The play is done and nothing has happened. The only action is
Arnold's suicide and that action has no dramatic value. The significance
of the play lies in the unequal marriage between Kramer and his wife, in
Arnold's character--in the fact that such things _are_, and that in our
outlook upon the whole of life we must reckon with them.
Hauptmann's simple management of a pregnant fable may be admirably
observed, finally, by comparing _Lonely Lives_ and _Rosmersholm_.
Hauptmann was undoubtedly indebted to Ibsen for his problem and for the
main elements of the story: a modern thinker is overcome by the orthodox
and conservative world in which he lives. And that world conquers largely
because he cannot be united to the woman who is his inspiration and his
strength. In handling this fable two difficult questions were to be
answered by the craftsman: by what means does the hostile environment
crush the protagonist? Why cannot he take the saving hand that is held
out to him? Ibsen practically shirks the answer to the first question.
For it is not the bitter zealot Kroll, despite his newspaper war and his
scandal-mongering, who breaks Rosmer's strength. It is fate, fate in the
dark and ancient sense.
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