Henrik Ibsen the Artist: How Lonely! How Forsaken!

This paper brings to light the autobiographical elements of Henrik Ibsen’s life (the limitations faced by him in real life) as dramatized in his plays. This study explores that Ibsen’s plays become an exercise in delving deep into the limitations faced by his near and dear ones as well as by himself. The characters in his plays often mirror his parents, and his own social and psychological sufferings and conflicts. Most of the autobiographical findings in this paper about Ibsen’s life, the limitations he faced in life, and the characters created by him which personify his own self, are based on the comments of different critics, and his biography written by his foremost biographer Michael Meyer. The limitations Ibsen faced, suffered, and portrayed in his plays are his poverty and financial problems, the scar of illegitimacy, his father’s bankruptcy, his cowardliness, his isolation in society, his loveless marriage, his fear of heights, his fears of youth in old age, his attraction to young women, and finally his emotional bankruptcy. This study brings to light all the mentioned autobiographical elements in Ibsen’s plays, how he
climbed to the heights of arts and achieved materialistic success, fame, and popularity, yet at the cost of his emotional and spiritual sacrifices. This work will help the readers to find close resemblances between Ibsen’s real life and the characters he produced in his plays.