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- Historically, the master builder was considered the central figure that ensured that quality construction work took place. He had an in-depth knowledge of how to use various construction materials; he also crafted designs, directed the work, and often participated in the manual labor.
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Jan 19, 2018 · What Does it Mean to Be a Master Builder? Jan 19, 2018. If you’ve ever looked into the history of construction, you’ve likely come across the term “master builder.” While you don’t see that term tossed around very much in today’s construction world, this doesn’t mean that master builders have disappeared.
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The Master Builder, drama in three acts by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, originally published as Bygmester Solness in 1892 and first performed in 1893. The play juxtaposes the artist’s needs with those of society and examines the limits of artistic creativity.
- Henrik Ibsen
- 1892
D. H. Lawrence. Whales Weep Not! Get ready to explore The Master Builder and its meaning. Our full analysis and study guide provides an even deeper dive with character analysis and quotes explained to help you discover the complexity and beauty of this book.
- Author Biography
- Plot Summary
- Characters
- Themes
- Style
- Historical Context
- Critical Overview
- Criticism
- Sources
- Further Reading
Henrik Ibsen was born on March 20, 1828, in Skien, Norway, to Knud (a businessman) and Marichen (Altenburg) Ibsen. His wealthy family was thrown into poverty in 1834 when his father lost his store. As a result, Ibsen was forced to leave school at age fifteen and accept a position as a pharmacist’s assistant. The humiliation his family suffered as t...
Act 1
The play opens in a workroom in Halvard Solness’s house where his assistant, Knut Brovik, and his son Ragnar are working on blueprints, and Kaja Fosli is tending the books. Knut, who is having difficulty breathing, declares, “I can’t go on much longer,” noting that his health is quickly deteriorating. His son shows great concern over his father’s condition. Knut refuses to go home and rest until he has tried to convince Solness to recognize his son’s drafting abilities and to allow him to hea...
Act 2
Later that day, Solness promises Aline that they will be happier when they move into the new house, but she notes that the house is not important to her. She has never recovered from the loss of her parents’ home and the death of their two children, for which she blames herself. Solness explains the past to Hilda, telling her that after the fire, Aline was so despondent that she could not properly nurse her babies and she refused to let anyone else care for them. They died as a result. After...
Act 3
That evening on the veranda, Aline shares her pain with Hilda and her guilt over the death of her children. She then expresses her hope that they can be friends. Hilda is moved by her talk with Aline and tells Solness that she should leave. However, when Solness admits that he no longer cares about his craft, Hilda tries to convince him that he should not be held back by guilt. She implores him to build a castle with a high tower. He agrees to construct a real castle in the air with solid fou...
Knut Brovik
Formerly an architect, Knut Brovik is now an assistant to Solness. At the beginning of the play, his deteriorating health prompts him to confront Solness over the lack of support Solness has shown Ragnar. He admits that his confidence in his son has been shaken by the fact that Solness has never appreciated his son’s work. Calling on the little strength he has left, Knut demands that Solness evaluate and appreciate Ragnar’s drawings. Solness responds too late, however, and Knut falls into a c...
Ragnar Brovik
Knut’s son Ragnar works as a draftsman for Solness. He appears stooped in the play, which reflects his inability to stand up to his boss and demand recognition. When his resentment over Solness’s refusal to recognize his talent prompts him to confront the older man, he quickly backs down when he is told his drawings are worthless. Yet, he becomes for Solness the symbol of youth—everything of which Solness is afraid. Ragnar’s lack of perception surfaces when he determines that Solness has not...
Kaja Fosli
Kaja works as Solness’s bookkeeper. She has fallen desperately in love with him, even though she is engaged to Ragnar. Ibsen never develops her character, using her, for the most part, as reinforcement of Solness’s power and status.
Self-Deception
Solness is aware of the suffering he has caused others, especially his wife, during his self-serving rise to power. In an effort to cope with the harsh consequences of this unchecked ambition, he tries to convince himself that he has not been completely responsible for his actions. He struggles to persuade others, as well as himself, that he is beset by internal devils, “players” that impose his will on others, without his consent. Solness insists that all he has to do is think of something h...
Age versus Youth
As Solness struggles to cope with the consequences of his actions, he becomes obsessed with the idea that he is losing his creative edge. This obsession is compounded when Brovik tells him that Ragnar has drawn up blueprints for a young couple who have applauded his “new modern” ideas. Solness admits to Dr. Herdal that he harbors “a terrible fear” that an inevitable change is coming, heralded by the young, and as a result, he will become obsolete. In an effort to stop this process, he tries t...
Rejuvenation
Rejuvenation comes in the form of Hilda, a young woman who sparks Solness’s waning creativity and sexuality. When Hilda first comes to the house, Solness admits that he is no longer interested in building homes, for no one appreciates his work. When Hilda tells him that the sight of him climbing the tower in her hometown was “wonderfully thrilling” and “lovely,” and reminds him that he kissed her several times that evening, his pride in his work reemerges along with his sense of sexual prowes...
Realism and Expressionism
Ibsen combines elements of realism and expressionism in the play. Most of Ibsen’s plays can be grouped into the realist movement, the dominant literary form in the latter part of the nineteenth century. In The Master Builder,however, Ibsen experiments with expressionism, a new movement that was coming into vogue. Realist and expressionist techniques merge in his characterizations. As Ibsen charts the rise and fall of master builder Halvard Solness, he takes a close look at cause-and-effect re...
Symbolism
The dominant symbol in the play is the tower that Solness climbs on two occasions, a phallic structure that suggests his authority and sexuality. Hilda watches transfixed both times as he climbs the vertical edifices to the top, thrilled at the power and courage he displays as he rises high above the town. Her active observance of Solness’s physical prowess causes her to become obsessed with him, so much so that she is willing to break up his marriage to the long-suffering Aline.
Realism
In the late nineteenth century, playwrights turned away from what they considered the artificiality of melodrama to a focus on the commonplace in the context of everyday contemporary life. They rejected the flat characterizations and unmotivated violent action typical of melodrama. Their work, along with much of the experimental fiction written during that period, adopted the tenets of realism, a new literary movement that took a serious look at believable characters and their sometimes probl...
Expressionism
Dramatists during the early decades of the twentieth century also adopted the techniques of another new literary movement. expressionism eschewed the realists’ attention to verisimilitude and instead employed experimental methods that tried to objectify the inner experiences of human beings. Influenced by the theories of Freud, playwrights like August Strindberg used nonrealistic devices that distorted and sometimes oversimplified human actions in order to explore the depths of the human mind...
When The Master Builder (Bygmester Solness in Norwegian) was published in Scandinavia in 1892, the public response was greater than for any other Ibsen play since A Doll House. Henrik Jaeger praises the structure of the play in Dagbladet,writing that it becomes “a dialogue” between Solness and Hilde “so powerful and brilliant that it is more grippi...
Wendy Perkins
Perkins is an instructor of twentieth-century literature and film. In this essay, Perkins examines Ibsen’s adaptation of the Faust myth in Ibsen’s play. The story of a man who sells his soul to the devil so that he can gain knowledge, power, and riches can be traced back to the beginning of Christianity. This tale has been told under various names until the Renaissance, when it became known as the Faust myth. A German history of Dr. Faustus, the first known written account of the legend, insp...
WHAT DO I READ NEXT?
1. A Doll House(1879), Ibsen’s most celebrated play, uses the realist techniques to study the life of a woman repressed by the tenets of her society. 2. Dr. Faustus(1604) is playwright Christopher Marlowe’s rendition of the Faustian legend. 3. When We Dead Awaken(1899), Ibsen’s last play, presents an expressionistic view of the intricacies of the human mind and personality. 4. History of the Theatre(1998), by Franklin J. Hildy and Oscar Gross Brockett, presents a comprehensive view of theatre...
Margery Morgan
In the following essay, the author gives a good overview of Ibsen’s playThe Master Builder. Two different kinds of play are interlinked in The Master Builder. The first introduced is a naturalistic social drama concerning a successful, middle-aged man’s attempt to block the path of a potential younger rival (Ragnar Brφvik), whose father he himself displaced; working on the susceptible nature of Ragnar’s finacée, Kaia, Master-Builder Solness has created an infatuation with himself which will k...
Barnet, Sylvan, “Introduction,” in Doctor Faustus,by Christopher Marlowe, Signet, 1969, pp. vii-xix. Brandes, Edvard, Review of The Master Builder, in Politiken,December 22, 1892. Brinckmann, Christian, Review of The Master Builder, in Nyt Tidsskrift,1892–1893, pp. 272–81. Göthe, George, Review of The Master Builder, in Nordisk Tidskrift,1893, pp. ...
Bentley, Eric, The Playwright As Thinker,Harcourt Brace, 1987. Egan, Michael, Ibsen: The Critical Heritage,Routledge, 1972. Haugen, Einar, Ibsen’s Drama,University of Minnesota Press, 1979. Meyer, Michael, Ibsen: A Biography,Doubleday, 1971.
The Master Builder (Norwegian: Bygmester Solness) is a play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was first published in December 1892 and is regarded as one of Ibsen's more significant and revealing works.
- Henrik Ibsen
- 1892
Historically, a master builder was a central figure leading construction projects in pre-modern times. It was a good system for the times. It was a good system for the times. However, as time went by, the system began to unwind, responsibilities broken, and the critical components of risk management and constructability became major challenges ...
Dive deep into Henrik Ibsen's The Master Builder with extended analysis, commentary, and discussion
