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"Darwin, Weak Men, Strong Women and Ibsen's
Pillars of Society"
by Ross Shideler
This article focuses on the interconnection between
Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection and Henrik Ibsen's portrayal of disrupted
patriarchal authority in Pillars of Society (1877). Darwin and Ibsen are
contextualized within the framework of the nineteenth-century family and the changing
representation of and attitude toward the father. Using critics ranging from Gillian Beer
and George Levine to Max Horkheimer and Mark Poster, the article analyzes Ibsen's play
from the perspective of family structures in which weak patriarchal males, typified by
Consul Karsten Bernick, attempt to preserve their false image of righteousness and
strength while strong women, particularly the female lead Lona Hessel, bring truth and
fresh air from a wild America. In sum, in line with Darwin's challenge to a Creationist
God, Ibsen replaces a religiously based patriarchy with a much looser one tied to nature
and its laws. In this, for Bernick, confusing world, women, such as Lona, become new and
powerful forces of nature.
CONTENTS VOL. 34, No. 3, 1997
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