities of everyday life，is superior to the aesthetic way of life，due to which the pleasure of consuming love is given priority.

Whereas Ibsen in his first contemporary drama is dealing with marriage from the ironic perspective of a stage figure，who keeps blaming married and engaged couples for alleged shortcomings，which ironically enough they themselves seem not being aware of and consequently not suffering from，he continues his critical approach to family relations in his famous later plays，in which he examines various aspects of marriagemaking use of a dramatic structure closely related to tragedy and tragicomedy.It is striking that in nearly all these plays，which belong to the classics of modern speech－theatre，the main figures，especially the female，suffer from lack of fulfilment and the absence of happiness.

In Ibsen's family dramas women are in accordance with their lower position in society subjects to various forms of discrimination.In the following，I will draw attention to some of the conflicts resulting from the fact that men and women don't share equal rights and women at Ibsen's time to a considerable extent still are looked upon as inferior to men.As an excellent observer of modern life，Ibsen in his dramas has elaborated some of the obvious female disadvantages emerging from the patriarchal dominance in familial matters and exposed them to public discussions in the theatres all over the world.

At the time Ibsen wrote his family dramas the freedom of women—not only in Norway—was largely limited to the domestic era.Women of the middle classes were obliged to do homework，care for their husbands and children，and due to the ethics of the Lutheran church，support their husbands'efforts to ensure a regular income and provide them with the daily doses of sexual pleasure.The Chinese women were at least until the May Fourth movement of 1919 suffering from the same Confucian restrictions，forced to live in accordance with the“three obediences and four virtues.”In so far they shared the sad fate of the Norwegian Noras，who，as Chen Aimin（2007：353）puts it，“were supposed to stay at home，doing housework.Washing，weaving and child－caring.”During the last decades of the 19th century，women from the higher middle classes felt inconvenient with the limitations of their activities and took steps to change their situation and liberate themselves from the oppressions forced upon them from traditional role expectances and a social order dominated by the interests of men.At the turn of the century and in the following years，women in Norway organized their resistance against their existential conditions，and their struggle for civil rights and independence made rapid progress，at least as far as political and social acceptance is concerned.As a matter of fact，Norwegian women achieved the full right to vote by local elections in 1907 and in national elections in 1913，earlier than in most of the European countries.

The representatives of the women liberation Movement，not only in Norway，saw in Henrik Ibsen a supporter of their efforts and in their opinion he was a pioneer of female emancipation having created the famous figure of Nora，who dare to oppose her husband and leave a house，in which she 8 years has performed a doll's existence deprived of spiritual and human challenges，a victim of a husband who has exploited her sex and misused her as a decorative object in promoting his own affairs without caring for hers.Ibsen himself always denied that he aimed at being a spokesman for female emancipation.According to him his single concern was the liberation of the human being from every kind of compulsion and oppression.

In spite of the improvements made by women in public affairs most of women at Ibsen's time still suffered from lack of equal rights in the private sphere where they more or less were confined to spend the time with housekeeping activities or in the case of the upper middle class families with satisfying their own and their husband's vanity or boring themselves to death faced with the missing opportunities to do something motivating and meaningful.

In his contemporary dramas，Ibsen thus offered the readers or the spectators a view inside the four walls of civil life households confronting them with the crisis of modern marriage.In the following I will draw attention to some of the female aspects of the collapse of familial relations in Ibsen's plays hereby highlighting topics like

1：arranged marriage versus love－or inclination marriage

2：female subordination in marriage

3：motherhood and reproduction

The plots in Ibsen's last twelve plays take place in small Norwegian cities at the time of upcoming industrialization and growing urbanization.The main figures are either high officials，officers，lawyers，clergymen，doctors，or businessmen and people carrying on an artistic profession as author，sculptor，master－builder，photographer，most of whom have a fortune or a regular income which enables them to marry and establish a family.For the women in Ibsen's dramas marriage is mostly the only possibility toensure a secure future.Under the prevailing conditions at Ibsen's time marriage was not a matter of love，but more or less enforced on the daughters as the only way to escape poverty or avoid the sad destiny of keep being a spinster depending on public support.Of course marriage on this premises seldom proved to be happy.Its main goal was to organize life together as a form of economic unit based on a legal framework for the furtherance of coexistence and reproduction.Some examples from Ibsen's dramas may throw light on some common ways of arranging marriage.Most usual was a procedure by which the daughter was handed over from the father to the future husband，as is the case in A Doll's House where Nora is used or misused as an object of exchange from one patriarchal authority to another.In The Lady from the Sea the aged teacher Arnholm tries to convince Bolette，the oldest daughter of doctor Wangel，of the advantages connected with a marriage to him.He appeals to her basic interests in education and travelling and promises her to meet her wishes expecting to have some conjugal benefits in return.Ellida Wangel，the main female figure in the same drama，accuses her husband doctor Wangel of having“bought”her and removed her from her original birth place at the open sea to his middle class home situated at a narrow fjord.Helene Alving in Ghosts betrays her great love the Reverend Manders and marries a man who is able to offer her a life without any material worries about the future.The dominant position of men even permit them to use women as a sort of consume articles hereby reducing human beings to objects of exchange ascribing to them the value of goods.Old Werle in The Wild Duck—still being married—hands over his pregnant lover Gina to Hjalmar Ekdal and provides him with sufficient means that enables him to marry her whereas he himself is free to take a new lover.In John Gabriel Borkmanthe main figure betrays his love to Ella Rentheim.In order to achieve the position as a bank director he agrees in making a deal with the lawyer Hinkel who promises to keep his knowledge about Borkman's illegal embezzled money for himself if John Gabriel gives up his love relation to Ella Rentheim in favour of himself.

I could certainly have mentioned a lot of further examples but they would not add anything to the knowledge that marriage in the world referred to by Ibsen is dealt with in terms of buying and selling，mostly administered by men in the interest of men.It is not surprising that conjugal life therefore is strongly affected and determined by the practice of marriage arrangement.Women was in most cases badly prepared for marriage and their expectances to conjugal life—if there should have been any at all—are soon spoiled and turned into despair.There are of course plenty of reasons for this.One of the main grounds is that women at this time were completely subordinated to men's power and economically dependent on their husbands.Nora is shocked to experience that she is not allowed to borrow money，even for the purpose of saving her husband's life，or to make any form of financial transactions without the permission of her husband.In some of Ibsen's dramas，for instance in A Doll's House and Hedda Gabler，women are feeling humiliated and frustrated because they have no meaningfull jobs to do except for illuminating their husbands daily surroundings through their beautiful appereance.Nora don't even need to care for her children then Helmer has hired a women from the lower classes who nurses the children and performs all the activities in the household leaving nothing for Nora left to do.

Among Ibsen's women there is an encouraging feeling of being excluded from participating in life.Women like Aline Solness in The Masterbuilder，the twins Gunhild and Ella in John Gabriel Borkmanand Irene in When We Dead Awaken gradually lose the joy of life and are approaching a state of lifelessness caused by the neglect of men who give priority to professional ambitions and fail to appreciate their female partners.This disregard leads to depression，mental disorders and the feeling of being living dead.Even strong women like Hedda Gabler and Rebekka West are forced to change their attitudes towards their mail companions because they are unable to satisfy their demands for a partnership based on the acceptance of female otherness.It is significant that the encounter between strong women and weak men paves the way for the stronger ones to commit suicide whereas the weak and oppressed ones cling to their poor lives.Among the female figures in Ibsen's dramas only a few have the courage to break out of relations void of future.Nora is the widely most known，but also Thea Elvsted in Hedda Gabler leaves her husband，whom she has married solely for economical reasons.

The only drama，in which the conjugal conflicts are solved and the plot has a sort of happy end is The Lady from the Sea.Under the influence of her natural urges，symbolized and made visible in the figure of the strange seaman，Ellida grows estranged to her husband and refuses intimacy，as it is understandably more than unbearable to perform the marital duties as a ritual without any emotional ties.The tragedy lies in the civil law that makes debitum conjugale or sexual intercourse into a duty and the avoidance of this duty into a breach of the marriage contract and hence into a reason for divorce.When Ellida finally succeeds in becoming“acclimatized”to her new surroundings and her new family and decides in favour of her husband，the reason for this choice is that she has regained her free will and is able to act without the bad feeling of being an object of commercial transaction.

In Rosmersholmwe learn through the manipulated informations of Rebekka West that the single reason for getting married is to beget and bear children.It is，however，a hard faith to be born into an Ibsenian family.The children in Ibsen's dramas suffer from inherited or contracted sickness，from the results of accidents or lack of care.All of them endure the same destiny as the children，who grow up on the estate of Rosmersholm：nobody ever heard them laughing.And they die at a young age through illness or suicide.Those who survive have the only wish to escape their families and establish an existence far away as soon as possible.What does this tell us about motherhood？Are the mothers to be blamed for the sad destinies of their children？To a certain degree yes，but one should however not forget that the mothers themselves are victims of their marital situation and are due to psychological problems not in a sufficient way able to protect their children.The most tragic case is Osvald in Ghosts，who through his father has been infected with a deadly venereal disease which，once it will break out，will make him helpless and totally dependent on other people.In the last scene he demands from his mother to release him from his sufferings by giving him the deadly pill.One can hardly come closer to a modern tragedy：the mother faces a situation in which she has to decide whether she shall kill the son she has given birth to or leave him in a state of living dead.

In A Doll's House the final scene caused vehement discussions.How is it possible that a mother leaves her children and denies the responsibility for them maintaining that her primary responsibility is the one she has to herself and her education？Nora's bold decision leaves a lot of questions to be answered and there has been written some continuations focusing on what happened to Nora after she left the house，none of which take into consideration that Nora after having left the house still is a married women even if she has given the marriage ring and the key back to Helmer.The first and most noteworthy rewriting of the play's open end is Elfriede Jelinek's，the Austrian Nobelpricewinner's drama What Happened to Nora after She Left Her Husband？（1979），in which Nora applies for a job in a factory，falls in love with a manager，who maltreats her an paves the way for her descent into sex－business.Nora's exit is in a certain way selfish and not a very realistic contribution to solving the marital conflict.I doubt if her reasons to leave the house and her family would have been adequate regarding the question of achieving a divorce.At Ibsen's time the civil law protected marriage and draw narrow limits for consenting to divorce.Under the prevailing legal and social conditions Nora as a still married woman has very limited possibilities to establish an existence of herself separated from her husband and without his financial support.From a realistic point of view she will most probably soon return to her family and continue her female revolt from inside the family.

Henrik Ibsen is regarded to be the father of modern drama and the father of spoken drama in China.The reception of his works in China started after the bourgeois revolution of 1912 and the 4th of May movement of 1919.During this time women in different parts of the country began to organize their resistance against feudal traditions and patriarchal puritanism.The Chinese studies on Ibsen reception in China have stated that his dramatic works—especially A Doll's House—to a great extent influenced the discussions about women's liberation，not only directly through translations and stage productions，but also indirectly through literary essays and studies of his dramas as well as adaptations and rewriting of his topics.

Just to demonstrate how topical Ibsen themes were and still to a certain extent are I finally want to draw some parallels that may help to throw light on social and ideological problems common to women's situation and struggle for equal rights in Norway of the late 19th and in China of the first part of the 20thcentury.For those who want to widen their scope on the changing ideological comprehensions of female life in China during the time where“the power to define women has been shifted from the state to market forces”，I highly recommend Du Lanlan's article“Figuring Modernity”（2014）.As source of reference I use Julia Kristeva's study“About Chinese Women”，originally published in French language 1974 under the title“Chinoise”.The parallels focused upon are related to questions concerning

—Religion and philosophical concepts

—Individualism and freedom

—Suicide

—Lack of joy

—Tradition of silent slavery versus virilisation of women

In Ibsen's Ghost the alliance between the Lutheran church and the legislative authorities is shown to be a main obstacle for making progress in solving marital questions.The representative of the state church，the Reverend Manders，prevents Mrs Alving from leaving her husband and persuades her to endure a humiliating existence together with somebody who hurts her feelings through on going adultery and a dissolute life style.Due to Kristeva，it is the comparable alliance between feudalism and Confucianism in China which maintains a marriage system based on“the maximum patriarchal，ancestral，and symbolic authority”（Kristeva 1974／1977：80）.Thus，she concludes，at the dawn of bourgeois age and of the revolution that followed，”the traditional family constitutes one of the chief obstacles to liberation，more difficult to overcome than even the western family at the height of its crisis”（ibid.）.The crisis depicted by Ibsen in Ghosts has been compared to the tragic conflicts in the ancient Greek drama.It is interesting that Kristeva draws the same parallel between the traditional Chinese family and the Greek drama.She refers to the drama The Stormwritten by the playwright Cao Yu，in which the author illustrates how“the fruitless aggressive attack on paternal authority results in incest between mother and son”（ibid.：97）.In Ibsen's play the collapse of the paternal authority generates a similar tendency towards taboo relations that demonstrate the need for a renewal of the marital system，and that means in fact“to combat Confucian family and morality”（ibid.：100）.

It is far from farfetched to assume an Ibsenian influence behind this remarkable tendency towards questioning the traditional familial hierarchy.Kwok－kan Tam asserts that the dramas of Ibsen and Shaw in the 1920s kindled“discussion（s）of topics related to injustice done to women in special issues of influential journals like Women's Bell（Nuxing zong），The Ladies'Magazine（Funv Zazhi），Women's Review（Funv pinglun）and Women's Life（Funv shenghuo）（Kwok－kan 2007：349）.Two of Ibsen's dramas are—at least in the performing tradition—named after women：Nora and Hedda Gabler.In view of the Chinese situation the case of Hedda Gabler seems to be of significant interest.Even after having been married she keeps her father's name.The act of authorizing women to keep their own names is，according to Kristeva（1974／1977：131），“a blow at patrilinear descent”and“elevates women at the same time to symbolic power”.It provides them with the capacity to change their situation.The attack on paternal authority leads due to Kristeva to female“virilization”and“phallicization”，but this symbolic acquisition of mail power“can”，I quote；“help（women）to leave the household，the bedchamber，and the more or less psychotic sexuality，where they traditionally take refuge with more or less pleasure and profit”（ibid.：131）.However，as the suicide of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler shows，the inversion of the symbolic positions may have tragic consequences.Julia Kristeva refers to the situation in China at the turn of the 19thto the 20thcentury“as during the blaze of the suffragettes，a wave of women suicides follows the wave of divorces：70，000－80，000 women take their own lives”（ibid.：137）.It is this，as Kristeva underlines，not a crisis of the institution of marriage，but certainly“a crisis of‘transition'from the feudal family to‘a(chǎn)nother'family”（ibid.）.It is a dramatic illustration of what may happen when women oppose the principle of simply being handed over from the father's to the husband's authority.Kristeva refers to two examples of Chinese Noras，that can throw light on two opposite options of what may have happened to Nora after she left home.The one example referred to by Kristeva is“Qui Jin，born in 1874，the daughter of wealthy intellectuals，educated in Japan，unhappy with her arranged marriage，she leaves her husband and her two children to devote herself tonational liberation”（ibid.：101）.The second example Kristeva mentions is the case of Mlle Chao Ying.She“throws herself from the roof of her home in Shanghai to protest the marriage by her parents，who oppose her decision to live independently and have a modern education”（ibid.：109）.

One of the main reasons for the importance of Ibsen reception in China lies probably in his ability to elucidate familial conflicts highly relevant in contemporary China.Terry Siu－h(huán)an Yip points at the sociopolitical situation in China and claims that women in China paid much attention to Ibsen because“he was introduced to the Chinese reader at a time when most Chinese women were still confined to their sociofamilial obligations and archetypal female roles”（Siu－h(huán)an Yip 2007：359）.In his dramas Ibsen more or less highlights the pains of marriage.This emphasis makes it easier to acknowledge how important the individual freedom is，at least by the choice of marriage partner.Of course，this independence will not function if it is not based on a stable economic，social and ethical framework，which ensures a secure institutional stability.One of the main preconditions of getting through to the pleasures of marriage is however the abolishing of mail supremacy in marriage matters.Ibsen has shown this most clearly in his drama Rosmersholm.In the halls of the old manor the images of the mail ancestors—officers，clergymen，lawyers—are looking down at the now living reminding them of their joyless duties and obligations.Under the heavy ceilings of this manor nobody never heard，as I already mentioned—the laughter of children.To change this situation of ancestral tyranny was also in communist China the aim of the family planning.Julia Kristeva brings it to the point with following statement：“This family planning was to put an end to the age where one saw thousands of pregnant women，and never once heard the laughter of children（Kristeva 1974／1977：140）.

There has been written countless studies about Ibsen's works in most languages，especially about A Doll's House，in a global context perhaps the most popular and most frequently staged among Ibsen's plays.In terms of modern feminism Nora's struggle for female independence is regarded to be a battle already won.Due to the American gender researcher Margaret D.Stetz，the demands Nora embodies are—at least in middle－class circles—to a great extent unquestioned not only in the West，but also in Asia.She underlines，however，that there has been a remarkable deconstruction of the stable male－female oppositions“from Second Wave feminism of the 1970s and 1980s into the Third Wave feminism of the 1990s through the present”（Stetz 2007）.The homogeneous representation of the female role has been replaced by a heterogeneous indicating that there is no such category as“Nora's sisters”.The structure of the female psyche doesn't fit into the patterns of traditional understanding.Margaret D.Stetz draws the conclusion，I quote，that“we have seen a sharp turn away from the notion that anyone woman—or woman's consciousness—can stand in for all others.Among the profound changes in feminist thinking of the past twenty years has been a new scepticism about the idea of the‘universal'female figure，a retreat from the concept of‘sisterhood'，and a fresh emphasis instead upon recognizing difference and diversity of identity and experience.Nora no longer can be understood as representing Everywoman”（Stetz 2007：168）.If we take a closer look not only at Nora，but at the hierarchy of female figures in A Doll's House we can easily recognize the lack of solidarity or“sisterhood”，even though Ibsen renounce giving special attention to this important aspect of different representations of female life.

Chen，A.2007.Ibsen’s Nora and Chinese women’s emancipation［A］.In F.Helland et al.（eds.）.The Living Ibsen（Acta IbsenianaⅤ）［C］.Oslo：Centre for Ibsen Studies，University of Oslo.352－58.

Du，L.2014.Figuring modernity：Four types of women images in Chinese women writing［J］.Forum for World Literature Studies（in press.）.

Kristeva，J.1974／1977.About Chinese Women（Des Chinoises）（English ed.）［M］.Paris：M.Boyars.

Kwok－kan，T.2007.Dramatic voices of the self：Ibsen’s ideological intervention in the Chinese quest for a modern female identity［A］.In F.Helland et al.（eds.）.The Living Ibsen（Acta IbsenianaⅤ）［C］.Oslo：Centre for Ibsen Studies，University of Oslo.347－51.

Stetz，M.D.2007.Mrs.Linde，feminism，and women’s work：Then and now［J］.Ibsen Studies（2）：150－68.

Siu－h(huán)an Yip，T.2007.Women，gender and self：Ibsen and twentieth－century Chinese literature［A］.In F.Helland et al.（eds.）.The Living Ibsen（Acta IbsenianaⅤ）［C］.Oslo：Centre for Ibsen Studies，University of Oslo.359－64.

（責(zé)任編輯 玄 琰）

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10.3969／j.issn.1674－8921.2014.03.009.

克努特·布萊恩西沃茲威爾，挪威奧斯陸大學(xué)資深教授、易卜生研究中心主任。主要研究方向為現(xiàn)代文學(xué)和文學(xué)理論（從浪漫主義到后現(xiàn)代主義）研究。電子郵箱：knut.brynhildsvoll＠ibsen.uio.no