The Story Archive

Rosmersholm

Henrik Ibsen · 1886 CE · Play · Nordic · Victorian

A pastor from an old landed family gives up his faith and his class politics under the influence of the young woman who has kept his house since his wife threw herself into the mill-race. The local schoolmaster and the family's retired tutor between them force open the question of what the dead wife believed and who put it into her head. Freud devoted an essay to Rebecca West's conscience, and the play remains the most tightly withheld of Ibsen's retrospective constructions.

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Attributes

Genre
TragedyPsychologicalPolitical
Theme
Guilt & ConscienceFaith & DoubtFreedom vs FateTraditionLove
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Femme FataleTragic Hero
Plot structure
Iceberg / EllipsisTragic Reversal
Symbol / motif
The HouseThe RiverThe Ghost
Conflict
vs Selfvs Society
Mode / tone
TragicElegiacRealist
Culture / tradition
Nordic

Closest analogues