The Structure of the Interpersonal Relationships in Ibsen’s Little Eyolf: A Japanese Perspective

Abstract

Ever since Little Eyolf’s publication in 1894, criticism of the play has been split between positive and negative views of the couple’s decision to take care of the poor children in the final scene. I stand on the positive side from a perspective on the characters and their relationships that is rooted in certain concepts from Japanese culture and psychology. Little Eyolf may be the play in Ibsen’s oeuvre that most distinctly demonstrates those Japanese psychological and cultural concepts. This aspect will be discussed in detail below, but let us first examine the basic structure of the play composition. A complete draft manuscript (arbeidsmanuskript) of Ibsen’s Little Eyolf is extant. The draft manuscript is dated 7 August 1894, while a fair copy of the final manuscript was sent to the publisher in Copenhagen on 13 October. Therefore, the revisions to the draft seem to have been conducted in August and September 1894. There are already six dramatic characters in the draft: a husband (Alfred) and wife (Rita); their little son (Eyolf ), the husband’s younger half-sister (Asta); a road construction engineer, Borghejm; and the rat-catcher, the Rat-Wife. With the exception of the Rat-Wife and Borghejm, their names are frequently altered during the revision of the draft and from the draft to the final version. However, the basic plot of the play and the three-act composition do not change from the draft to the published version. At the scene-to-scene level, too, the