The Protagonist in Ibsen’s The Master Builder:Psychoanalytical Reading of the Fall

Abstract

Brought up in a God-fearing home environment, Halvard Solness repudiates any discharge to his hostile impulses for the fear of violating God’s will and keeps loyal to His service. But the fear of such repressed impulses generates in him the displaced anxiety manifested in his fear of the younger generation. Beset with guilt feeling and anxiety disorders, he automatically takes refuge in neurotic needs like power and affection with the view of getting reassurance against his anxiety. However, these needs are impractical and incompatible, which help generate emotional dependence and complying attitude. Moreover, such a defenseless state obviously marks Solness’s fall from his character and professional status accelerating further the need of self- retribution. And, since death instinct remains dominant in the background, he unconsciously succeeds in fulfilling his wish to jump down the tower and take his own life.