THE MASTER BUILDER BY HENRIK IBSEN KELOMPOK 2

SITTI KHADIJAH MUCHLISA SITTI JUMRIANA M.B NURALIYAH HIDAYAT ASDIN JUNIARDI EKO AJITIRTA F211 10 297 F211 10 298 F211 10 299 F211 10 304 F211 10 350 F211 09 417

SUMMARY
Halvard Solness is a master builder and self-taught architect who is married to Aline, a woman above his station. Through an ambitious career he has built himself up to be a man of power in his home town, and it is hinted that he founded his success on an incident in which his wife's childhood home burned down to the ground. Aline has never got over the loss of her childhood home and the death of her newborn twins soon after. Latterly she has also been worried about her husband's mental health, as she confides to their family doctor and friend, Dr. Herdal. Solness has three employees: Ragnar Brovik, his father Knut Brovik who as a younger man trained Solness in his work and is now an ailing, bitter old man, and Kaja Fosli, who is engaged to Ragnar but deeply and unhappily in love with Solness. When Solness finds out that Ragnar wants to set up in business on his own, he is unwilling to help Ragnar, whom he tries to get Kaja to marry, in order to keep them both in his own employment. Solness has an unexpected visit by a young woman, Hilde Wangel, whom he met ten years earlier at a ceremony to celebrate the completion of the roofing of a church tower he had built in her home town. She tells him that on that occasion he had kissed her and promised to return in ten years' time to offer her a "kingdom", which she has now come to claim. Solness has just built a new house, with a high tower, for Aline and himself, and Hilde dares him to climb to the top of the tower, carrying the celebratory wreath, as he had done before, although he is obviously afraid of heights. As he reaches the top she waves a white shawl and calls out in triumph, but the master builder falls to his death.

CHARACTERS
Halvard Solness, The Master Builder. Aline Solness, His Wife. Doctor Herdal, Physician. Knut Brovik, Formerly An Architect, Now In Solnesss Employment. Ragnar Brovik, Knut Brovik's Son, A Draughtsman. Kaia Fosli, His Niece, Book-Keeper. Miss Hilda Wangel, A Young Woman. (A Character Introduced Earlier, In Ibsen's The Lady From The Sea.)

SOLNESS
Solness as the protagonist, is obsessed with the idea that he must remain, as he has always been, the absolute master builder, unchanging, and unwavering. Solness finds that he is desperate to explain why he is unable and unwilling to give Ragnar the chance to build: "I am what I am! And you can't expect me to change myself (Ibsen 129)!" This may also lead to Ibsen's view of how we, as individuals, discern our "identity" from our tendency to chose how we see ourselves regardless of who we really are or how we are.

HILDA
Hilde, as stated by Gail Finney, represents the "emancipated woman" (McFarlane, 93). Finney defines the emancipated women as a character distinguished by her rejection of divisions between conventional masculine and feminine behavior by her disdain for public opinion and by rejecting the status quo (McFarlane, 93). Hilde's emancipated status is "reflected in her appearance, language, and behavior" (Ibsen, 141). She appears in Solness's office dressed in "walking clothes with her skirt hitched up, complete with rucksack, plaid and alpenstock and slightly tanned by the sun (Ibsen, 141)." Hilde, in her manner and demeanor, represents a disregard for the traditional standards of the time. She represents newness, freedom, and youth, all elements both desired and feared by Halvard Solness (Ibsen, 154). In Act II, Solness begins to describe Hilde as a bird; Hilde's description of herself is as a "bird of prey." This becomes descriptive of her actions as she continually urges him throughout the play, to climb the tower and give her the castle and kingdom of her dreams. She claims that she has spent ten years "anticipating the moment when she would be reunited with him and become his 'Princess' and he her 'King' (Ibsen, 150-4). Finney presents the idea that this image and desire creates a contradiction of Hilde's otherwise emancipated women characteristics.

ALINE
Aline Solness is the contradiction to Hilde: she represents tradition, age, complacency, and part of the social conscious of the time. In Act I, Aline offers to buy suitable clothing for Hilde so her (Hilde) can avoid any unwanted stares and comments from the town. Aline states that, "it is my duty." Aline's response is the same as to her efforts to make Heline comfortable in her home, "it is my duty" (Ibsen, 163). As seen by Halvard Solness in ACT II, Aline is also seen as an anchored debt around his neck. This is because his good fortune and career began with the fiery destruction of her (Aline's) family home and the loss of their twin sons as the indirect result of that blaze; thus, Aline is a symbol of guilt to her husband. Aline Solness reveals to Hilde that she in fact grieves not for the babies, but for her nine dolls lost in a blaze, which she had carried under her heart "like little unborn children" (McFarlane 102). Aline has her own private drama and denial internalized in her life that she keeps from her husband. Hilde provides the first and only time Aline speaks openly about her feelings.

OTHER CHARACTERS
Other characters, such as Kaja, Ragnar, Knut, and Dr Herdal, are simply tools to facilitate the presentation of Solness's state of being (McFarlane, 138). Knut represents Solness's feelings about his own past. Ragnar represents Solness's fear of the future. Kaja brings out the present for Solness's infatuation, desires, and his sexuality which he ties to his "will to power" (McFarlane, 138).

SETTING
The first act is set in Solnesss office, which is located in his house. The fact that Solness has his office in his house is often commented upon by critics, who tend to link this to the contentious relationship between the private and public spheres in modernity.19 This fact is pointed out to a reader in the very first sentence of the play. Yet, unless somehow explicitly made obvious during a production of the play, it is only quite a bit later in the act, when Mrs. Solness enters to ask her husband if he wants to greet the doctor, that a (first-time) theatre audience would know the workroom is part of their house.

 The second act is set in the attractively furnished small living room of the Solness home (p. 814). This room has two distinctive features. Firstly, there is the profusion of plants and flowers it contains. There are flower stands in the right-hand corner, in front of a bow window, with more flowers and plants richly displayed throughout the room (p. 814). And secondly, it is much lighter than the workroom in which the first act is set. There is not only a bow window, but also a glass door in the back wall, which leads out to the veranda and garden. Both of these attributes give the room much more of an outdoors feel than one might expect of a living room. Further, the room contains a bookcase towards the back on the left, a sofa and some chairs arranged with a table towards the left-hand downstage. On the right-hand downstage there is a console table and a large mirror, and a small table with a couple of chairs are placed downstage of the bow window.

 The setting for the last act is the veranda of the house. As in the previous act, the natural environment plays an important part in the setting of this act. Steps lead down into the garden from the veranda, and the branches of some trees in the garden are spread over the veranda and towards the house (p. 840). On the far right, the base of the tower of the new house Solness is building can be seen through the branches, while the background is formed by the garden, surrounded by an old wooden fence.

THEME
Alienation and the Self The overriding theme in Henrik Ibsens play, The Master Builder, is alienation and the self. Although this play was written in Ibsens last phase of his career, it carried on themes portrayed in his first drama, Catiline, which exhibited Ibsens concern with the conflict between guilt and desire. Another similarity with Catiline is the portrayal of two female prototypesone conservative and domestic, the other adventurous and dangerous. During the second phase of his career, Ibsen shifted from an emphasis on grandiose plot structures to characterization and interpersonal relationships [. . .] [with] emphasis on psychological tension rather than external action (Gale Henrik). This shift is clearly demonstrated in The Master Builder. Ibsen uses his characters, their dialogue, and subtle symbolism to explore the intricacies of human psychology and social mores. This sometimes comic play is overall a tragedy: a tragedy of unfulfilled, self-absorbed lives. This paper will explain how Ibsen weaves social and religious commentary throughout this play while his characters self-identities unfold and evolve, leading to the inevitable, but tragic, conclusion.

APPRECIATION
The strength of the play is on the words in the dialogue that is so deep and has implied meanings that require deeper analysis. But the strength of this drama also became its shortcomings because drama is filled with a lot of dialogue but little action. This drama refers to the psychological drama that makes the viewer or reader to think more sharply in analyzing each sentence. Perhaps this is influenced by the Ibsen career background who is also a poet, so the drama is filled with metaphors and symbols embodied in the setting, plot, and character that Ibsen created. Ibsen also too much emphasis on the psychic debate between characters.

THE WRITER
Henrik Ibsen was born on March 20, 1828, in Skien, Norway. In 1862, he was exiled to Italy, where he wrote the tragedy Brand. In 1868, Ibsen moved to Germany, where he wrote one of his most famous works: the play A Doll's House. In 1890, he wrote Hedda Gabler, creating one of theater's most notorious characters. By 1891, Ibsen had returned to Norway a literary hero. He died on May 23, 1906, in Oslo, Norway. The first play written after his return to Norway was The Master Builder. The title character encounters a woman from his past who encourages him to make good on a promise