Henrik Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken

and Surrealism

Amanda Astrid Peterson

Master’s Thesis in Ibsen Studies - IBS4390 60 credits

Centre for Ibsen Studies Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies (ILN),

University of Oslo

15 May 2021

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Summary………………………………………………………………………………………….….i

Foreword……………………………………………………………..…………………………..….ii

Introduction: When We Dead Awaken and Surrealism……………………………………………….1

Literature Review…………………………………………………………………………………….5

Chapter 1: Theoretical Background: Defining Surrealism and Other Terms……………………….11

1.1 Surrealism……………………………………………………………………………….11

1.2 Surrealism and Realism…………………………………………………………………12

1.3 Rationalism, Irrationalism, and Poeticism………………………………………………14

1.4 Aesthete vs. Surrealist…………………………………………………………………. 15

1.5 The Surreal Feminine………………………………………………………………….. 16

Chapter 2: André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism (1924)……………………………………….. 20

2.1 The Dream………………………………………………………………………………20

2.2 Surreality………………………………………………………………………………..26

2.3 The Marvellous………………………………………………………………………….27

2.4 Incomplete Surrealists…………………………………………………………………. 29

2.5 Distant Poetic Regions………………………………………………………………… 30

2.6 Breton’s Two Definitions………………………………………………………………. 31

2.7 The Surrealist Image…………………………………………………………………… 32

2.8 Return to Childhood…………………………………………………………………….33

Chapter 3: A Surreal Analysis of When We Dead Awaken………………………………………….35

3.1 The Heart of the Play……………………………………………………………………35

3.2 Irene, an Idealist?……………………………………………………………………..…37

3.3 Insanity: A Return to Childhood……………………………………………………..…38

3.4 Surrealist vs. Aesthete…………………………………………………………………..49

3.5 Other Surreal Images……………………………………………………………………54

3.6 Eclipsed by the Surreal………………………………………………………………….54

3.7 The Metaphor of the Eye……………………………………………………………..…58

3.8 In Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………61

Chapter 4: Henrik Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken and André Breton’s Nadja…………………….63

4.1 Nadja and Irene………………………………………………………………………….63

4.2 Enchantment of the Surreal Feminine…………………………………………………. 63

Conclusion: Ibsen and the Possibilities of Surrealism…………………………………………….. 79

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………………………83

SUMMARY

In this thesis, I propose that it is possible to read and understand Henrik Ibsen’s When We Dead

Awaken within the framework of surrealism. Among other things, it is the character Irene whose

attributes justify a surreal reading of the play, with her intuitive sense for poeticism and extremely

metaphorical way of relating to the world around her.

In order to analyse the play in a surreal context, I first establish a definition of surrealism, using

André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism (1924) as a reference for surrealist theory. In doing so, I

discover that the crux of When We Dead Awaken’s surreal characteristics lies most profoundly in its

inclination to poeticise reality, such as in Irene’s insistence that she is a member of the living dead,

or the notion of transforming water lilies into swans.

By offering a comparative analysis between When We Dead Awaken and a work of surreal prose —

André Breton’s novella Nadja — I then establish a correlation between the behaviour of a known

surreal character (and representative of an established surrealist archetype, the surreal feminine),

Breton’s Nadja, and the behaviour of Irene. Through this analysis I find that Nadja’s likewise ability

to poeticise her surroundings and communicate through subjective metaphor further establishes the

validity of reading Irene as a surreal character.

Ultimately, I discover through this thesis that understanding When We Dead Awaken in the context

of surrealism allows us to find new meanings in Ibsen’s play, as surrealism offers us a chance to

accept certain irrationalities in the play, and further allows us to consider that it is possible for a

work of realism to contain surrealist qualities, though the two genres are traditionally viewed as

being at odds.

!i

FOREWORD

This masters’s thesis was written between the semester of Autumn 2019 and the semester of Spring

2021, under the supervision of Associate Professor Giuliano D’Amico, University of Oslo.

I would like to express gratitude to all those associated with the Centre for Ibsen Studies during my

time as a student at the centre, for the guidance they have offered me over the course of my studies

and in the completion of this thesis.

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Introduction: When We Dead Awaken and Surrealism

When We Dead Awaken has a special place in Ibsen’s oeuvre, and not only for the fact that it

is the last play he ever wrote. The central theme of awakening to the idea of death — or death in a

sense — gives this play a highly figurative nature. This means that not everything that transpires

within it can be taken at face value, as much of its elements are likely to harbour a depth of meaning

unique to this work of Ibsen’s, in the context of his catalogue. Because of these more ambiguous

attributes, the play represents a final, perhaps decisive departure from the type of work that has

earned Ibsen his “realist” title; When We Dead Awaken arguably features a fair amount of

symbolism through its imagery and characters, as in the character of Irene, who communicates

almost explicitly through metaphor. Though it is not the only play of Ibsen’s to mingle with non-

realistic leanings (some of his other later plays like Little Eyolf and The Master Builder certainly

seem somewhat less-than-literal at times) it can also be interpreted as one last leap into new

territory — a final proclamation or statement of sorts; it is, after all, titled as “an epilogue.”

Riddled with dreamlike images and poetic dialogue, the play indeed reads like an

afterimage, or an echo from a world ‘beyond’. It is suggested that there is an unseen force at work,

from the moment that Maja speaks of a palpable silence, or noise that has “something dead about

it”, to the moment that a perfectly-, albeit tragically-timed avalanche buries Irene and Rubek on the

slope of the mountain (Ibsen, 2014, p. 240). But perhaps most pertinently, there are characters who

are simply not best understood through a realistic reading. The four central characters read rather

like archetypes: Ulfheim, the gore-obsessed bear hunter, Maja, the whimsical and strong-willed

young wife, Rubek, the artist (who is the protagonist and arguably the most realistic character), and

finally Irene, who will be the subject of much of this thesis. The most central female role of the

play, Irene claims to be a member of the living dead, visiting from the realm beyond the grave. At

the resort where Rubek and Maja are spending their summer vacation, Irene appears suddenly,

dressed peculiarly in all white, and shadowed by a nun-nurse from a mental institution. This image

itself strikes one as unlikely, and actually downright strange. As an attempt to better understand

these strange elements, in this thesis I will explore the possibility of analysing When We Dead

Awaken within the framework of surrealism.

Surrealism, defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as “the principles, ideals, or practice of

producing fantastic or incongruous imagery or effects in art, literature, film, or theater by means of

unnatural or irrational juxtapositions and combinations” is, I believe, the philosophy best equipped

to provide a frame of reference for understanding the irrationality of Irene’s character (Merriam-!1

Webster, no date). With its quest for meaning through the deliberate practice of irrationalism,

surrealism is perhaps the only philosophy that can offer a home to Irene’s nonsensical claims and

irrational thoughts, which at the same time express a passionate advocation for love, beauty, and

finding value in one’s experiences. While Maja and Ulfheim seek visceral adventure, and Rubek

longs for a spiritual muse to serve his art, it is Irene who stands at the helm of true love alone — a

love that integrates the physical and the nonmaterial: “I’d served you with my soul and my body —

and the sculpture was finished — our child, as you called it — I laid the most precious sacrifice at

your feet — eradicating myself for ever” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 274).

Irene’s outlandish assertions also include claims of having killed past husbands, and even

her own children: “I killed them, I tell you. I murdered them, I can assure you. The minute, the very

minute they came into the world,” and Rubek’s response perhaps also represents the reader’s own

thoughts: “There’s something hidden behind everything you say” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 256). In another

moment, she pulls a knife behind Rubek’s back, prepared to kill him, then changes her mind. Irene

is indeed death-obsessed, but as we learn more about her nature, we understand that she is actually,

more deeply, metaphor-obsessed. Acting very much as a catalyst for what takes place in the play,

her actions and words undoubtedly carry great meaning despite their irrational appearance, and in

order to comprehend this meaning, we must understand that Irene perceives the world through

metaphor and through attaching poetic, non-literal meanings to objects, words, images, and events.

When Irene says that she is dead, we must understand that it is a metaphor that carries within it a

wealth of other meanings and information about her — meanings that we may never be able to

rationally explain, yet we can nonetheless appreciate and interpret, if only we accept that they will

remain irrational.

Irene’s insistent poeticism reflects a longing to unite the metaphysical with the material. It is

surrealism’s feat, too, to integrate these two worlds: the outer and the inner — the conscious and the

unconscious — the rational and the irrational. By conjuring the natural irrationalism of the mind

and using it as a tool to produce palpable, observable results, surrealism seeks to uncover a reality

that is further real than that of the strictly rational, conscious, objective realm we perceive

collectively. In other words, surrealism wants us to activate our capacity for subjective experience,

become aware of it, and integrate it into our active, daily lives. If we view Irene’s behaviour through

this lens, we may see that what appears to be insanity (nonsensical language that indicates, at its

most comprehensive, an obsession with metaphor) actually holds meanings that we did not

otherwise suspect. If we understand her insanity as being rather a vision of a surreal world, a reality

built upon absurd systems of connections — connections which depend on the subjective !2

imagination to generate meaning — then we may be able to better understand the play as a whole

and, for example, the meaning of an event such as Irene’s and Rubek’s double suicide.

Irene, however, is not the only surreal element of When We Dead Awaken. As I have

mentioned before, many of the major characters are markedly unrealistic in that they appear too

archetypal to be strictly representative of real humans. From Ulfheim, who with his obsession with

the physical and violence seems to represent carnality itself, to the ghostly Irene who emerges from

the world of the dead, these characters seem almost two-dimensional — one may easily refer to

them as being symbolic. It is possible to imagine them represented on tarot cards — archetypes of

the collective unconscious. William Storm, in fact, proposes in his article “Lukács/Ibsen: Tragedy,

Selfhood, and "Real Life" in The Master Builder and When We Dead Awaken”, that all characters

aside from Rubek (who, as I have mentioned, is arguably the most realistic character) are actually

projections of Rubek’s own mentality: “Rubek . . . is shown collectively as not only sharing

encounters with the other characters but as being those figures together with himself, as if they are

projections of his psyche or that he has summoned them into being” and later, introducing the

thoughts of Albert Bermel, “Bermel . . . refers to the setting of the play as ‘the soul of Arnold

Rubek.’ In Bermel’s description, the four major roles are ‘variations on one character’” (Storm,

2012, p. 27).

This kind of (possible) symbolism suggests in itself that the key to understanding the play

lies beyond realism, and more specifically, in a realm beyond material existence. Archetypal

figures, by definition, suggest a connection to a deeper reality — a nonmaterial place of symbolism

from which these figurative personages are drawn, in order to represent realities greater than

themselves. In this regard, Irene’s comment about eradicating herself in order to serve with body

and soul — and to become Rubek’s statue, Rubek’s love, Rubek’s child, and who knows what else

— is perfectly aligned with surrealism’s quest to recreate material realities into something more

than themselves.

The very setting of the play — the physical surroundings represented, as well as the nature

of occurrences that take place within these surroundings — also suggests this surrealist sense of

beyond. When We Dead Awaken is the only play of Ibsen’s catalogue to take place entirely outdoors,

which itself appears to have some ambiguous significance. And as I have mentioned before, a

secretive force is suggested throughout, starting with Maja’s comments about an audible silence,

‘dead’ noise, and so on (This reads like a premonition of Irene’s arrival — Irene comes from the

world of death, in one way or another, and brings death with her). As the play progresses, one may

note that things become increasingly unrealistic. Characters even begin to speak metaphorically !3

toward the end of the play, much like Irene, often foreboding coming events through symbolic

language. It is as if the play itself — setting and characters alike — are slowly subsumed by Irene’s

irrationality, culminating in the death of Rubek, our most realistic character.

In order to establish a fixed definition of surrealist philosophy to which I will continually

refer in this thesis, I will rely on Andre Breton’s first Manifesto of Surrealism, published in 1924.

An analysis of this manifesto, found in Chapter 2: André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism, will

help to determine the origin of this central surrealist idea: combining the world of dreams with the

world of reality. Applying Breton’s philosophy to When We Dead Awaken, then, will provide a

direct link between the surreal and Ibsen’s play. The major point of intersection between the two is

Irene — and her irrational insistence on the use of metaphor, which gives the impression of insanity.

As I will expand on later in Chapter 2, Breton’s manifesto delves into the connection between its

own philosophies and the brink of insanity. It also heralds the mind’s ability to bring together two

distant realities in metaphor (Breton, 1972, p. 37). This will help us to frame Irene’s irrationalism in

a way that illuminates the actual meaning her words have to offer, while at the same time grappling

with the notion that she may be insane.

Irene looks even more surreal, in the technical, traditional sense of the word, when we

consider that the irrational female persona is somewhat of a trope in surrealist literature. A major

work of surrealist writing is André Breton’s 1928 nonfiction novel Nadja, which features a

depiction of a woman Breton himself knew, a woman who, much like Irene, toes the line of

irrationalism and insanity, and expresses herself through poeticism, metaphor, and symbolism.

Another surrealist work entitled Zenobia (1985), by Romanian author Gellu Naum, has garnered

comparison to Nadja, namely in the article “Surrealism and the Feminine Element: André Breton’s

Nadja and Gellu Naum’s Zenobia” by Ileana Orlich (while I will not offer any analysis of Zenobia

directly, I will make reference to Orlich’s article in order to establish a definition of the surreal

feminine trope). Zenobia, too, features a feminine figure comparable to Nadja — and Irene can

easily be figured as a third. By offering an analysis which compares the behaviour of Nadja to that

of Irene, in the context of what can be gathered about the “feminine element” of surrealism, in

Chapter 4: André Breton’s Nadja and Henrik Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken, I will further illustrate

the validity of considering When We Dead Awaken within the framework offered by surrealism.

From hereon I will refer to the surreal female character trope as ‘the surreal feminine.’

An additional crossover between surrealism and When We Dead Awaken, which I will

explore at the end of Chapter 3: A Surreal Analysis of When We Dead Awaken, is the notion of an

image or object living out its own narrative within the text, as described by Roland Barthes. As !4

aforementioned, Irene’s irrationalism communicates itself through metaphor and poeticism, and as

we will later see, this often presents as attachments to images and objects, like Rubek’s sculpture or

the image of a sunset — both of which have major significance in the play and the unfolding of its

events. In Roland Barthes’ essay entitled “The Metaphor of the Eye,” written about Georges

Bataille’s surrealist novella Story of the Eye, Barthes (1979, p. 119) proposes that a narrative can be

that of an object, even if there are sentient characters involved in the story — and even if that object

is translated into various alternative forms solely through the imagination of the beholder. It is

possible to imagine, as I will later describe, that such an object exists in the narrative of When We

Dead Awaken — one that travels through various images, or means of presenting itself. The notion

that an object — the idea of an object — may remain itself and intact in the eye of the imagination,

despite changing form in all other terms of appearance, is attributable to the surrealist notion that a

facet of reality lies in the inner eye, or the subjective eye of the imagination. At the end of Chapter 3

I will consider that the irrationalism, or poeticism, present in Ibsen’s play creates such a narrative.

Literature Review

Several texts, many of which I have already introduced, will serve as references in my

analysis of When We Dead Awaken. Three works that offer relevant scholarly interpretations of

Ibsen’s text are Toril Moi’s Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism, William Storm’s article

“Lukács/Ibsen: Tragedy, Selfhood, and ‘Real Life’ in The Master Builder and When We Dead

Awaken,” and Pavel Knápek’s article “Love, Guilt, Death and Art in Ibsen’s When We Dead

Awaken.” André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism (1924) will be my main theoretical reference for

a definition of surrealism, while the article “Surrealism and The Feminine Element: André Breton’s

Nadja and Gellu Naum’s Zenobia” will provide a definition of the surreal feminine archetype.

Roland Barthes’ essay “The Metaphor of the Eye” defines the notion of the narrative of the surreal

object, and finally, André Breton’s Nadja is the text I will use in my comparative analysis with

When We Dead Awaken, in order to establish a parallelism between the two texts via the ‘surreal

feminine’ character.

In Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism, Toril Moi considers When We Dead Awaken to

be the conclusion to Ibsen’s “long investigation of idealism” and that this is the meaning of its

‘epilogue’ title (Moi, 2006, p. 321). She suggests that the play is Ibsen’s “final judgement” of

idealism, a school of aesthetics that, in Moi’s view, Ibsen engaged with in many of his plays (Moi, !5

2006, p. 321). Reading When We Dead Awaken in this way, Moi considers the young Rubek to be a

textbook idealist, whose vision of his Resurrection Day sculpture was only possible through his

idealisation of the young Irene, his chosen model — and that his refusal to love her was due to the

idealist tenet of “placing women on the highest pedestal, thinking of sex as degrading, and art as

capable of justifying existence” (Moi, 2006, p. 321).

It follows that Moi sees Irene’s fate of “sex-work and madness” to be a “savage

denunciation of the idealist myth of female sacrifice” on Ibsen’s part (Moi, 2006, p. 322). Moi also

considers Rubek’s fantasy of the female muse who will serve his art to be a symptom of his idealist

mindset — and that because of his desperation, which is fixed in idealism, he is “easy prey for

Irene’s insane idealism” (Moi, 2006, p. 323). Thus, Moi considers Irene’s quest to bring Rubek up

the mountain at sunrise to be an idealist fantasy just the same.

While I see no reason to argue with the proposal that Rubek is an idealist, and that his

treatment of Irene is a product of idealist fantasy, I argue that to consider Irene an idealist as well

leaves us with certain questions. If Irene’s downfall — what she calls her death — was at the hands

of Rubek’s idealisation of her, does it follow that Irene develops her own idealist vision in an

attempt to absolve this initial idealist sin? Irene was cognisant enough of the ‘sin’ committed

against her — the idealisation and objectification of her as a model for the Ideal Woman — to feel

violated and destroyed by it, to the extent that she wished to leave Rubek’s life (and her own)

entirely. This, I believe, is evidence that Irene’s insanity is not a symptom or product of idealism,

but comes from a different source entirely. In this thesis I will argue that it is possible to imagine

that this source is surrealism.

Two other scholarly works that address the ambiguous traits of When We Dead Awaken are

William Storm’s article “Lukács/Ibsen: Tragedy, Selfhood, and ‘Real Life’ in The Master Builder

and When We Dead Awaken,” and Pavel Knápek’s article “Love, Guilt, Death and Art in Ibsen’s

When We Dead Awaken.” Storm applies Lukács’s writings on Ibsen to The Master Builder and

When We Dead Awaken in an effort to better understand their characters and the logic (or illogic) of

their worlds. The article relies heavily on Lukács’s notion of “real life” versus the empirical, a

major facet of the metaphysics of tragedy (Storm, 2012, p. 28). Lukács’s description of “real life”

entails that a disruption take place in the midst of empirical life — a moment “disturbing and

seductive, dangerous and surprising,” the potency of which is impossible to bear and thus one must

“deny life in order to live” (Lukács, 1955, p. 153 cited by Storm, 2012, p. 28). Storm thus interprets

Rubek’s journey into the mountains with Irene as a pursuit of one of these moments in which the

subject glimpses “real life,” further discussing the play as taking place in a sort of dream of !6

Rubek’s, in which all other characters represent projections of Rubek’s mentality (Storm, 2012, p.

28).

I find this dichotomy of “real life” and empirical life to be nearly synonymous with the

surrealist idea of dream versus reality — the inspiring “real life” moment acts as an agent of one’s

imagination (or one’s dreams), interrupting empirical reality, and perhaps reviving it. I agree with

Storm’s idea that Irene’s re-emergence into Rubek’s life, and their resulting death, is the disruption

that initiates a “real life” moment, as it means that Irene is the catalyst for opening up this greater,

more expansive, or deeper reality. However, if we are to consider Irene as a projection of Rubek’s

psyche, as Storm suggests, then we consider that the scope of the play is then limited to Rubek’s

subjective experience. I would argue that this reading undermines the autonomy of Irene’s character

and — like Moi’s interpretation of Irene as an insane idealist — leaves us with the pessimistic

conclusion that Rubek’s idealist sin is what triumphs in the end, and kills him (and Irene, if we read

her as a real person). I believe that in order to gather as much meaning as we can from Ibsen’s play,

we must consider Irene’s autonomy, and complexity as a character, to be on par with Rubek’s —

this way, we consider Irene to hold knowledge and understanding that Rubek himself does not

possess, and this understanding, whatever it may be, is the true force behind their death.

Pavel Knápek views Rubek’s and Irene’s death as an attempt to atone the sin of their failed

love — a “self-sacrifice to prove love” (Knápek, 2015, p. 5). If it is true that Irene and Rubek

sacrifice themselves in order to prove their love, and in order to atone the original idealist sin which

disallowed their love to begin with, then we must acknowledge the fact that it is Irene who initiates

the atonement, despite the fact that the fault of the sin was not hers. In other words, this means that

if we take their death to be simply an atonement, Irene chooses to die for Rubek’s sin. This would

be a repetition of the first sin — the “idealist myth of female self-sacrifice” mentioned by Moi

(2006, p. 322) — which originally drove Irene to insanity and inspired her to return to Rubek in

order to confront him. Therefore, I believe it is again dismissive of Irene’s character to read her

death as a sacrifice for the idealist fantasy, as this does not take into account her passionate

disavowal of Rubek’s art, and the vast transformation of her character. To not take into account

what has changed in Irene since her time as Rubek’s muse is to dismiss the full dimensionality of

her character. On the other hand, to see her as an autonomous character, with a subjective reality

and imagination of her own, means that we can interpret her death with Rubek as an act of freedom,

rather than an act of slavery to the ideal. In this thesis, I will argue that understanding When We

Dead Awaken through the lens of surrealism allows us to do so.

!7

Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism provides a definition of surrealism not only as an art form

or aesthetic endeavour, but as a complete life philosophy; it is an effort to reactivate the

unconscious mind (which was left behind, with the imagination, in childhood) and incorporate it

into daily life (Breton, 1972, pp. 3-47). Despite our estrangement from it, we retain direct access to

the unconscious mind through our dreams, and through deliberate, voluntary mental exercises that

stimulate the natural irrationalism of this part of the human psyche (Breton, 1972, pp. 3-47). Breton

(1972, p. 11) calls this part of the mind The Dream — it is the source of our dreams while we are

sleeping, but it remains active in waking life, informing our actions and experiences, even if we are

unconscious of its influence. I propose that Irene’s transformation, after her loss of innocence at the

hands of Rubek’s idealism, was a process of reactivating her own capacity for imagination and

therefore poeticism, indeed a resurrection of The Dream. In Chapter 2: André Breton’s Manifesto of

Surrealism, I will closely analyse the details of Breton’s philosophy according to his manifesto, then

use it to interpret Irene’s character, as well as the play itself.

Roland Barthes, in his essay “The Metaphor of the Eye,” proposes that it is possible for an

object, rather than a character, to have a narrative of its own. It is even possible, Barthes proposes,

that this object changes form entirely and is translated “from image to image,” depending on the

“particular imagination that distorts” it (Barthes, 1979, p. 119, italics in the original). The result is a

chain of completely separate images which nevertheless carry the integrity of the notion of the

‘original’ object (perhaps a poetic ‘idea’) (Barthes, 1979, pp. 119-127). According to Barthes (1979,

pp. 119-127), this is true of many images in the surreal text Story of the Eye, in which the image of

an eye is the original image, but the notion of this eye translates through other images: an egg for

example. I propose that it is possible to see a similar kind of narrative in the images of When We

Dead Awaken — the narrative of an object, or the notion of the object, which translates through the

imagination of Irene from one image to another, thus proving an even stronger likeness between the

meaning of When We Dead Awaken and surrealist philosophy. I will expand on this idea in Chapter

3: A Surreal Analysis of When We Dead Awaken, after establishing a surreal analysis of the play

based on Breton’s Manifesto.

In her article “Surrealism and the Feminine Element: André Breton’s Nadja and Gellu

Naum’s Zenobia,” Ileana Orlich offers a comparative analysis of the two mentioned novels. As the

title of the article would suggest, a major point of crossover between these two surreal texts is

surreal “feminine element,” or the central female character which, in one way or another, embodies

surreal ideas, or acts as catalyst for the male protagonist’s revelation of surrealism. Orlich’s article

explores the differing ways that the “feminine element” is utilised, for the purposes of the surrealist !8

fantasy, in each text. Orlich writes that “for Breton . . . the female presence functions as ‘the Other’

that permits male writers to reach the world of the second reality” whereas for Naum, the feminine

element is the “paradigmatic body through which the text is focalized” — and further that Naum’s

use of the feminine element “signals the demise of the patriarchal age and of Breton’s female

clairvoyantes” (Orlich, 2006, p. 223, italics in the original).

While there may be disparities between the usages of the feminine element — or the surreal

feminine, as I will refer to it — in these two texts, the irrational female presence nevertheless

proves to be somewhat of a constant in surreal literature. Orlich’s statement that Naum uses “the

feminine as a bridge and conduit to the beyond” signifies that this is the next progression, following

Nadja, of the surreal feminine (Orlich, 2006, p. 223). I propose that this description applies also to

Irene, who, as the figure who brings forth the realm of the irrational, indeed acts as a conduit to a

more distant reality — a beyond. Thus, it is possible to view Irene within the framework of the

surreal feminine archetype, and to compare her to other figures of the same category.

For such a comparative analysis, I will use André Breton’s novel Nadja. Nadja is a

nonfiction novel written by Breton about his own experiences, either directly about or peripheral to

his relationship with a woman named Nadja. Breton meets Nadja at random on the street and,

finding her to be an exciting and unorthodox character, becomes romantically involved with her.

Nadja is extremely poetic in nature, tending to rely on her unusually keen intuition for all practical

decisions in life. While Breton finds her unusual ways to be very charming, he also describes her as

irrational to a degree of nearly “alienat[ing] [him] from her forever” (Breton, 1960, p. 113). Albeit,

Nadja’s irrationalism, her talent for poeticising the world around her, and her way of attributing

symbolic value to certain objects and images, makes her the perfect embodiment of Breton’s

surrealist philosophy. While Breton did not establish the surreal female character trope in his

manifesto, he established the trope with Nadja; Nadja is the original surreal feminine — and as

such, she is the perfect subject for a comparative analysis with Irene of When We Dead Awaken,

whose irrational nature and affinity for poetic symbolism parallel Nadja’s behaviour. By comparing

Nadja and Irene, I will show that Irene, too, embodies the qualities of the surreal feminine, and this

fact alone makes it appropriate to view When We Dead Awaken in a surreal context.

Finally, Silvia Kadiu’s article, “Surrealism in André Breton’s Nadja” focuses on Nadja

alone, and how the ideas of Breton’s 1924 manifesto come to aesthetic fruition in the novel. Kadiu

analyses Nadja’s character in light of surrealist aesthetics and philosophy, concluding essentially

that she “encapsulates the surrealist yearning for an emancipated mind and for an unrepressed

unconscious” (Kadiu, 2014, p. 2). Kadiu writes that Nadja’s abilities to “see beyond the realm of !9

immediate reality,” to “recreate herself in a chimerical figure,” and to “transform the trivial into the

marvellous,” among other things, are what make her the embodiment of surrealism, its

philosophical ideas about daily life, and even Breton’s ideas about its political potential (Kadiu,

2014, pp. 2-3).

Having established that there is reason to desire a reading of Irene that does not leave her

beholden to idealism, and considering the many parallels between Ibsen’s play and surrealist

writings, it is reasonable to imagine that the surrealist philosophy offers us an interpretation of Irene

that provides a new and different understanding of her character, her actions, and the play as a

whole. By referring to Kadiu’s article, we can better understand what it is that makes Nadja the

embodiment of surreal philosophy — the surreal feminine — and by acknowledging that Irene

shares these very same qualities, it is easy to interpret her character in a surreal light. If Ibsen’s play

expresses some of the same principles as surrealism, and Irene can be read as a surreal feminine

archetype, it means that the meaning of the play itself is not necessarily limited to previously

prescribed categories, like idealism or realism.

!10

Chapter 1: Theoretical Background: Defining Surrealism and Other Terms

Before moving on to a close reading and analysis of When We Dead Awaken, I must

establish the definitions of certain terms that I will be using frequently in the coming chapters. As

previously noted, I will use André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism as an external source for a

concrete definition of surrealist philosophy. But because Ibsen is generally considered to be a

realist, and because many of his plays (including When We Dead Awaken) have realist qualities, in

this chapter I will explore the relationship between surrealism and realism, and consider the ways

that these two genres or schools of thought overlap. In essence, I propose that surrealism and

realism are not necessarily opposed to one another, and that even a work deemed to be a work of

realism can, at the same time, be compatible with surrealist philosophy.

Thus, in this chapter, I will briefly discuss the meaning of realism, the meaning of

surrealism, and how these two are intertwined. I will also establish the meaning intended, in this

thesis, behind terms such as ‘rationalism’ versus ‘irrationalism,’ and ‘poeticism,’ as these are terms

that I will use repeatedly later on, in my analysis of Irene as a surreal character. Part of my

interpretation of Irene as a surreal character depends on contrasting her against Rubek — and in

doing so, I will define Rubek’s character as an ‘aesthete’ juxtaposed against Irene as ‘surrealist’;

this delineation will be clarified in this chapter as well. Finally, I will define my own interpretation

of the surreal female archetype, which I will refer to as ‘the surreal feminine.’

1.1 Surrealism

Breton begins his manifesto with a statement on modern man’s problem with the everyday.

He paints an image of a man confused by a sense of discontent and a lack of meaning in existence

— one who “belongs body and soul to an imperative practical necessity which demands his

constant attention” (Breton, 1972, p. 4). In order to appease these practical demands, Breton (1972,

p. 4) says, one’s imagination, once so vivid and plentiful in childhood, is removed to the back

burner. This leaves him as a sort of handicapped creature, feeling that he is “losing by slow degrees

all reason for living,” and, perhaps even more gravely, that he is rendered unable to “rise to some

exceptional situation such as love” (Breton, 1972, p. 4). Arguably, Breton is setting himself up to

propose surrealism as a solution to existential despair.

!11

Next, Breton (1972, p. 4) reasons that man, as a creature possessing a dual capacity for both

the practical world and the inner world of the imagination, is impaired by a certain removal from his

imaginative faculties, all based on an oppressive norm that favours the world of practicality and

reason. Man has become removed from the inner mind by a customary modern prejudice against

any practice which does not conform to the “reign of logic” and may thus be deemed superstition

(Breton, 1972, p. 9). It follows that Breton emphatically denounces what he calls the “realistic

attitude” as “hostile to any intellectual or moral advancement” (Breton, 1972, p. 6). This attitude he

defines as a “purely informative style,” (Breton, 1972, p. 7) and provides as an example an excerpt

from the novel Crime and Punishment, in which Fyodor Dostoyevsky describes with detail the

furnishings of a room. This style, Breton seems to claim, is the antithesis to his intentions with

surrealism. He goes so far as to claim that his reaction to such literary device is only to close the

book, “somewhere in the vicinity of the first page” (Breton, 1972, p.7).

But Breton (1972, p. 10) sees a return to the lost reverence for man’s imaginative powers in

Sigmund Freud’s practice of psychoanalysis and his scholarly recognition of dreams as a significant

facet of human life. In fact, Breton argues that dreams experienced during sleep hold just as much

significance as waking life — “the sum moments of the dream . . . is not inferior to the sum

moments of reality” (Breton, 1972, p. 11). The manifesto comes to a head at Breton’s proposal of a

convergence between these two states — waking life and dreams — which, he reasons, may after

all not be mutually exclusive; this new way of seeing reality, through the conjoined lens of both

dreams and reason, he terms surreality (Breton, 1972, p. 14).

1.2 Surrealism and Realism

It is not necessarily self-evident that surrealism and realism as creative practices bear some

relation to one another, especially with Breton’s harsh judgements against the realistic attitude in

mind. But in order to illustrate how a play by Ibsen, whose works made great use of realist devices,

also fosters surrealistic elements, it would be helpful and perhaps necessary to show how the two

can not only coexist in the same work but overlap significantly in their operation. It is possible to

view realism and surrealism as not working at such cross purposes as they would seem, but rather as

variant perspectives of largely the same reality. I would say that surrealism is a slight mutation of

realism. When put side by side, they are distinguishable only by the ‘dream’ aspect of the surreal.

The rest of its composition is shared with realism. !12

Though it is foggy who was first to use the term “surrealism” or “surreality,” the etymology

of the word is clear, being essentially the word “realism” with the added French prefix “sur—”

meaning something like “beyond” (Online Etymology Dictionary, no date). From this skeletal

material, we can glean a fresh and simple angle to the meaning of surrealism that is quite

complimentary to the ideas put forth by Breton. Surrealism, the reunion of dreams and reality, is the

beyond of realism. It carries, in its expansive folds of possibility, the potential of realism in its

totality. I argue that, rather than discarding the realistic attitude which Breton (1972, p. 6) has taken

great pains to denounce as “clarity bordering on stupidity, a dog’s life,” surrealism absorbs realism,

and mobilises it for all it is worth. For, as Toril Moi (2006, p. 31) expounds in Henrik Ibsen and the

Birth of Modernism, realism is not so much an attitude as it is an “aspect or feature” of many kinds

of art and — I would add — more essentially, experience.

I gather that Breton’s problem with what he calls the “realistic attitude” is not so much a

problem with realism itself as it is disgust for what he perceives to be the tyranny with which

loyalty to a status quo in literature reigns over other lost essences, eclipsing truer meanings —

meanings more inclined to deliver us the profundity of experience that our imagination has the

capacity for, and which would enrich our lives. In other words, I would describe Breton’s

perception of the realistic literary style as a certain conservatism in art that clings to customary

practice in lieu of creative effectiveness. This, I would argue, has nothing to do with realism itself,

but rather is a result of branding innocent realist techniques as synonymous with anti-progressive

attitudes.

I tend to agree with Toril Moi’s notion that there are many different realisms and that each

must be afforded its own identity. For example, a regular part of realism is a depiction of everyday,

ordinary life, but realists differ greatly in the attitudes they express through these depictions (Moi,

2006, p. 89). Moi contextualises Ibsen’s particular attitude, relative to other realists, as follows:

Balzac is highly critical of the ordinary, which he tends to exaggerate, make grotesque, and infuse with melodrama. Flaubert, on the other hand, finds the ordinary indescribably dull, a place where no values, no thrills, no excitement can possibly be found. Ibsen, for his part, turns to the ordinary and the everyday, not as something that has to be overcome, exaggerated, or idealised, but as a sphere where we have to take on the task of building meaningful human relationships. If we fail at this task, the everyday becomes unbearable; if we succeed, it becomes a source of human values. (Moi, 2006, p. 89)

!13

Using Moi’s description of Ibsen’s attitude toward the everyday, I would say that Breton’s argument

is that the neglect of our imagination renders us prone to failure in this task of building meaningful

human relationships, and thus life in a sense becomes unbearable; we pace about, desperate for a

semblance of wonder after having abandoned our dreams in the realm of childhood.

1.3 Rationalism, Irrationalism and Poeticism

In this thesis, the terms ‘rationalism’ and ‘irrationalism’ are defined based on their relevance

to surrealism and the surrealist qualities of When We Dead Awaken. Thus, they are also related to

the dichotomy of reality versus dream, and the objective realm versus the subjective — because our

understanding of surrealism is based on the idea that a blending of two realities is taking place.

Rationalism, therefore, describes the quality of experience that is shared with others, in the

objective realm, and is not dependent on any subjective reality — it is based entirely in the

empirical realm. Rationalism is also related to a certain degree of practicality, therefore it can refer

to the areas of life that are ruled by practical necessity. This is the realm of reality, objectivity, and

rational thought.

Irrationalism, then, belongs to the opposing realm of dream, subjectivity, the ‘inner eye.’

Irrationalism is the subversive force beneath the tier of practical life — it is the nonsensical dream

that disturbs us during the night, and which we dismiss during the day. This force is based in an

inner world that holds a conglomerate of subjective experiences and associations — being

subjective, these associations are first and foremost specific to the individual, and depend on the

imagination. An example from a surreal text which illustrates this dichotomy is the moment in

Nadja in which Breton (1960, p. 68) describes Nadja’s habit of riding the metro for no other reason

than to observe the other passengers and imagine what they are thinking. This concept shows

Nadja’s ability to to subvert a rational, practical activity — riding the metro — through the use of

her imagination, and transform it into a different sort of activity entirely. It does not become an

irrational experience, but a blending of rational and irrational that creates a new kind of experience

— more personal and subjective — out of the rational.

It is this ability of Nadja’s which I will refer to as a capacity for poeticism. This is the same

talent which Irene possesses and which makes her a force of surrealism — the ability to, through the

keenness of one’s own imagination and subjective experience, project the inner eye onto the outer

world, and poeticise one’s surroundings. It is Irene’s talent for poeticism that distinguishes her from !14

the other characters, and indeed makes her appear to them as insane. Her poetic language, which

consists of many nonsensical claims (most prominently, that she herself is dead), is a system of

metaphors that are based on subjective associations, and therefore hold great meaning for her. In

other words, Irene processes reality through a subjective, metaphoric lens, and the result is poetry.

1.4 Aesthete vs. Surrealist

In order to better distinguish what it means for a character to be surreal, I will juxtapose

Irene against Rubek and, in these terms, label them ‘surrealist’ and ‘aesthete’ respectively. This

delineation also helps to examine the relationship between Rubek and Irene, the roles they play in

respect to one another, and why it is possible to read Irene as a fully autonomous character, rather

than a projection of Rubek’s personality. Thus, in my analysis, ‘aesthete’ and ‘surrealist’ are

completely oppositional terms.

Essentially, my giving the label ‘aesthete’ to Rubek is due to the fact that he lacks the talent

for poeticism that Irene possesses. Rubek considers himself an artist, but he lacks any natural sense

for poeticism, therefore his concerns and inclinations are of a completely aesthetic value. He is

unable to poeticise the world the way that Irene does, as much as he may want to — this is the

sentiment behind his explanation that Irene holds the key to all of his visions — the reason he has

been unable to create without Irene’s presence. It is also, most importantly, why he falls prey so

easily to Irene’s insane metaphors; she possesses the poeticised vision of the world that his aesthete

heart desires.

Considering Rubek to be an aesthete also explains the recurring metaphor of viewing “all

the glory of the world” from the top of a mountain (Ibsen, 2014, p. 244). This metaphor was created

by Rubek — but because we know that he used it to woo both Irene and Maja, we can conclude that

it was of purely aesthetic value to him. Irene is the one that transforms this image into one that

holds truly poetic meaning, by attributing to it the sentiment of her love for Rubek, the life they

created together (the Resurrection Day statue) as well as their death. ‘Surrealist’ is the opposing

label I give to Irene, based on her ability to filter reality through her subjective experience, and

create poetry out of it. I will discuss Irene’s poeticism, and Rubek as aesthete versus Irene as

surrealist, in greater detail in Chapter 3: A Surreal Analysis of When We Dead Awaken.

!15

1.5 The Surreal Feminine

‘The surreal feminine’ is the term I will use to refer to the category of character that Irene of

When We Dead Awaken falls under, alongside Nadja of Nadja. The irrational female figure is an

archetype consistently found in surreal literature. For the purposes of this paper, this character is

defined by her irrationalism and innate sense for poeticism. She uses this innate sense for poeticism

to, whether intentionally or unintentionally, seduce the male artist protagonist; the male artist

understands and values the natural poeticism of the surreal feminine, but he cannot possess or

employ it himself. This is the case for both Irene, who seduces Rubek with her poeticism, and

Nadja, whose irrationalism attracts Breton.

As I have mentioned, Ileana Orlich’s article “Surrealism and The Feminine Element: André

Breton’s Nadja and Gellu Naum’s Zenobia” explores the crossover between these two texts via the

surreal female archetype. Orlich, however, focuses largely on the differences between the ways that

Breton and Naum use what she calls the “feminine element” to investigate the possibilities of

surrealism. Her analysis finds that Breton, despite his reverence for the feminine and its role in

surrealism as the irrational counterpart to “masculine rationality,” measures Nadja against an

idealist concept of love, and ultimately rejects her for not fitting into this concept:

The failure of his love affair with Nadja results, in final analysis, from her failure to conform and submit to this specular or traditional definition of femininity: her madness becomes hyperbole of feminine difference which Breton finds unacceptable. (Orlich, 2006, p. 221)

Thus, according to Orlich, Breton’s own love affair is destroyed by his need to conform to an ideal.

Orlich contrasts this against Gellu Naum’s use of the feminine in Zenobia, which she defines in

accordance with Naum’s concept of the “Woman Spirit” as described in his novel:

Perhaps it would be fitting to say here that I felt always around me the all- encompassing presence of a feminine principle that, when I tried to define its features, to give it a face, I named the Woman Spirit. But my receptiveness, still immature, succeeded only in creating the image of a giant woman, as big as the world. (Naum, 1985, quoted by Orlich, 2006, p. 222)

Orlich ultimately concludes that “for Breton . . . the female presence functions as ‘the Other’ that

permits male writers to reach the world of the second reality” whereas for Naum, the feminine

!16

element, or “Giant Woman Spirit” is the “paradigmatic body through which the text is

focalized” (Orlich, 2006, p. 223).

In other words, Breton uses the surreal feminine as a counterpart to the male artist, whereas

Naum sees the world through the surreal feminine — she is perhaps the lens into surrealism (Orlich,

2006, p. 223). Orlich’s analysis further denotes that “Whereas Zenobia blends into Naum body and

soul as his missing half . . . Nadja becomes quite literally incomprehensible, and therefore ‘mad’”

and that, while Breton ultimately finds the extent of Nadja’s irrationalism unacceptable, Zenobia

“makes possible Naum’s revelings in intense experiences of the senses that allow his spirit to

effectively reconceive reality and reach the heightened awareness which collapses the boundaries

between rationality and the unconscious” (Orlich, 2006, pp. 220-221). Finally, Orlich also draws a

contrast between the two surreal feminine characters as follows: “whereas Naum makes Zenobia the

sine qua non of his artistic inspiration who enables him to accede to an ever higher reality, Breton

turns Nadja’s pursuits of enigmas and revelations into a sinister endeavor” (Orlich, 2006, p. 220).

In accordance with Orlich’s analysis, one may conclude that Irene, in her role as surreal

feminine, actually has more in common with Zenobia than with Nadja. Zenobia is described by

Orlich as having “permanent ties with, and attachment to, the surreal realm from which she has

emerged” (Orlich, 2006, p. 219). This is opposed to Nadja, who is isolated in her surreal mindset. I

would suggest that Irene is more like Zenobia in this way, in that she appears to bring a certain aura

of the surreal with her, and impose it on her surroundings — namely, on Rubek, by pulling him into

her irrationalism and leading him to his death. (But, as I will discuss in Chapter 3: A Surreal

Analysis of When We Dead Awaken, Irene’s surrealism also seems to rub off on other characters, as

they too exhibit somewhat metaphoric language toward the end of the play that seems to be

symbolic of what is taking place).

However, it is possible to view Irene as being somewhere in between the two. Irene’s own

“pursuit of enigmas and revelations” has its dark or “sinister” ends, in that it leads to her own death,

and Rubek’s death; but this death can also be perceived as an ascension to “an ever higher reality”

as described by Orlich (2006, p. 220), and if read this way, Irene as the surreal feminine is perceived

in a more positive light, like Zenobia. I propose that the common role of the surreal feminine is to

act as a link to the surreal realm, no matter how it is received by her male artist counterpart. All

three women are united in that they serve as inspiration, in one way or another, for the male artist’s

revelation of surrealism. One major quality shared by all three women is their ability to poeticise

their experiences. As a part of Orlich’s analysis, she discusses Nadja’s and Zenobia’s talent for

poeticism — particularly their ability to create poetic drawings — as follows: !17

Although Naum does not include in his text cryptic drawings like The Lover’s Flower and many others that Breton attributes to Nadja, he talks about Zenobia drawing while blindfolded, in the dark, without using her hands and eyes. Clearly indebted to Breton’s account of his own portrait and Nadja’s and of the curious cut out of a woman’s face and hand drawn by Nadja, Naum’s detailed description of Zenobia’s quasi-hallucinatory drawing of the two of them is also an illustration of the concept of pictopoezie. Formulated in the 1924 issue of the surrealist review “75 HP” by Ilarie Voronca and Victor Brauner, two luminaries of the Romanian historical avant-garde, pictopoezia proposed that the link between the imagination and the imagined be erased, camouflaged from view in the communication between the interior subjective and the exterior objective universe . . . (Orlich, 2006, p. 218)

This concept of pictopoezie — or a version of it — can be found in When We Dead Awaken

as well, though in a different form. Irene does not create drawings or other visual representations,

but she does act as an interpreter between the ordinary world and the realm of surrealism in other

ways. Her ability to transform the “exterior objective universe” can be seen in such moments as her

reimagining of flower petals as birds:

Irene: . . . [Plucks the petals off a mountain rose and scatters them in the stream] Look, Arnold. Our birds are swimming. Rubek: What kind of birds? Irene: Can’t you see? They’re flamingoes. Pink as roses. (Ibsen, 2014, p. 279)

And later:

Rubek: . . . You made birds swim in the stream then too. They were water-lilies that you — Irene: White swans. Rubek: I meant swans, yes. (Ibsen, 2014, p. 280)

Here, Irene’s vision of the petals as birds is an erasure of the link between “the imagination and the

imagined” as described by Orlich (2006, p.218). Irene is able to see the birds, through her mind’s

eye, as a projection onto — or distortion of — the objective, shared universe. Her response to

Rubek when he asks what kind of birds they are — “Can’t you see?” — as well as her correcting his

mention of “water-lilies” to “white swans” indicates that he does not share in her ability to

!18

transform reality in this way. Irene is the visionary, the pictopoezie talent; interpreter between

‘interior subjective’ and ‘exterior objective.’

This is not the only moment in which we witness Irene’s visionary abilities. The pictopoezie

concept also shows through in her ability to validate and give true-to-life meaning to metaphors and

objects. For example, Rubek may be the one to have physically created the Resurrection Day

sculpture, but Irene is the one who endowed it with meaning and life. Even Rubek acknowledges

that his greatest work is a product of their collaborative effort — but his later alterations to the

sculpture show a disregard for its original meaning. Irene regards the sculpture almost as a living

thing, and its mutilation represents for her a serious act of violence. But Rubek felt such an

indifference to the fate of the original work that he changed its meaning — its soul — entirely, to

represent himself rather than Irene (or the Ideal that they had created together). Thus, it is only

through the lens of Irene herself that the object is granted its full living potential — she can be read

either as one of Breton’s “clairvoyantes” or as emblematic as Naum’s “Woman Spirit" — either

way, she is the surreal feminine conduit linking Rubek to the surreal (Orlich, 2006, p. 223).

!19

Chapter 2: André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism (1924)

2.1 The Dream

Perhaps the most recognisable aspect of surrealism is the ‘dream’ aspect. In popular

language, the term “surreal” is used to describe an experience that feels unreal or dreamlike — in

some sense suspended from ordinary reality. One may use the word to describe an experience that

strikes them as particularly strange. That is, surreal, even in popular language, is not simply a

synonym for weird. It represents a specific, universally recognised degree of strangeness, as if we

are all catching rare glimpses into the same sort of foggy reality — an unsettling yet familiar place.

Breton (1972, p. 10), working in part off of the theories of Freud, attributes this sensation to

the individual unconscious mind, praising Freud’s recognition of dreams as holding considerable

significance in the makeup of human consciousness. But Breton also makes the distinction between

dreams as we typically think of them, versus what I will from here on refer to as The Dream. The

former is an episodic phenomenon we experience during sleep, while the latter is the portion of the

mind from which these sleepful episodes are derived and which, Breton says, functions

continuously, even during waking life (Breton, 1972, p. 11).

He frames his introduction of The Dream with a short discourse on the imagination and its

role in modern life, describing present-day man as constantly under the limitations of a nostalgia for

his childhood. As children, Breton (1972, pp. 3-4) says, our imagination is given free rein, and we

therefore live with a sense of unrestricted, unquestioned freedom. Adulthood, on the contrary,

conventionally forces us to abandon the joys of our imagination, leaving us unfulfilled and confused

by the sensation of having somehow lost our way (Breton, 1972, p. 4). The source of this feeling of

lostness remains a mystery to us; we reflect on childhood longingly, but the thing we long for

remains undefined, impalpable (Breton, 1972, pp. 3-4). Breton describes man’s relationship to the

memory of his childhood as follows:

There, the absence of any known restrictions allows him the perspective of several lives lived at once; this illusion becomes firmly rooted within him; now he is only interested in the fleeting, the extreme facility of everything. Children set off each day without a worry in the world. Everything is near at hand, the worst material conditions are fine . . . One may never sleep. (Breton, 1972, pp. 3-4)

!20

Breton then explains that as we grow older, further and further from childhood, the practical

demands of daily life infringe, and become increasingly restrictive upon the imagination:

Though he may later try to pull himself together upon occasion, having felt that he is losing by slow degrees all reason for living, incapable as he has become of being able to rise to come exceptional situation such as love, he will hardly succeed. This is because he henceforth belongs body and soul to an imperative practical necessity which demands his constant attention. None of his gestures will be expansive, none of his ideas generous or far-reaching. (Breton, 1972, p. 4)

Here Breton is proposing that perhaps this waning of the imagination is unnecessary, and

perhaps it is even causing us purposeless anguish. To reframe Breton’s words; the

abandonment of our imagination translates to an abandonment of possibility (Breton, 1972, p.

5). It is not only a matter of losing childish games, but a matter of losing ourselves — and

choosing, very much choosing, to forfeit a version of our lives in which we would fulfil our

capacity for generosity, for creativity — for grandeur, for love (Breton, 1972, p. 4).

Breton (1972, p. 4) paints an image of the imagination as a cut-throat, “unsparing”

force; it is all or nothing — if we fail to nurture it, it abandons us to lustrelessness. “To reduce

the imagination to a state of slavery,” he writes, “is to betray all sense of absolute justice

within oneself” (Breton, 1972, p. 5). But this force, it must be said, is also the antithesis to

logic, to the ordered approach of reason, which plays its own role in the sustenance of our

wellbeing. Breton admits that a balance between these opposing sides is necessary for

personal stability, next asking, “Where does it begin to turn bad, and where does the mind’s

stability cease?” (Breton, 1972, p. 5).

So far it is perhaps not quite obvious how Breton’s ideas about the imagination apply to

When We Dead Awaken. But it is worth a moment to stop and think now about the relationship

between Irene and Rubek — that is, the communication that takes place between them at

present during the play. To start with, it is as if Irene belongs to a reality separate from those

around her. She speaks metaphorically about truths, truths that seem to belong solely to her,

the meanings of which completely evade Rubek. Is Irene, with her personalised, metaphorical

language, simply exhibiting an imagination that is less stifled than that of the other people

around her?

Next in Breton’s manifesto is a brief yet important discussion of madness. Amid his call

for freeing the imagination from the grip of practical imperatives, and as he prepares to make

his next assertion that “we are still living under the reign of logic,” it makes sense for Breton !21

to admit that the end of this feat is insanity (Breton, 1972, p. 9). He admits that the insane are

“victims of their imagination,” (Breton, 1972, p. 5) but proposes that this victimhood does not

necessarily entail distress or even malcontent:

—their profound indifference to the way in which we judge them, and even to the various punishments meted out to them, allows us to suppose that they derive a great deal of comfort and consolation from their imagination, that they enjoy their madness sufficiently to endure the thought that its validity does not extend beyond themselves. (Breton, 1972, p. 5)

While the accuracy of these assertions is up for debate — certainly there are those we may

call “victims of their imagination” who do suffer a great deal as a result of their removal from

objective reality, and of whom Breton makes no note — the idea that there is some degree of

comfort in madness drives home a critical point of Breton’s surrealism. If there are members

of “the insane” who exhibit a certain indifference to the outside world — to social judgement,

even to the punishments they endure — it is reasonable to infer that they acquire a sense of

fulfilment elsewhere. I think surrealism is asking, among other things, where is elsewhere?

Of course, we know that Irene herself has been deemed a member of this category of

society known as “the insane.” By the time of her appearance in the play, she is known to

have been committed to a mental institution, and is accompanied by a nurse from this

institution, who keeps a close watch over her. Then there is the matter of the irrationality of

her language. It is obvious, and probably the most important point of the play, that for Ibsen,

Irene’s irrationality does not render her devoid of meaning, as society is often inclined to do

with the insane. To the contrary, Irene’s irrationality is the origin of her meaning. If we do not

accept her irrationality — her insanity — wholly, and without hesitation, as chronically rife

with meaning, we are perhaps hopeless in understanding her, or understanding the play.

Breton is, I propose, providing us with the key for taking on Irene’s insanity. He did, after all,

believe that “Christopher Columbus should have set out to discover America with a boatload

of madmen” (Breton, 1972, p. 5).

From here, concluding that “It is not fear of madness which will oblige us to leave the

flag of imagination furled,” Breton moves on to an acerbic commentary on what he perceives

to be the failings of realism in art (Breton, 1972, p. 6). It is at this point in the manifesto that

we learn of one absolutely fundamental aim of surrealism — to dismantle the realist attitude’s

dominance over the art world, and cleanse the mainstream of its dependence on conventional

!22

realism. Breton is not shy in expressing his disgust, deeming realism to be “hostile to any

intellectual or moral advancement” (Breton, 1972, p. 6). He continues his condemnation as

follows:

I loathe it, for it is made up of mediocrity, hate, and dull conceit. It is this attitude which today gives birth to these ridiculous books, these insulting plays. It . . . stultifies both science and art by flattering the lowest of tastes; clarity bordering on stupidity, a dog’s life. (Breton, 1972, p. 6)

Breton follows this by bashing even the great Dostoyevsky, including an excerpt from Crime

and Punishment (1866) which features an elaborate description of the furnishings of a room,

and claiming that Dostoyevsky is herein “— wasting his time, for I refuse to go into his

room” and that “Others’ laziness or fatigue does not interest me” (Breton, 1972, p. 8). Here,

his utmost wishes to demolish the status quo, his longing for something more, are made

abundantly clear, with true avant-garde heart.

Yet, a reader of Breton’s may ask themselves, what sort of literary experience is it that

would satisfy a critic who is so emphatically offended by a godhead like Dostoyevsky, who

sees inexcusable “laziness” and “fatigue” in literature so widely esteemed? And is it not

altogether likely that he would deliver the same sort of cutting judgements against Ibsen —

would Ibsen not qualify, in Breton’s eyes, as a writer of such “insulting plays”? One may refer

to subchapter 1.2 Surrealism and Realism, in which I have already discussed why realism and

surrealism are not such strangers to one another as Breton would have them be for the sake of

his argument, and moreover that we may even delineate between what Breton calls “the

realistic attitude” and realism itself, which is an almost unavoidable element of artistic

expression.

Breton does offer some clarification regarding what may be the answer to his qualms

with the likes of Dostoyevsky. Soon after his discussion of the excerpt, he professes the very

lucid and personal remark that “When one ceases to feel, I am of the opinion that one should

keep quiet,” and further, “I am only saying that I do not take particular note of the empty

moments of my life, that it may be unworthy for any man to crystallise those which seem to

him to be so” (Breton, 1972, p. 8). In other words, Breton is seeking an ultimacy — an

ultimacy in the truth of feeling. He admires the insane, their way of being “honest to a

fault” (Breton, 1972, p. 5). He desires to be free from the notion that circumstantial facts —

!23

the facts of realism — take precedence over feeling and experience. Driving this point further,

he remarks on the realist tendency (in literature) to create “readymade” human types and

heroes, rather than accepting, bringing voice to, or celebrating the specificity of experience

itself, and offers the following rebuttal:

If in a cluster of grapes there are no two alike . . . why do you want me to make a palatable grape? Our brains are dulled by the incurable mania of wanting to make the unknown known, classifiable. The desire for analysis wins out over the sentiments. (Breton, 1972, p. 9)

As aforementioned, Breton explains that, in his world of 1924, “we are still living under

the reign of logic,” and that logical methods are “only applicable to solving problems of

secondary interest” (Breton, 1972, p. 9). “Problems of secondary interest” meaning, of course,

all things of a practical nature. What, then, are the problems of primary interest? Breton

asserts that the current rationalism of his time “allows us to consider only facts relating

directly to our experience,” and that “experience itself has found itself increasingly

circumscribed” (Breton, 1972, p. 10). This distinction between “facts relating to our

experience” and “experience itself” could otherwise be referred to as objectivity versus

subjectivity. The dictatorship of logic, according to Breton, perpetually circumscribes the

subjectivity of experience (Breton, 1972, p. 10).

It can be gathered from this that surrealism is, among other things, a call for a revival of

subjectivity and the inner world — further, a release from condemnation against those things

that remain outliers in the square world of analysis. Such outliers include, for example, any

inclinations deemed superstition, or “any kind of search for truth which is not in conformance

with accepted practices” (Breton, 1972, p. 10). Breton’s surrealism longs for freedom — for

inner freedom, for a return to experience itself as the origin of our guiding principles (Breton,

1972, p. 10). It is ultimately a philosophy which pursues and celebrates uninhibited

personhood. There are problems in life which Breton (1972, p. 12) believes must be solved by

means other than rationalism; and this is what brings him directly to the topic of dreams,

which he seems to consider the domain of unadulterated inner experience.

The truly rebellious spirit of Breton’s quest back to the imagination is ever apparent as

he begins to discuss dreams, writing that the imagination is “on the point of reasserting itself,

of reclaiming its rights” (Breton, 1972, p. 11). He speaks of this part of the mind as of an

!24

oppressed sector of society. His view on the power of the imagination is neatly captured in

this small excerpt:

If the depths of our mind contain within it strange forces capable of augmenting those on the surface, or of waging a victorious battle against them, there is every reason to seize them — first to seize them, then, if need be, to submit them to the control of our reason. (Breton, 1972, p. 11).

Our dreams are, in essence, a treasure trove of these “strange forces” and should be regarded

accordingly (Breton, 1972, p. 11). If we seize our dreams, and incorporate them into our

existence — into our understanding of our reality and ourselves — we may discover a more

fulfilling, more extravagant, more meaningful way of life (Breton, 1972, p. 14).

And Breton (1972, pp. 11-12), as mentioned at the start of this chapter, made the

distinction between dreams and the dream — The Dream being that constant part of the mind

out of which our dreams rise up during the night. Breton in fact considers The Dream to be

the primary function of consciousness, against which the state of wakefulness is only an

“interference.” He asserts that our dreams show signs of being organised and continuous, and

therefore must represent the phenomena of an organised part of consciousness (Breton, 1972,

p. 11). Even our waking state functions in accordance with “suggestions that come . . . from

the depths of that dark night” (Breton, 1972, p. 12). While awake, and navigating the outside

world, we are intermittently met with things that leave impressions upon us, things that imply

a mysterious significance, things we feel an unexplained affinity with (Breton, 1972, p. 13).

These impressions — Breton (1972, p. 13) gives us the example of “a woman” — are links to

The Dream. Breton explains this as follows:

“—what [the mind] likes in the eye of that woman is . . . precisely what links it to its dream, binds it to those fundamental facts which, through its own fault, it has lost” (Breton, 1972, p. 13)

In other words, the impressions we receive from the outside world, in our experience of

everyday reality, are entirely dependent on the workings of The Dream, this unconscious

realm that determines the attitude with which we perceive things as well as the nature of our

response. Here Breton also doubles down on the idea that we are at fault for having lost

contact with those “fundamental facts” of The Dream (Breton, 1972, p. 13). And, “if things

were different,” he writes, “what might [we] be capable of?” (Breton, 1972, p. 13).

!25

It is a question full of hope and the incredibly inspiring notion of unforeseen possibility

— perhaps, through the influence of our dreams, we can live better, bigger. The specificity of

the how remains ambiguous — something I believe Breton would readily admit. But he does

propose that The Dream may even hold the power to recalibrate the way that we perceive

ourselves to age, or rather to reconfigure our relationship with whatever influences compel us

to “grow old” (Breton, 1972, p. 12).

“I am growing old,” he writes, “and, more than the reality to which I believe I subject

myself, it is perhaps the dream, the difference with which I treat the dream, which makes me

grow old” (Breton, 1972, p. 12). If we were to give license to The Dream, would it be able to

preserve us, our personhood, our will to life, against the conquering forces of age, of time? Is

it the key to happiness — to joy? If, under the reign of logic, we are at “fault” and have erred

against our better selves, it would seem that surrealism is seeking an atonement for that error

(Breton, 1972, p. 13). It is interesting that Breton should use the image of a woman as

exemplary of making an impression upon The Dream, for this perfectly parallels the sort of

haunting presence of Irene in Rubek’s life. Not only does she emerge, from near oblivion, out

of Rubek’s hazy memory of his past, but she is very nearly mistaken for a dream upon her

first appearance. It is Irene who brings forth The Dream into Rubek’s life — this we will see

in the next chapter. And later, in Chapter 4: Henrik Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken and André

Breton’s Nadja, I will explore Breton’s own journey with a strikingly similar woman figure,

in his novel Nadja.

2.2 Surreality

It is here, after defining our problem and what it is we should be chasing in an effort to solve

it, that Breton offers his first definition of surrealism, or the notion of surreality. He writes:

I believe in the future resolution of these two states, dream and reality, which are seemingly so contradictory, into a kind of absolute reality, a surreality (Breton, 1972, p. 14, italics in the original).

In light of this definition we can see that, in Breton’s own words, surrealism is not a rejection of

reality — not its counterpart, not dream alone — but rather a new take on reality, one that involves

!26

our dreams in our practical understanding of our experiences. Breton proposes that his search for

this new reality is an explicit quest, in the following:

It is in quest of this surreality that I am going, certain not to find it but too unmindful of my death not to calculate to some slight degree the joys of its possession. (Breton, 1972, p. 14)

Hence we can see Breton’s own admission of the chimerical nature of his proposed reality, as well

as his suicidal devotion to it. The likeness to Irene’s desired feat is clear; she, too, is in pursuit of

something — some exultation, atonement, or joy — that requires her to be indifferent to the

prospect of self-sacrifice. In the end, it does cause her death. If we place Breton’s notion of

surreality at the top of the mountain that she and Rubek climb, Irene may have written the above

quote herself.

Taking into consideration that Breton’s surrealism, as previously discussed, is concerned

with correcting the errors we make against our better selves, and against happiness or contentment,

it is really not such a stretch to consider that Irene’s quest up the mountain qualifies as a surreal one.

Irene understands life in a metaphorical way, she orientates herself within life as if it is part dream,

as if it operates in accordance with not only empirical truths, but personal ones as well — in Irene’s

world, she is already dead in a subjective capacity, and her surrender of herself to her quest —

surrendering to the possibility of real death — is the only thing that can bring an end to this

metaphorical death-state in which she has found herself. She has been living in bad faith, and her

pursuit is an effort to correct this, to do herself right. I will explore this, and why it represents a

degree of surreality, in greater detail in Chapter 3: A Surreal Analysis of When We Dead Awaken.

2.3 The Marvellous

Among Breton’s list of factors in the quest for surreality is a certain quality of art which he

calls the marvellous. This, as we will see later, may be considered a mark of surrealist art in

particular. Breton sees it as having a redemptive effect on what he considers to be “inferior” art

forms, writing that “only the marvellous is capable of fecundating works which belong to an

inferior category such as the novel” (Breton, 1972, p. 14). “The marvellous is always beautiful,” he

explains, “anything marvellous is beautiful, in fact only the marvellous is beautiful,” (Breton, 1972,

p. 14). !27

While the true meaning of “the marvellous” seems rather evasive, Breton perhaps comes

closest to describing its substance by relating to fairytales intended for children. “At an early age,

children are weaned on the marvellous,” he writes, “and later on they fail to retain a sufficient

virginity of mind to thoroughly enjoy fairy tales” (Breton, 1972, p. 15). Breton (1972, p. 16)

explains that while we naturally maintain an appetite for the marvellous into adulthood, there is no

adult version of such storytelling that is sufficient to meet the demands of the adult imagination.

“No matter how charming they may be,” he continues, “a grown man would think he were reverting

to childhood by nourishing himself on fairy tales” (Breton, 1972, p. 16). There is no true adult

counterpart to the child’s fairytale — as Breton writes:

The fabric of adorable improbabilities must be made a trifle more subtle the older we grow, and we are still at the stage of waiting for this kind of spider . . . . But the faculties do not change radically. Fear, the attraction of the unusual, chance, the taste for things extravagant are all devices which we can always call upon without fear of deception. There are fairy tales to be written for adults, fairy tales still almost blue. (Breton, 1972, p. 16).

The marvellous, according to Breton (1972, p. 14), can in other words be described as

that feeling which compels us to call something beautiful — and it seems that to Breton, the

beautiful carries within it some inextricable element of enticement, or intrigue. Fear, the

unusual, and chance are constituents of the marvellous, for the fact that the impressions they

leave upon us do not by nature harbour deception (Breton, 1972, p. 15). Perhaps we desire

them, I would say, not for their straightforwardness alone but for the straightforwardness in

the feeling of danger they present; little red riding hood is eaten by the wolf in the end. It is

this kind of danger — the marvel, the beauty, in the culmination promised all along by our

intrigue — that we continue to crave in our stories as adults. According to Breton (1972, p.

16), if only we are able to tweak the “adorable improbabilities” — such as a wolf dressed in a

grandmother’s clothing — so that they are subtle enough to compel the imaginations of

adults, it is possible to create fairy tales for adults to read and be enthralled by.

While certainly no piece of literature available at the time of Breton’s writing his

manifesto in 1924 would have qualified in his eyes as a perfect image of this kind of fairy

tale, I deem When We Dead Awaken to be quite close to his definition. Psychologically and

emotionally speaking, Ibsen’s play presents a treacherous landscape, which culminates in

predictable yet captivating tragedy. I will discuss in the next chapter exactly how When We

!28

Dead Awaken is Breton’s image of these “fairy tales for adults” — “this kind of

spider” (Breton, 1972, p. 16, italics added).

2.4 Incomplete Surrealists

Breton, however, does go on to admit that there are certain writers which he considers to be

surrealist in a sense. “If one is to judge them only superficially by their results,” he writes, “a good

number of poets could pass for Surrealists, beginning with Dante and, in his finer moments,

Shakespeare” (Breton, 1972, p. 26). He provides a list determining which poets he considers to have

touched on surrealism, and in what sense they have achieved it — asserting that “Poe is Surrealist in

adventure”, “Beaudelaire is Surrealist in morality”, “Rimbaud is Surrealist in the way he lived,” and

so on (Breton, 1972, p. 27). Here he emphasises that these poets are not surrealists in full, that they

have been inhibited from achieving ‘pure’ surrealism by a certain egoism which causes them to hold

onto preconceived notions, rather than open themselves up to act as “modest recording

instruments,” of the mind’s activity (Breton, 1972, p. 28, italics in the original). He describes this

further as follows:

I discern in each of them a certain number of preconceived ideas to which—very naively!—they hold . . . they had not heard the surrealist voice, the one that continues to preach on the eve of death and above the storms, because they did not want to serve simply to orchestrate the marvellous score. They were instruments too full of pride, and this is why they have not always produced a harmonious sound. (Breton, 1972, p. 27)

Breton continues to condemn all that is not purely surreal in accordance with his definition; if it is

not surreal, it is naïve, unimaginative, stupid. Yet he is liberal enough in his analysis to afford non-

surrealists the status of having achieved momentary surrealism, and I believe that Ibsen could easily

have been added to Breton’s list, if only for When We Dead Awaken. Perhaps we could imagine,

given Irene’s surreal disposition, Breton dubbing Ibsen as something along the lines of surrealist in

his characters.

!29

2.5 Distant Poetic Regions

In our understanding of surrealism, it is vital not to neglect the theme of poetry and the

poetic imagination. Breton makes it clear in his manifesto that he believed in the redemptive

qualities of living life in such a way that it is understood poetically. On the heels of his discussion of

the marvellous, and man’s inclination toward the marvellous, Breton writes of man that “He and he

alone can determine whether he is completely master of himself, that is, whether he maintains the

body of his desires, daily more formidable, in a state of anarchy,” (Breton, 1972, p. 18). Here we

can observe the continuing emphasis on self-refinement, doing justice to oneself, and the

acknowledgement of one’s desires as the epitome of self-realisation. Breton’s solution is poetry:

“Poetry teaches him to,” he continues, “It bears within itself the perfect compensation for the

miseries we endure,” (Breton, 1972, p. 18).

Through understanding life poetically, through living poetically — whatever we may find

that to mean — one discovers an answer to, a compensation for, the miseries of life (Breton, 1972,

p. 18). Moreover Breton describes the poetic imagination as a place, writing that “It was a question

of going back to the sources of poetic imagination and, what is more, of remaining there” (Breton,

1972, p. 18). He continues, writing the following: “It requires a great deal of fortitude to try to set

up one’s abode in these distant regions . . . all the more if one wants to try to take someone

there,” (Breton, 1972, p. 18).

Having already established, in this paper, a sense of Irene as living her life poetically, as

understanding her life through metaphor, the parallels to Breton’s ideas about poeticism as a kind of

salvation are clear. Irene, from beginning to end of When We Dead Awaken, is planning her move to

these “distant regions” Breton writes about, a place which he admits that he himself has not

managed to stake out (Breton, 1972, p. 18). It requires great fortitude, he asserts, to remain at the

sources of poetic imagination (Breton, 1972, p. 18). And Irene not only wishes to go there herself

— she is attempting the utmost feat which Breton mentions — to bring someone along with her.

Irene’s journey — her journey through the world, through misery, back to Rubek, and on to the top

of the mountain, is one long, tumultuous traipse toward the distant regions of poetic life, where she

will be granted deliverance from her miseries, her estrangement from her youth and innocence, and

indeed her estrangement from herself. Because Rubek is the source of her fallacy against herself,

she must take him there with her as well — I will return to this in Chapter 3.

!30

2.6 Breton’s Two Definitions

Just prior to offering his list of those poets he deems surrealist in a sense, Breton offers two

final definitions of Surrealism; one which establishes a meaning of its practical function in creative

output, and another addressing its meaning as a general philosophy — a way of life. These

definitions are as follows:

SURREALISM. n. Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express—verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner—the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.

ENCYCLOPEDIA. Philosophy. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to ruin once and for all all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principal problems of life. (Breton, 1972, p. 26, emphasis in the original)

In its practical application, Breton’s surrealism seeks exemption from the control of reason. As a

philosophy, it is adamantly concerned with working to solve the principal problems of life — to

dethrone all preoccupations with logic and rationality, and seek freedom through a reunification

between dreams and waking life (Breton, 1972, pp. 3-47). This way of life, as Breton explains later

in the manifesto, is binding: “Surrealism does not allow those who devote themselves to it to

forsake it whenever they like. There is every reason to believe that it acts on the mind very much as

drugs do,” he writes, “like drugs, it creates a certain state of need and can push man to frightful

revolts” (Breton, 1972, p. 35).

In When We Dead Awaken, we see Irene’s “frightful revolt” in action. Bound to her poetic

vision, her understanding of life — that she is, poetically, dead, and that she and Rubek alike are

estranged from the possibility of love — her idea to climb the mountain emerges suddenly and with

passion, like an uprising.

!31

2.7 The Surrealist Image

Another absolutely crucial point in the relationship between surrealism and When We Dead

Awaken is that of the surrealist image. Breton (1972, p. 36) insists that the function of the surrealist

image is not called upon consciously — its metaphorical value is summoned intuitively, and

understood naturally. Continuing with the theme of drugs, he suggests that surrealist images present

themselves to us in the same way that “opium images” do, in that “man does not evoke them,” and

further, quoting Baudelaire, “he cannot chase them away, for the will is powerless now and no

longer controls the faculties” (Baudelaire quoted by Breton, 1972, p. 36). Breton gives three

examples of surrealist images, from the work of Reverdy:

In the brook, there is a song that flows

Day unfolded like a white tablecloth

The world goes back into a sack

(Reverdy quoted by Breton, 1972, p. 36, italics in the original)

Adamant that “it is not within man’s power” to consciously and wilfully create such

metaphorical meanings, Breton (1972, p. 37) likens the value of such an image to the light produced

by a spark. The two disparate realities — “day” and “tablecloth,” for example — are the conductors

of electricity which produce the spark, and the more distant they are from one another, Breton says,

the more brilliant the flash of light created; this is “the light of the image” (Breton, 1972, p. 37,

italics in the original). “The two terms of the image are not deduced one from the other for the

purpose of producing the spark,” he further explains, “. . . they are the simultaneous products of the

activity I call Surrealist, reason’s role being limited to taking note of, and appreciating, the luminous

phenomenon” (Breton, 1972, p. 37).

The value of this image, then, is completely apart from the faculty of reason — it seizes us

like an entrancement, from the depths of what Breton, as we know, calls The Dream. And it is this

precise sort of metaphor which drives Irene’s attachment to Rubek’s sculpture, Resurrection Day.

Created in her image, it would be easy to see the sculpture as too close in resemblance to its

opposing reality — the actual Irene — to carry the kind of spark Breton describes. But it is not so

simple; Irene’s attachment to the sculpture is not consciously chosen, and it is not based in !32

aesthetics. Irene understands her life, indeed both her past and her future (she considers the

sculpture to be her child) through the sculpture. Its defacement represents a disfigurement of what

little meaning she felt she had retained in life. Once again, metaphor is her reality.

2.8 Return to Childhood

Toward the end of his manifesto, Breton returns to the topic of childhood. “The mind which

plunges into Surrealism,” he assures, “relives with glowing excitement the best parts of its

childhood” (Breton, 1972, p. 39). He compares this sensation to one’s last moments before death:

For such a mind, it is similar to the certainty with which a person who is drowning reviews once more, in the space of less than a second, all the insurmountable moments of his life. Some may say to me that the parallel is not very encouraging. But I have no intention of encouraging those who tell me that. (Breton, 1972, p. 39)

Thus surrealism, for Breton, is no light-hearted thing — it imbues the mind with all the intensity of

life’s most crucial moments, and reconnects us with the visceral excitement of our earliest

experiences in the world. Thus its consequences are severe, but not necessarily dismal, as it may

offer us a chance of renewal. Breton describes this sentiment as follows:

From childhood memories, and from a few others, there emanates a sentiment of being unintegrated, and then later of having gone astray, which I hold to be the most fertile that exists. It is perhaps childhood that comes closest to one’s “real life”; . . . childhood where everything nevertheless conspires to bring about the effective, risk-free possession of oneself. Thanks to Surrealism, it seems that opportunity knocks a second time. (Breton, 1972, p. 40)

Here Breton again drives home his concern with self-possession, with a purity of mind that can

rescue one from the ills of the world — from having been ‘integrated’ into the world. This ecstatic,

phantasmagorical state which he describes as a condition of surrealism is capable of distilling our

memories down to a sort of pure origin, reminding us of the original terms with which we lived, as

children, before finding ourselves having gone astray.

!33

Irene shares Breton’s longing for purer times. In fact, her great lamentation throughout the

play — her reason for hunting down Rubek — is that she feels she has given her very youth away,

and since that fallacy, she has lived in confusion, angst, and spiritual violence. As a means of

attempting to cure herself, she has nurtured a perspective of metaphor and intense subjectivity —

her material world has become rife with personal symbolism, and her quest is to manipulate these

metaphorical tools in such a way that she may rediscover self-possession. In other words, she has

taken the plunge into surrealism. I will explore this in more detail in the following chapter.

!34

Chapter 3: A Surreal Analysis of When We Dead Awaken

3.1 The Heart of the Play

While it is perhaps most intuitive to consider Rubek to be the play’s main character, it is

Irene who is the heart of the play, and it is she who acts as the surrealistic totem — the crux of the

all-important dream-metaphor aspect. Not only does she act as the intervention which rips Rubek

away from his life, but the fashion in which she does so is the basis for a certain philosophical

sentiment: the surreal sentiment of combining our inner, subjective worlds with the outer world, so

that we may live and experience fully, and in a way that is true to ourselves (Breton, 1972, pp.

4-40). It is Irene who convinces Rubek of the surreal; her insanity (her dreamlikeness, her figurative

speech, the feelings and thoughts she embodies and gives voice to for Rubek) is the substance she

uses to induce this in him.

The first step to analysing Irene as a totem of the surreal is to ascertain a clear summary of

her story. Irene’s embodiment of the surrealist attitude is rooted in her experiences with unrealised

love, which also constitute the main dilemma of the play. We know that as a young woman she

posed for Rubek as the model for his magnum opus, Resurrection Day, and that because he would

not commit to her by consummating their love physically, she left. Years later, she reappears into his

life, a changed woman. Rubek once saw her as inspiration for his vision of innocence — a “pure

woman . . . Not marvelling at anything new, unfamiliar, or unimagined. But filled with a blessed joy

at finding herself unchanged — she, the earthly woman” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 258). Upon her

reappearance, Irene has transformed away from the image of her youth, and certainly very far away

from Rubek’s idea of the untainted woman.

Having been deemed insane, Irene has spent time in a mental institution, and is still

shadowed by a nurse. She speaks in heavily laden metaphors, as only someone who has experienced

grief may have the insight to do — and in fact she does express that she has experienced death: the

deaths of her husbands and children, and her own death of a sort. Her poetic use of language and

metaphor is nonsensical in the objective realm, seeming to defy reality, yet it is not without a sense

of consistency (perhaps, even a sense of principle), and therefore meaning. In fact, her metaphors

are rich with beauty and gravity in the context of her relationship with Rubek — her consistent

claims that she is dead, for example, culminate in one precipitous line: “The love which is of this

world, this life — the mysterious life of the earth — that has died in us both” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 293). !35

Irene is a woman transformed by experience and grief, and through it she has gained a

poetic sensibility, one that may reach the extent of insanity. Her greatest qualm? — Rubek’s

mistreatment of her, through his failure to give her his love. Straight away she makes her complaint

known, by proclaiming that “she should have murdered that child”— Resurrection Day, the child of

her aborted affair with Rubek, and the symbol of her unrealised love (Ibsen, 2014, p. 254). Irene

sees Rubek’s refusal to properly love her as the starting point of a life lived in vain, soullessly — “I

gave you my young, living soul,” she says, at the very end of Act 1, “Then I stood there, empty

inside. — Soulless. That’s what I died of, Arnold” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 261).

Over the course of the play Irene awakens Rubek to the wrongs he has committed against

her, and further convinces him that, by the same account, he has wronged himself. She enwraps him

into her poetic reality that they can absolve their sin, by together taking the treacherous climb up the

mountain — this, of course, leads to their deaths, and perhaps deliberately — “This young

resurrected woman of yours can see all of life laid out on its funeral bier” Irene says, just before

they make their ascent (Ibsen, 2014, p. 293).

Irene’s way of processing her life (both understanding it, and trying to resolve it) through

metaphor is an essentially surrealist idea. She is taking her inner, subjective truths and projecting

them onto the outer world around her, thus imbuing outer realities with direct, consequential

connections to her inner world. This is how she comes to believe that killing herself with Rubek

will alter a deeper truth, inside of her or inside the both of them, regarding their love. It is the same

sentiment found in André Breton’s Nadja, in which the surreal feminine character, Nadja, sees her

hallucination of a hand on fire reflected in an advertisement poster that features a depiction of a red

hand — both images represent, for her, her relationship with Breton — this I will discuss in detail in

Chapter 4.

There are three major aspects in which we can see the surrealism of Irene’s character: her

use of poetry as a means of communication, the great symbolic value that the Resurrection Day

sculpture holds for her, and her role in Rubek’s life. Irene’s language is not poetic for poetry’s sake

— she uses metaphor as a primary means of communication, holding true to the general sentiment

of Breton’s manifesto that dream and the surrealist image (or the surrealist metaphor) can be

incorporated into everyday life, and have a practical function (Breton, 1972, pp. 3-47). When Irene

claims that she is dead, or that she has murdered her own children, it is not for dramatic effect. Her

nonsensical proclamations are intended to communicate something, to Rubek and, most ultimately,

to the reader. And just as her metaphorical language holds a real-world significance, so does her

belief in Rubek’s sculpture, Resurrection Day, as a major symbol in her life. To Irene, Resurrection !36

Day is a past self, a mutilated self (because of Rubek’s changes to the sculpture) and a child. It is an

object whose creation and fate has real-life consequences for her; she has transformed it,

unwittingly, into the surrealist image, as defined by Breton. In this chapter I will explore these

surreal aspects in greater depth, and in accordance with Breton’s manifesto.

3.2 Irene, an idealist?

Toril Moi, in Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism, in accordance with her analysis of

When We Dead Awaken as Ibsen’s “last judgement on idealism,” considers Irene to be an idealist

extremist, writing that “Rubek’s desperate wish for unity with a woman completely dedicated to his

creative project . . . makes him easy prey for Irene’s insane idealism” (Moi, 2006, p. 323). Irene’s

insanity, then, according to Moi, had its genesis in an idealist projection of what life should be. But

Moi also considers the young Rubek’s treatment of Irene to be a form of idealism, writing that “The

young Rubek was a passionate idealist, placing women on the highest pedestal, thinking of sex as

degrading, and art as capable of justifying existence” (Moi, 2006, p. 321). Further, she considers

Rubek’s changing of his sculpture to be an attack, by Ibsen, on the idealist trope of female sacrifice:

“Irene has sacrificed her life for his art, yet Rubek feels free to turn himself into the central figure in

the sculpture. There is a savage denunciation of the idealist myth of female sacrifice here: Irene’s

sacrifice has not led to redemption, but to sex-work and madness” (Moi , 2006, p. 322).

Thus, Moi’s interpretation of the young Rubek as an idealist in his own right would put two

different brands of idealism at odds; on one hand is the idealist sentiment behind the creation of

Rubek’s sculpture (in which Irene was steadfastly complicit), and on the other is Irene’s insanity-

fuelled attempt to atone the two of them for their idealist sin. But, if part of the meaning in When

We Dead Awaken lies in its dismantling of Rubek’s misguided idealism, does it really follow that

Irene would seek redemption by plunging herself deeper into the idealist fantasy, into “insane

idealism”?

Rubek’s mistreatment of Irene, through his idealisation and objectification of her as a

woman, and through his denial of real, human love for her, is the great sin of Irene’s life — it is the

germ from which all her misgivings of life and love are born. Her complicity in this idealist sin

helped to set the stage for her own ruin, because her willingness to pose as Rubek’s model — to

represent for him nothing but the Ideal Woman — rendered her unable to receive love, in his eyes,

and she was rejected. It is dismissive of Irene, then, to imagine that her return to Rubek’s life is as !37

the bearer of more idealism. I believe that the insanity we see in Irene must be getting its energy

from some other source, that it is rather a mark of empowered transformation. The poeticism of her

language, the dreamlike substance of the perspective she has developed since her revelation of

Rubek’s (and her own) sin, is too consistent, too beautiful, too indicative of meaning in the wake of

her realisations (Rubek himself remarks that “There’s something hidden behind everything you

say”), to be beholden to the idealism that once ruined her (Ibsen, 2014, p. 256). If we are to believe

her insanity to be an effect of idealism, it means that her metaphorical language, and her

transformation in the aftermath of her sin, is rendered meaningless, and we are left with little

motivation to understand her poetic language.

Understanding Irene’s insanity as an expression of surrealist philosophy, on the other hand,

would allow us to interpret her reappearance as that of a fundamentally changed woman — it would

mean that her poeticism signifies a progression in how she sees the world, and that it is not idealism

that triumphs in the end. It would mean that, perhaps, Rubek and Irene end their lives in chosen

ecstasy. In this chapter I will analyse the features of Ibsen’s text that I read as surreal in nature, in

correspondence with Breton’s manifesto.

3.3 Insanity: A Return to Childhood

In this subchapter I will take a close look at the things about Irene that make her surreal,

analysing exactly how her surrealism functions in the play. But first I will propose a few

considerations about where her surreal attitude comes from; the reason for its development. As

mentioned before, the crucial dilemma of the play is Irene’s quest to set straight her relationship

with Rubek. There seems to be consensus among scholars that the main reason for their death is to

seek redemption for their failed love, for the fact that they lacked the integrity to seize the

opportunity of love. As previously mentioned, Pavel Knápek, in the article titled “Love, Guilt,

Death and Art in Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken,” interprets the death of Rubek and Irene as an

attempt on their part to atone their sin, calling their death a “self-sacrifice to prove love” (Knápek,

2015, p. 5). William Storm, quoting the work of György Lukács, interprets their death as an attempt

to glimpse “real life,” an undertaking which requires that one “deny life in order to live” (Lukács,

1955, p.153 cited by Storm, 2012, p. 28). This “real life” moment, by my own interpretation, is the

antithesis to the bad faith in which Rubek and Irene have lived in the past.

!38

If we are to fully understand the motivation behind this desperation for atonement, we must

focus on the one who bears the pain of the sin committed: Irene. Rubek, after all, can hardly jog his

memory as to who Irene is upon first recognising her, quite vaguely, as someone from his past.

Moreover he is completely oblivious to his sin — “I never committed any sin against you! Never,

Irene!” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 257) — whereas Irene’s entire life has been shaped and distorted by it. The

repercussions of their sin were always her problem, her misery, and this is because hidden beneath

the sin of disallowed love is a more essential trauma — the betrayal of Irene’s innocence.

As I have established, Breton saw surrealism as a means of regaining the purity of

imagination that is lost after childhood — he described childhood as a feeling of being

“unintegrated” and said that as adults, having sacrificed our imagination, there is a feeling of having

gone astray (Breton, 1972, p. 40). Irene may not have been a child at the time she posed for Rubek

(though we do not know her exact age — she may well have been a child, lawfully speaking) but

she was not yet past the threshold beyond which innocence is lost, and the generative powers of the

imagination are shattered. We know this because of her naïve belief that she could at once be the

Ideal Woman for Rubek, and also receive real, humanised love from him. It was the imaginative

power of the youthful soul, the soul of a child, which she then still retained, that allowed her to hold

this belief. Her realisation that Rubek did not desire her in the human way she wished made her

aware of the error in her belief, her crucial fallacy. This was the moment that she crossed the

threshold; the moment which deconstructed her innocence, and integrated her into the world.

The image of Irene posing for Rubek is a juxtaposition of the vivacious, untouched

imagination of youth against the cynicism of idealism; her innocence left her vulnerable to Rubek’s

idealism (much like Hedvig falls prey to Gregers’s idealist vision in The Wild Duck), and she

believed that she could at one and the same time be the ideal and be human and receive human love.

Her imagination allowed her to believe that the ideal was real — touchable — while for Rubek it

was only a cynic’s artifice, a purely aesthetic concern. Irene’s fate of insanity is found on a similar

path to Hedvig’s — that of the Innocent who believes too strongly in the ideal, and is destroyed by

the pitfalls of its cynicism.

It may be superficially true that Irene’s pain was caused simply by Rubek’s rejection of her.

But the cut runs deeper, and is yet more destructive than that — the real source of her pain is a

complete betrayal of innocence at the hands of idealist cynicism. One interesting question remains

unanswered by Ibsen’s play: would Rubek have ultimately given Irene the love she desired, had she

not left? After all, one of the first things Rubek asks upon their reunion is, “Why did you leave me

that time — Flee quite without trace — impossible to find —” moreover, questioning her about !39

whether she had fallen in love with someone else: “Was there someone else you fell in love

with?” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 254). Thus we are given every reason to feel that Rubek desired to find Irene

once he realised that she was gone, that he did desire to be with her, that he feared she had fallen in

love with another. And yet this proves to be of little consequence for Irene, which tells us that her

real wound is not that she could not be with Rubek, her real wound is the fact that her innocence

was taken advantage of, indeed squandered by, idealism.

This is the true sin: innocence destroyed. This break with innocence and the imagination is

what inspires her development of the surreal attitude. Breton’s (1972, pp. 5, 18) assertion that the

imagination may be reinvigorated through The Dream, through poeticism and metaphor, is the

remedy for her wound. Irene’s surrealism — her perceived insanity — is her means of atoning

herself of the sin that separated her from the joys and wholeness of innocence, the sin that

integrated her into the world. Her insanity became the space in which possibility was opened to her

once again — the possibility of redemption, imagination, joy, real love, authentic human

experience. Through her use of metaphor, and the poetic sensibility she has gained, she has a

newfound ability to believe in the strength we derive from our imagination, in a manner recalibrated

since her loss of innocence. This time, the falsity of the ideal will not prevail — this time she will

not die only inwardly, not only figuratively speaking — she will use her newfound strength to make

sure to die for real.

In Irene’s case, and in the context of my thesis, poeticism and insanity are somewhat

synonymous. And as mentioned in the previous chapter, Breton (1972, p. 5) acknowledged that

surrealism, to some extent, balances on the edge of insanity. I would argue that what I have

discussed of Breton’s manifesto thus far leaves us with the impression that a deliberate sense of

poeticism is what makes the difference between the surreal mind and insanity. In other words,

surrealism harnesses a certain degree of insanity, or irrationality, of which all minds are capable,

and uses it along with the critical faculties to navigate the rational world, or the objective world.

Breton wrote the following on combining the irrationality of the mind with reason: “If the depths of

our mind contain within it strange forces capable of augmenting this on the surface . . . there is ever

reason to seize them . . . then, if need be, to submit them to the control of our reason” (Breton, 1972,

p. 10). I would also say that Irene, while portrayed as insane in the play, actually lands on the side

of poeticism. From here I will use evidence from the text to show that Irene’s character conveys a

sense of deliberate poeticism.

Irene’s insanity is a manifestation of The Dream; a previously explained, Breton’s concept

of The Dream is an ever-present part of the mind from which dreams spring during the night; it is a !40

subconscious realm that remains active at all times, including during waking life, and informs our

thoughts, inclinations, and decisions (Breton, 1972, p. 11). The way we are sometimes intuitively

drawn toward certain things or people without any apparent reason, for instance, is a feeling that

originates somewhere within The Dream (Breton, 1972, p. 13). By animating this part of the mind

to its full potential, one may achieve greater fulfilment in life:

Can’t the dream also be used in solving the fundamental questions of life? Are these questions the same in one case as in the other and, in the dream, do these questions already exist? (Breton, 1972, p. 12)

Irene has, to some extent, managed the surrealist feat of bringing forth The Dream into the

functioning of practical life — she communicates her own thoughts through it, and likewise

perceives the world around her through it. This is evident in her metaphorical language, and her

way of attributing personal symbolic meaning to certain objects, or emblems.

Irene’s use of metaphor shows signs of meaning and organisation, in the same way that our

dreams, as said by Breton (1972, p. 11), show signs of organisation. This means that her irrational

assertions are not products of madness, but are based on a system of metaphors — symbols, perhaps

— which she uses to express herself. In regard to this, I will explore a couple of major points: her

metaphorical understanding of death (and murder), and her poetic attachment to Rubek’s sculpture

as a symbol of sorts.

So let us look closely at the evidence in the text. The most obvious sign of Irene’s state of

mind is the way that she speaks constantly in metaphor, making irrational claims that would lead us

to believe her insane. Yet the way Irene uses metaphor indicates that she not only uses metaphors in

her speech for their sense of aesthetic, poetic value, but that metaphor is her means of understanding

the world around her. We can see this in the way that she brings these metaphors into conversation,

without giving any explanation for them, but rather speaking as if they are overt truths.

For example, she begins her very first conversation with Rubek by establishing that she

believes herself to be dead, not by announcing it, but with small remarks, in passing, as if the idea

that she is dead is self-evidently true. The first hint of this comes with the line “Because you are still

alive,” when Rubek asks why it is a “different matter” that she has recognised him immediately,

while he has had to guess in order to recall who she is, thus we as the reader can infer this to mean

that Irene herself is not still alive (Ibsen, 2014, p. 253, italics in the original). This also begins the

introduction of her character by establishing a split between them: in essence, Irene has changed,

Rubek has not. This is followed swiftly by her comment that Maja is someone Rubek has found !41

“after my lifetime” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 253). Rubek’s inquiries about the meaning behind her language

are ignored — “After your — ? What do you mean by that, Irene?” He asks, but she quickly moves

on to asking about the sculpture — their “child” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 252). In fact, Rubek asks Irene

point-blank about the meaning of her words many times throughout the play, and she refuses to

acknowledge, perhaps even recognise, these questions — maybe because these questions mean as

little to Irene as Irene’s poeticism means to Rubek.

Most of Irene’s metaphorical language is fixated on the binary between the living and the

dead, with insanity as a medium between them. We see this later in her first conversation with

Rubek, when she speaks about the men she’s been with, saying “I’ve been with men I could drive

insane . . . You, you were better at resisting,” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 255). Irene does not just mean to drive

men insane with desire, she means to literally drive them insane, to ultimately imbue them with the

same consciousness she herself has been awakened to. There is proof of this in what she says next,

about her first husband:

Irene: [Looks away with a stony smile] I drove him insane; mad — incurably mad, hopelessly mad. — It was extremely amusing, believe me — while it lasted. Could still be laughing to myself about it — if I had a self, that is. (Ibsen, 2014, p. 255, italics in the original).

And a few lines later:

Rubek: And where is he living now? Irene: Down in some churchyard somewhere. With a tall, impressive monument standing over him. And a lead bullet rattling around in his skull. Rubek: Did he kill himself? Irene: Yes. He was considerate enough to do it for me. (Ibsen, 2014, p. 255)

Irene, knowing the realms of insanity herself, wants to convert a man to the same insanity that she

has felt. But she has so far been unsuccessful in her attempt to ‘enlighten’ another in this way. The

callousness in her comments is not a result of apathy for the fact that she believes herself to be dead

— Irene is not nihilistic, there is still something she desires. The deep melancholy — indeed a sense

of disturbance — in her attitude comes from a frustration of standing at the helm of her poeticism

alone.

This sentiment resonates profoundly with Breton’s regard for the poetic imagination. On the

importance of poetic sensitivity in surrealism, he wrote the following:

!42

Man proposes and disposes. He and he alone can determine whether he is completely master of himself, that is, whether he maintains the body of his desires, daily more formidable, in a state of anarchy. Poetry teaches him to. It bears within itself the perfect compensation for the miseries we endure. (Breton, 1972, p. 18)

And further:

[This is] a matter of going back to the sources of the poetic imagination and, what is more, of remaining there. Not that I pretend to have done so. It requires a great deal of fortitude to try and set up one’s abode in these distant regions where everything seems at first to be so awkward and difficult, all the more so if one wants to try and take someone there. Besides, one is never sure of really being there. If one is going to all that trouble, one might just as well stop off somewhere else. Be that as it may, the fact is that the way to these regions is clearly marked, and that to attain the true goal is now merely a matter of the travelers’ ability to endure. (Breton, 1972, p. 18)

This plight of “setting up one’s abode” in these “distant regions” is, to some extent, Irene’s plight.

And perhaps more importantly, this feat mentioned by Breton of bringing someone along is also a

part of her strife. Perhaps this is her quest — to invest another with her miseries, and thereby string

them along into her poetic world. It is hard to judge how successful she has been by the end of the

play, or whether the idea of bringing another along into one’s very own subjective reality is even

feasible — perhaps it is ultimately a chimerical thought, and that is why in order to create a

semblance of achieving it, it must end in death.

Irene’s fixation on the death-metaphor surfaces through many claims: that her first husband

committed suicide, that she murdered another husband, and killed all of her children — would like

to kill her nurse: “She'll never lose sight of me — [whispers] until one fine sunny morning I kill

her” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 273). But we, and Rubek, can hardly discern whether and of this is literal, to

any degree, or all merely metaphor. When she claims to have killed her children, Rubek confronts

her: “There’s something hidden behind everything you say” but her response, “I can’t help that”

definitively acknowledges her own use of metaphor (Ibsen, 2014, p. 256, italics in the original).

Thus we see that Irene is perfectly conscious of her own use of metaphor, the distance between

herself and those who fail to see the poeticism with which she views the world. She is aware of her

insanity — her poeticism — and aware that it can be a powerful influence. She has driven men

insane, and wants to do the same with Rubek — to bring him to her distant poetic regions.

!43

As mentioned before, Rubek refuses to admit his sin to start with — “Rubek [defensively]: I

never committed any sin against you! Never, Irene!” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 257) — and has to pry at his

memory in order to discern who Irene is in the first place. It is after all peculiar that Rubek should

have any difficulty recalling Irene as the likely identity of the strange woman he’s seen wandering

the resort, being that she was a significant person in his life, and a collaborator in his greatest work,

and considering the mysterious manner in which she disappeared — but nonetheless he has trouble

putting the pieces together at first. You would think hearing of her northern accent would

immediately bring Irene to mind, but he struggles: “Rubek [stares fascinated into space and

whispers]: That too!” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 248). It is only once Maja mentions his models that he thinks

of Irene at all: “Maja [a little hurt and ill at ease]: Perhaps this lady modelled for you at some point,

Rubek? Think about it. / Rubek: [looks sharply at her] Model!” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 248). Yet by the

end of the third act, Rubek is traipsing to his death with Irene, exclaiming “All the powers of light

can look upon us. And of darkness too,” and calling Irene his “bride of grace” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 294).

It is a hasty change of heart, which takes place partly (and increasingly) in the territory of Irene’s

dreamy influence.

Irene begins to exert this influence by first breaking down Rubek’s bearing on what is

‘dream’ and what is reality. By using metaphor at every turn, she brings him to expect metaphor,

and in some sense to begin to understand it. His first acknowledgement of this is after she claims to

have killed her children, when he calls these claims (which we can safely assume to be metaphor)

lies:

Rubek [sternly]: Now you’re lying to me again! (Ibsen, 2014, p. 256)

In response to which she doubles down on the metaphor:

Irene: I killed them, I tell you. I murdered them, I can assure you . . . One after the other. (Ibsen, 2014, p. 256)

And so on. But the first real movement toward a change of heart is in the next line, which I have

mentioned before, when Rubek explicitly acknowledges that Irene’s words have illicit meanings:

Rubek [heavily, seriously]: There’s something hidden behind everything you say. (Ibsen, 2014, p. 256)

!44

At this moment, Irene admits to her metaphor, revealing the self-awareness of her poeticism, by

saying “I can’t help that” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 256, italics in the original). It is Rubek’s next response,

and Irene’s thereafter, that are truly telling about the direction in which the play is headed:

Rubek: I think I must be the only person who can guess at the meaning of this. Irene: You should be the only one. (Ibsen, 2014, p. 256)

Rubek has turned a corner, glimpsing the idea that he may be the one and only true interpreter of

Irene’s words, her metaphor, her dream. Irene has brought him to string up his own bait, and she

hooks him once and for all, essentially convincing Rubek that some vital information lies behind

her dreamy veil, and he is the only one that can bring it into the light.

At this point, Irene tries to spur Rubek to admit that he has sinned against her, and for a

while his own words dominate the conversation while he tries to explain his view on the matter.

Reminded of his reverence for Irene as the “origin of [his] creation” he begins to warm to the idea

of climbing the mountain with her (Ibsen, 2014, p. 259):

Rubek [tense, expectant]: Do you want to go up there? Irene: Do you have the courage to meet me one more time? Rubek [struggling, unsure]: If only we could — oh, if only we could — ! Irene: Why can’t we do what we want? (Ibsen, 2014, p. 259)

Irene has turned the idea of climbing the mountain, now a metaphor in its own right, into a test of

Rubek’s courage. She longs for him to be able to follow her into her own, surreal realms — but it is

a feat that, whether objectively or purely in Irene’s eyes, requires courage — to use Breton’s word,

fortitude (Breton, 1972, p. 18). And further than that, it is a matter of freedom; the simple, essential

notion of doing what one wants.

The idea that there is some special connection between Rubek and Irene continues to grow

within him, until his conversation with Maja in Act 2, when Maja confronts him: “You’re thinking

about the pale lady again!” And he responds: “To be honest I think about her incessantly. Ever since

I met her all over again” — thus we can see that Rubek’s infatuation with Irene is a new

development in his life, not based on their past together but on what has transpired since Irene’s

reemergence (Ibsen, 2014, p. 270). He then makes the following bold confession to Maja about

himself and Irene:

!45

Rubek: [thumps his chest] You see, in here — I have a tiny little casket, with an unpickable lock. All my visions are kept in that casket. But when she went away, vanished quite without trace, the lock jammed shut. She had the key — and she took it with her. — You, little Maja, you didn’t have any keys, did you? That’s why everything is lying unused inside there. And the years are passing! And it’s impossible for me to get at the treasure. (Ibsen, 2014, p. 270)

This claim of Rubek’s, that Irene possesses the sole key to all his locked-away visions,

arises quite abruptly, and in vast retrospect, too much so to feel genuine. Not only is it idealistic, but

it seems to be a direct outcome of Irene’s sudden influence — and in this sense, there is some truth

in Rubek’s metaphor, but not in the way he imagines. Irene has provided the key to unlock his

“visions” — her unbridled poeticism has made him feel permitted to express his rash, idealistic

thoughts, and to finally vent his feelings of blame against his young wife. Such an outburst is

generally ill-advised, but Irene’s presence — her ‘Why can’t we do what we want?’ sentiment —

has begun to make him feel freed from whatever trepidations have hitherto held him back from

expressing these grievances. Irene has introduced, as a real possibility, the notion that one may

break free from the constraints of mundanity — that there may after all be something beyond.

This idea, that there is a way to triumph over ordinary life and pursue one’s desires, is a

fundamental notion of surrealist philosophy. Breton, on the topic of forging a surrealist mindset,

after all wrote the following: “Man proposes and disposes. He and he alone can determine whether

he is completely master of himself, that is, whether he maintains the body of his desires, daily more

formidable, in a state of anarchy. Poetry teaches him to” (Breton, 1972, p. 18). Rubek, duped by the

trappings of his own idealism, has fallen short of “mastering himself” and thus makes the perfect

prey for Irene’s enticing poeticism, just as Irene’s innocence was once the perfect prey for Rubek’s

own cynicism.

The next breakthrough in Irene’s influence over Rubek comes shortly after his ‘confession’

to Maja in the previous excerpt. He is again alone with Irene, and the two reach a discussion about

“shadows” which unfolds in the following lines:

Rubek [tries to calm her]: There, there, there — We all have to have a shadow. Irene: I am my own shadow. [In an outburst] Don’t you understand that? Rubek [heavily]: Yes, yes, Irene — I do understand. [. . .] Irene [after a short pause]: Why are you sitting there turning your eyes away from me?

!46

Rubek [softly, shaking his head]: Don’t dare — don’t dare look at you. Irene: Why don’t you dare to any longer? Rubek: You have a shadow that torments you. I have my heavy conscience. Irene [with a joyfully liberating scream]: At last! Rubek [jumps up]: Irene, what is it! Irene: Gently, gently, gently, now! . . . Look! They’ve let me go. Just this once. — Now we can sit down and talk the way we used to — in life. (Ibsen, 2014, p. 273, italics in the original)

Whether or not it is consciously intentional, there is some level of manipulation taking place here

on Irene’s part. We can sense her agitation, her desperation to be understood, and Rubek’s attempts

to abate her. She seems to want him to confirm her poetic assertion that she is her own shadow, and

this he does, after which she begins to calm.

The real moment of breakthrough comes with these lines: “Rubek: You have a shadow that

torments you. I have my heavy conscience. / Irene [with a joyfully liberating scream]: At

last!” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 273, italics in the original). This is the crucial instant in which Rubek both

expresses a true insight into Irene’s world, and offers a first inkling of his own guilt. He confirms

Irene’s use of metaphor by repeating it to her — “You have a shadow that torments you” — and

admits that he has a heavy conscience. This revelation, while subtle (it takes place with Rubek’s

back to Irene, as he refuses to look at her), is an absolute liberation for Irene — “At last!” she

exclaims with joy, declaring that some unseen forces have released their grip on her — “Look!

They’ve let me go. Just this once” — and opening up to Rubek: “Now we can sit and talk the way

we used to” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 273). Irene is palpably relieved by the feeling that she has been truly

understood, to some degree, even if it is due simply to her own interpretation of Rubek’s words.

This moment is, perhaps, proof to her that it is possible for her to make others perceive reality in the

same way that she herself does.

Now that Irene senses she is gaining some power over Rubek, she leans into it, and goes for

the very throat of his raison d’être: his idealism, his aestheticism, his identity as an artist. Rubek’s

attachment to his identity as an artist is seen in the way that he dismisses Maja for not sharing in

what he perceives to be his artistic or intellectual sensibilities, as well as his obsession with using

Irene as his muse. His regard for the “artist” label is reflection the following exchange with Maja, in

which she compares him to Ulfheim, the bear hunter:

Maja [laughs a little contemptuously]: Oh yes, always and eternally the artist, aren’t you? Rubek: And would really rather stay that way.

!47

Maja [rolls over on to her side, turning her back to him]: There’s not a whiff of the artist about him. Rubek [attentive]: Who’s not an artist? Maja [again in a sleepy voice]: You know — him, of course. Rubek: Oh, the bear shooter, you mean? Maja: Yes. Not a whiff of the artist there. Not a whiff! Rubek [smiles]: Yes, I do believe you are absolutely right there. (Ibsen, 2014, p. 264)

Rubek is apparently quite content to be contrasted against the bear hunter via the ‘artist’ label. He

expresses his self-image as artist once again, this time to Irene, in an attempt to defend his changes

to the sculpture: “I am an artist, Irene [. . .] I was born to be an artist, you see. — And I’ll never be

anything another [sic] than an artist” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 278, italics in the original). Just as his

refashioning of the Resurrection Day sculpture to represent himself in remorse is a vapid, purely

aesthetic attempt to resolve his own guilt (I will discuss this further in the next subchapter), Rubek’s

need to be viewed as an artist is an aesthetic fixation on identity. Because it separates him from true

imagination by confining him to a purely aesthetic concern, this attachment to his identity as ‘artist’

is the crux of what separates him from the surrealist mindset, so it must be dismantled if Irene is

going to fully persuade him of her vision. She takes on this task in the following lines:

Irene [cold, as before]: I’ll tell you one thing, Arnold. Rubek: Yes? Irene: I never loved your art before I met you. — Nor since. Rubek: But the artist, Irene? Irene: I hate the artist. Rubek: The artist in me too? Irene: Above all in you. (Ibsen, 2014, p. 274)

And later, she digs into this point of hating the artist, saying: “ . . . because you were an artist, just

an artist — not a man!” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 275).

Rubek’s self-imposed identity as an artist is the monumental difference between himself and

Irene — it is has always placed distance between them, both literally and figuratively. Irene sees

“artist” as a sort of guise used by Rubek to justify his betrayal of her: “. . . you — . . . the artist who

so casually and thoughtlessly took a warm-blooded body, a young human life, and ripped the soul

from it — because you needed it to create a work of art” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 274). Rubek retorts with

evidence of Irene’s complicity: “How can you say that — you who with such radiant delight and

exalted passion gave yourself to my work?” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 274, italics in the original). Rubek

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remains evidently dumb to the fact that Irene “gave herself” believing not in the art itself but in the

essential idealist vision of it. This belief in the ideal translated into a love for the sculpture they

created together — but she does not love it as a sculpture, as a work of art, the way Rubek does —

she loves it as a child, as an outcome of their union, and as something that truly possesses a soul of

its own: “But that statue of wet, living clay, that I did love — because slowly emerging from those

raw, formless masses was a human child, with a soul — because that was our creation, our child.

Mine and yours” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 275, italics in the original). Albeit, Rubek again finds himself

convinced by her persistent poeticism, responding: “In spirit and in truth, it was” (Ibsen, 2014, p.

275).

3.4 Surrealist vs. Aesthete

The divide between Irene and Rubek, the wedge that separates them (the thing which

compels Irene to “hate the artist”), begs to be further investigated. Some scholars tend toward

grouping Rubek and Irene together as a team, with a common purpose. Toril Moi, for example, in

Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism, seems to see the two as having a united idealist vision:

“Rubek’s desperate wish for unity with a woman completely dedicated to his creative project [. . .]

makes him easy prey for Irene’s insane idealism: together they will ascend the mountain” (Moi,

2006, p. 323) Moi also draws a comparison between descriptions of Irene's “transfiguration” in

When We Dead Awaken to descriptions of Gregers in The Wild Duck, a known idealist: “Irene is

described as being ‘as if transfigured’. Is it possible that Ibsen has forgotten the irony with which he

described Gregers Werle waiting for the ‘light of transfiguration’ . . . ?” (Moi, 2006, p. 323).

I have already established my reasons for thinking it dismissive of Irene to consider her

insanity a symptom of idealism — and beyond that, there are many reasons to infer that Irene and

Rubek view their journey up the mountain in very different ways. I find the two to be fundamentally

and irreconcilably unalike in their points of view: Irene is a surrealist, while Rubek is an aesthete.

By taking a closer look at the details of this discrepancy — how aesthete and surrealist clash — I

will further illustrate how the surrealist attitude differs from the aesthetic attitude, and how this

helps to reveal the overall meaning of the play.

Rubek does express a certain degree of idealism, but his obsession with giving form to the

ideal through art suggests a stronger inclination toward ‘aesthete.’ Further, his primary concern is

not the art itself, but his own self-perception and projected identity as ‘artist.’ When he alters the !49

statue to depict himself in remorse, it is because he is fixated on the aesthetic principle of

‘remorseful artist’ — and entertained by the thought of this being his own portrayal. When Irene

berates him for this, calling him “poet!” as if it is a slur, she is condemning this shallow fixation on

appearances, and says as much herself:

“. . . you are apathetic and spineless and full of self-indulgent forgiveness for everything that you have done or thought in your life . . . you go modelling yourself as a figure of regret, remorse and penance — [smiles] — and by doing this you settle your account, or so you think.” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 278)

Even Rubek’s attempt to show remorse is purely aesthetic — he cannot seem to understand it in any

other way. He is only able to show remorse through a profoundly aesthetic gesture which places

himself at the centre (his metaphor of locked-away visions, too, is both self-centred and focused on

his ability to make art), making no attempt to actually empathise.

Further evidence that Rubek is concerned mainly with aesthetics is found in his refusal to

acknowledge his own sin. When confronted by Irene in the first act, he fervently denies his

culpability: “I never committed any sin against you!” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 257). He then calls his idealist

view of the young Irene a “superstition” — “that if I desired you sensually, my mind would be

profaned and I would not be able to complete what I strived to create. — I still believe there is some

truth in that” (Ibsen 2014, p. 258, italics added). This refusal to accept responsibility for his

treatment of Irene, and his focus on the ‘truth’ of his idealism, shows that Rubek’s main concern has

always been, and continues to be, art — feeling self-assured in the substance of his own artistic

vision and his identity as an artist.

This can be seen also in his attitude toward his wife. Maja is no shallow soul — she is the

first to sense something amiss in the air and perhaps foresee Irene’s arrival, when she speaks of

hearing the silence: “There was noise and disquiet enough in town. But even so — I thought that

noise and disquiet had something dead about it” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 240). It is not only the silence she

perceives — it is lifelessness. Maja is perhaps a major truth-teller of the play, yet rather than being

open to Maja’s unique insights despite their difference to his own idea of intellectuality, Rubek sees

what she is not, in the context of his perceived self-importance. Absorbed by a sort of purist faith in

the role of ‘artist’, he must look down upon all that is not ‘artist’ in his eyes: “And let me tell you

this, little Maja: you’re not really built for mountaineering” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 245).

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Ironically, Rubek himself is not equipped to generate actual poeticism, because he is too

fixated on appearances; it is rather Irene who brings true poetic dialogue into the picture, and will

introduce Rubek to actual “mountaineering” — at once literal and figurative. The difference with

which Rubek and Irene perceive and understand some of the most central images of the play is

incredibly telling. This is made explicit in the dialogue that takes place between them while they are

watching the sun set:

Rubek: I haven’t seen sunset on the mountains for a long time. Irene: A sunrise, then? Rubek: I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sunrise. Irene [smiles as though lost in memory]: I once saw a wonderfully beautiful sunrise. Rubek: Did you? Where was that? Irene: High, high up on a dizzying mountain peak. — You lured me up there and promised that I would see all the glory of the world, as long as I just — [Suddenly breaks off.] Rubek: As long as you just — ? What? Irene: I did as you said. Followed you up to the heights. And there I fell to my knees — and worshipped you. And served you. That’s when I saw the sunrise. Rubek: [changing the subject] Wouldn’t you like to travel with us and live in our villa down there? (Ibsen, 2014, p. 281)

Here we can see that Irene genuinely ascribes meaning to the image of the sunset. Her poetic

sensibility has the power to attach meaning to things, and these symbols stick with her, like pieces

she is putting together to build her world — beacons lighting the way — she turns even water lilies

into swans. This, of course, is what makes her the surrealist counterpart to Rubek’s aesthete.

Rubek, on the contrary, ascribes so little meaning to the image of the sunrise — a symbol of

his own invention — that he cannot even recall with certainty whether he has ever seen a sunrise at

all, just as he had forgotten in the first act that he made this same metaphorical promise to Maja as

he once made to Irene: “Did I really promise you that too?” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 244, italics in the

original). His amnesia is revealing of the fact that this attempt at poeticism was again merely for the

sake of appearance — a shallow beauty with the impression of poetry — and was actually always

devoid of meaning for him. When Irene is generous enough to share with him the deep meaning this

image holds for her, as a symbol of her love for him — “I fell to my knees — and worshipped you.

And served you. That’s when I saw the sunrise”— (and as a result of his own waxing-poetic

design), all that he can bring himself to do in response is to change the subject back to the topic of

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his art, as he suggests that Irene comes to live with him and once again serve as his muse: “just as in

our creative days. Unlock everything that’s locked up inside me” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 281). Irene, of

course, knows that this would not be satisfactory — “Empty dreams,” she responds, “Pointless —

dead dreams” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 281).

I have mentioned before that Irene’s poetic attachment to certain images and objects is a part

of the surreality of the play — now I will take a look at her relationship with Rubek’s sculpture, and

how the image of this sculpture has a surreal nature. Breton’s idea of the surrealist image is that of

an image which presents itself to the mind spontaneously, and without the control of reason (Breton,

1972, p. 36). Quoting Baudelaire, he compares the nature of such images to the nature of drug-

induced images, or “opium images”: “man does not evoke them; rather they ‘come to him

spontaneously, despotically. He cannot chase them away, for the will is powerless and no longer

controls the faculties’” (Breton, 1972, p. 36, Baudelaire quoted by Breton, 1972, p. 36). Breton

gives the example of an image which occurred to him randomly while half-asleep: that of a man

walking upright, cut in half at the waist by a window pane; he wrote the following about his

experience of this image:

I took cursory note of it and prepared to move on when its organic character caught my attention [. . .] I realised that I was dealing with an image of a fairly rare sort, and all I could think of was to incorporate it into my material for poetic construction. No sooner had I granted it this capacity than it was in fact succeeded by a whole series of phrases, with only brief pauses between them, which surprised me only slightly less and left me with the impression of their being so gratuitous that the control I had then exercised upon myself seemed to me illusory and all I could think of was putting an end to the interminable quarrel raging within me. (Breton, 1972, pp. 21-22)

Thus two major characteristics of the surrealist image are stated: the organic, almost autonomous

manner in which it presents itself, and its ability to open the door for other such images to make

their way in.

These images, given the gravity they possess, are not purely fantastical but rather seem

anchored to reality by a sort of correspondence they carry on with some deeply obscured part of

ourselves. As in the case of this example given by Breton, the self-possessed way these images grip

us can even be a source of frustration, because they escape our inclination to have conscious control

over what we regard as meaningful — in other words, the lack of reason in these images, despite the

fact that they are born out of our own minds, may cause us to feel insane (Breton, 1972, p. 22). This

quite clearly relates back to Irene, and the fact that her poetic, nonsensical assertions cause her to be !52

deemed insane and institutionalised. Her attachment to Rubek’s sculpture is so strong that she

nearly kills him over it, pulling a knife out of her dress while his back is turned, upon hearing that

he has made alterations to it:

Irene: . . . you’ve moved me back, slightly paler — as a kind of background figure — in a group. She pulls out the knife. [sic] Rubek: Not a background figure, no. At worst let’s call it a mid-ground figure — something of the sort. Irene: . . . Now you have passed judgement on yourself. [She is about to strike him.] Rubek [turns and looks up at her]: Judgement? Irene [hides the knife quickly . . .] (Ibsen, 2014, p. 277)

Thus for Irene the sculpture is not an image of purely aesthetic value, indeed it is anchored to

reality, and its fate has real life consequences for her. Its meaning is such that she is ready to

commit murder in order to avenge it.

For Irene, the sculpture is a living child she shares with Rubek. This may have its origin in

the way she and Rubek used to speak of the sculpture, when they were working on it together:

“Rubek [smiles as though in a distant recollection]: Our child? Yes, that’s what we called it — at

the time” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 253). As such, it is the one remaining subject of her love. When

announcing to Rubek that she never loved his art, she says the following: “But that statue of wet,

living clay, that I did love — because slowly emerging from those raw, formless masses was a

human child” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 275, italics in the original). But it also contains her soul: “My entire

soul — you and I — we, we, we — and our child were in that lonely figure” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 277).

Thus has the sculpture become imbued with actual life for Irene — she sees it as a living

child, and as her child it contains within it her soul. The sculpture is her last remaining connection

to “the love which is of this world”, her last remaining source of hope — she desperately wishes for

it to depict her under the “transfiguring joy of light” (Ibsen, 2014, pp. 293, 277). This ability of the

image to seize one’s absolute belief is a marker of the surrealist image — Irene’s interpretation of

her own life is now fundamentally tangled up with the statue. Breton the following of the surrealist

image:

By slow degrees the mind becomes convinced of the supreme reality of these images. At first limiting itself to submitting to them, it soon realises that they flatter its reason, and increase its knowledge accordingly. The

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mind becomes aware of the limitless expanses wherein its desires are made manifest. (Breton, 1972, p. 37).

Made into a surrealist image in its own right, it is as if the life of the sculpture immediately

determines Irene’s own fate, and not only as a symbolic (nor aesthetic) gesture, but through her

genuine belief in the reality of the consequences it holds regarding her life.

3.5 Other Surreal Images

Irene’s surreal use of images is not limited to the sculpture — I have mentioned the poetic

image of the sunrise, as well as her affinity for speaking of murder and death. As Rubek himself

stated in the first act, there is very much “something hidden” behind everything Irene says (Ibsen,

2014, p. 256). This is because, through her transformation from youthful idealist to the ‘insane’

woman she appears as in the play, she has replaced the use of ordinary language with her own code

of poetic images, forcing others to try and keep up or else completely miss out on the meaning of

her words.

The sunrise, too, has a certain surreal effect, in that it not only serves as a metaphor but it

culminates in real-life consequences, including the characters’ deaths. This is the image which for

Irene has come to be emblematic of her sacrifice to Rubek, and the enlightenment she ultimately

experienced as a result of this sacrifice. This metaphor can be tracked throughout the play, from its

conception to its fate — it was created by Rubek, and ultimately sees him dead. Thus the image is

not simply poetic, it is tied to palpable reality — this new dimension, beyond the simply

metaphorical, is what gives it its surreality. Rubek used the metaphor of watching sunrise from a

mountaintop as a sort of romantic lure for Irene, promising to show her the “glory of the

world” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 244). His denial of their love converted this image into one of fate — the

mountaintop, glowing in the sunrise, becomes the place where the two of them will go to die.

3.6 Eclipsed by the Surreal

When We Dead Awaken’s surrealism is not limited to Irene’s character — the play itself,

atmospherically and through a foreboding element in certain examples of dialogue, exhibits

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generally surreal qualities. I have discussed the behaviour and dialogue of Irene, but the sense of

surrealism that she carries is not limited to her own actions. Her aura, which hints at the realm of

death and dreams, bleeds into the atmosphere of the play and is actually sensed by the other

characters — she brings the surreal realm with her into the realm of ordinary life. This realm of the

ordinary is seen to be increasingly subsumed by the surreal, until it is perhaps finally eclipsed, in

the climactic moment of Rubek’s and Irene’s death (also the moment that Maja is “set free”). The

surreal does not only seduce Rubek — it seduces the entire world of the play.

The first evidence of this is found in the dialogue between Maja and Rubek during the first

act, before Irene’s entrance into the play. Maja relates to Rubek that she is disturbed by the lack of

noise around them:

Maja [sits for a while as though expecting the professor to say something. She then lets her newspaper fall and sighs]: Oh no, no — ! Rubek [looks up from his newspaper]: Now, what’s the matter with you, Maja? Maja: Just listen how silent it is here. Rubek [smiles indulgently]: You can hear that, can you? Maja: What? Rubek: The silence? Maja: Yes, I most certainly can. Rubek: You might be right, mein Kind. You really can hear the silence. Maja: Yes, God knows you can. When it’s as utterly overwhelming as it is here, then — Rubek: As here at the spa, you mean? Maja: I mean everywhere here at home. There was noise and disquiet enough in town. But even so — I thought that noise and disquiet itself had something dead about it. (Ibsen, 2014, p. 239)

While this may be, first and foremost, Maja’s way of communicating her discontentment to her

husband, it is also somewhat of a moment of clairvoyance on her part. Rubek’s initially dismissive

attitude, as he “smiles indulgently” and remarks that “You can hear that, can you?”, and his

subsequent change of heart as he suddenly decides that there is some validity to her observation,

indicates that Maja actually has a particularly keen sense for whatever is represented by the

“silence.”

As soon as Maja mentions that the “noise and disquiet” had also “something dead about it,”

it becomes clear that she is not actually speaking of silence, but of a certain feeling of lifelessness in

the atmosphere. This may be read as a harbinger of Irene’s reemergence; her presence — bringing

surreality, and ultimately death — has drifted in before her, like a fog. This foreboding of death and

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dreaminess pervades the rest of the conversation, as Maja and Rubek talk about their experience on

the train ride to the resort:

Rubek: It reminds me of that night we travelled up here on the train — Maja: But you were just sitting in the compartment sleeping. Rubek: Not all the time. I noticed how silent it became when we stopped at all the little stations —. I heard the silence — just like you, Maja — (Ibsen, 2014, p. 241, italics in the original)

And later:

Rubek: [. . .] the train would stop and wait at all the little stations, even though there were no passengers. Maja: Why did it wait for so long, when there was nothing there? Rubek: Don’t know. No passengers left the train, no one boarded. And even so, the train would wait an endlessly long time [. . .] I heard two railway workers walking along the platform [. . .] and talking to each other, out in the night, their voices subdued and toneless, saying nothing. (Ibsen, 2014, p. 241, italics in the original)

Rubek’s description of the railway workers walking along the platform and speaking, yet “saying

nothing,” and the train stopping at every station, waiting for no one, is eerie enough that it is easy to

imagine Rubek was in actuality sleeping the whole time, and this image is literally from a dream.

This is much like his first sighting of Irene wandering the grounds at night, which Maja insists was

just a dream — “For heaven’s sake, Rubek, it’s just as I said to you this morning — you’ve been

dreaming” — until she sees Irene with her own eyes (Ibsen, 2014, p. 246). Thus, already in the first

act there is some ambiguity regarding what is dream and what is reality.

This image is also indicative of the air of ‘lifelessness’ described by Maja — the train is

stopping, but no one boards; the workers are speaking, but not saying anything. In a sense, the

eeriness of this scene seems to come from its apparent meaninglessness or nonsensical quality —

why stop the train at “all the little stations” if no one gets on or off? How is it possible to speak and

say nothing? It is the kind of scene that one imagines taking place at the threshold between two

worlds — in one of these worlds, the happenings of the other make no sense. This is, again, early

evidence of surrealism in the play.

In the third and second acts, other characters’ language begins to show signs of poeticism.

While Rubek and Irene are on their way up the mountain, they happen upon Maja and Ulfheim.

During their exchange, Maja proclaims to Rubek that she is “finally free”:

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Maja [comes closer]: I want to put life in place of everything else. Rubek [teasingly]: Really, little Maja, is that what you want too? Maja: Yes. And I’ve made up a song that goes like this [sings and exults]: I am free! I am free! I am free! Prison life’s over for me! I’m free as a bird! I am free! Yes, because I believe I’ve woken up now — finally! Rubek: It almost seems you have. Maja [breathes deeply]: Oh — how divinely light it feels to be awake! Rubek: Goodnight, Maja — and good luck — (Ibsen, 2014, p. 282, italics in the original)

Here it appears that Maja, who generally steers clear of the artistic bent in language which she

dislikes in Rubek, is uncharacteristically poeticising her language, to a degree. Further, it would

seem that she is using a metaphor which will later be adopted by Irene — that of being ‘awake’ or

awakened to something. Due to this particular metaphor, there is also a sense of foreboding in her

words, regarding what will take place between Rubek and Irene later.

More prophetic (and metaphoric) language comes from the unlikely source of Ulfheim. This

moment takes place at the highest point of the mountain reached by the characters, as a storm is

approaching. Just before Ulfheim and Maja part ways with Rubek and Irene due to the dangerous

weather, the following dialogue ensues:

Ulfheim [points across to the ravine]: Did you come up that path there? Rubek: Yes; you saw us. Ulfheim: The strange lady as well? Rubek: Of course. [Glances at Maja] From now on the strange lady and I no longer propose to take different paths. Ulfheim: Don’t you know the way you came up, it’s a deadly path — ? Rubek: We tried it even so. Because it didn’t seem so bad to begin with. Ulfheim: No, to begin with nothing seems difficult. But then you can get to an awkward spot where you can’t see your way forward or back. So you’re stuck there, professor! Wedged like a rock, as we hunters say. Rubek [smiles and looks at him]: Words of wisdom, I take it? Ulfheim: Words of wisdom, from me? Not bloody likely. (Ibsen, 2014, p. 291)

Here, Ulfheim’s statement about the dangerous path, and the possibility of getting stuck on the

mountain, appears to be at the very least figurative. It would seem that this “awkward spot” on the

mountain, where one cannot go forward nor return, is a perfect description of the spiritual and

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physical peril in which Rubek and Irene find themselves at the end of the play. However this

dialogue would also appear to be a moment of meta-theatricality, in that Ulfheim is not cognisant of

his metaphor — it is rather a prophetic voice speaking through him which forebodes of Rubek’s and

Irene’s death. It is as if the higher the characters go up the mountain, the more figurative and surreal

they become. Perhaps it is the force of the surreal realm — Irene’s world, the world of dreams,

death, and poeticism — that is speaking through Ulfheim and Maja.

3.7 The Metaphor of the Eye

Finally, a concept which is relevant to a surreal reading of When We Dead Awaken, and

which specifically pertains to my analysis of Irene’s poeticism thus far, is Roland Barthes’s notion

that a narrative may be centred around an object, rather than a person or character. This idea was put

forth by Barthes in his essay, titled “The Metaphor of the Eye,” which is an analysis of Georges

Bataille’s surrealist novel Story of the Eye. Barthes proposes that while there are many characters

who take part in the narrative of Bataille’s novella, the story is actually the story of an object — in

this case, an “eye”, as Bataille’s title would suggest (Barthes, 1979, p. 119). However, Barthes

explains that the object is not limited to a single form, but may be translated from one image to

another — its intactness depends on the imagination that conceives of it (Barthes, 1979, p. 119):

Story of the Eye is really the story of an object. How can an object have a story? Well, it can pass from hand to hand, giving rise to the sort of tame fancy authors call The History of my Pipe or Memoirs of an Armchair, or alternatively it can pass from image to image, in which case its story is that of a migration, the cycle of the avatars it passes through, far removed from its original being, down the path of a particular imagination that distorts it but never drops it. This is the case with Bataille’s book. (Barthes, 1979, p. 119, italics in the original)

Barthes (1979, pp. 119-121) explains that in Story of the Eye, the object “eye” passes through many

of these “avatars” which may or may not bear some physical resemblance to one another: a saucer

of milk, an egg, the removed testicles of a castrated bull, and so on. The result is a chain of objects

linked together by nonspecific associations left largely to the imagination of the beholder —

Barthes describes this as follows:

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[. . .] the sphere of metaphor within which the whole of Story of the Eye moves, from the cat’s saucer of milk to the putting-out of [the bull-fighter]’s eye and the castration of the bull (producing “glands the size and shape of eggs, and of pearly whiteness, faintly bloodshot, like that of the globe of the eye”). (Barthes, 1979, p. 121)

However, I would suppose that it is not any object which is of any gravity in the case of such a

narrative, but the notion expressed behind the thing — the metaphysical substance which is evoked

by the original object as well as the “avatars” that follow it. This substance, again, is not made

explicit, but is dependent on the particular associations of the imagination it strikes against (Barthes,

1979, p. 119).

This concept of Barthes’s, and the notion that an object can translate from one image to

another through the subjective imagination of the beholder, perhaps originates in Breton’s Manifesto

of Surrealism. Breton’s idea of surrealism was that the subjective imagination may be reanimated to

transform and elevate the way one perceives the world by, among other things, interpreting our

experiences through the generation of surrealist images (Breton, 1972, pp. 3-47). Barthes’s concept

expands on this notion of the surreal image by suggesting that the image or object may perform its

own narrative by translating itself, through the beholder’s imagination, into different images

(Barthes, 1979, pp. 119-127).

While it seems natural to view When We Dead Awaken as the story of Rubek, or perhaps

Rubek and Irene, I believe that it is possible to read it as — at least in part — the type of narrative

described by Barthes. It is not only a story about people, it is also the story of a concept, a concept

which is given form through various images. This concept may be roughly defined as the concept of

true love between human beings; I am reminded of Toril Moi’s statement that Ibsen saw the “every

day” realm as a place where one takes on the task of “building meaningful human

relationships” (Moi, 2006, p. 89). It is difficult to say with certainty which image in the play is the

original “avatar” of this essential concept, but the death-metaphor seems like a reasonable place to

begin, as it is referenced in the title. Death bears a certain connection to love in the play because it

is experienced as a consequence of love twice: once when Irene endures what she considers a death

as a result of her failed love with Rubek, and again at the moment that the two become truly

reunited in a quest to reclaim the love between them; Rubek exclaims that they will “celebrate

[their] marriage feast” at the top of the mountain — where they are actually going to die (Ibsen,

2014, p. 294).

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It is possible to view the Resurrection Day sculpture as the first image to serve as avatar for

the death-metaphor, as it represents Irene’s first death — the death of her innocence. Irene’s life —

her “entire soul” — is entrapped in the sculpture (Ibsen, 2014, p. 277). It represents yet another

death when Rubek changes it, and Irene considers this to be the death of their child.

Part of Irene’s fantasy involving the sculpture is that it will represent her with “the

transfiguring joy of light . . . still shining across [her] face” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 277). This image of

light is also a fundamental part of the story’s “sphere of metaphor” — it translates into the sunrise at

the top of the mountain, the place that Rubek and Irene attempt to go in order to be together in the

morning light; it is in the light that they will die. Thus the image of light, the “joy of light”

described by Irene also houses the death-metaphor, as well as being linked to the notion of pure

love, because it represents the possibility of their reunion and the resurrection of their love. This

image of light is also juxtaposed against the image of shadow, in the form of Irene’s nun-nurse,

whom Irene claims “goes around practising witchcraft” and has “transformed herself into [Irene’s]

shadow” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 273). And as Irene and Rubek perish on the mountain, it is the nun-nurse

who stands below, as the sole witness of their death:

Sister of Mercy [utters a scream, stretches out her arms to them as they fall and cries]: Irene! [She stands for a while, silent, then makes the sign of the cross in the air in front of her, and says] Pax vobiscum! (Ibsen, 2014, p. 294)

When Irene and Rubek have vanished, it is the ‘shadow’ alone that remains standing, while the light

is absent.

Essentially, the images of When We Dead Awaken fit Barthes’s concept of the “traveling

object” in that they are vaguely linked by certain associations, and they carry this concept of true

love through its evolution, to its realisation in the moment of death. The Resurrection Day sculpture

is echoed through the nun-nurse as a female form (the nun-nurse, dressed in black and perhaps

representing sickness, like a perversion of the female form as depicted in the likeness of young

Irene — they are connected through the juxtaposition of light and shadow), and the “transfiguring

light” becomes the metaphor of the sunrise, which ultimately brings Rubek and Irene to their death.

The concepts of true love and death are ultimately connected, even conjoined, because Irene’s

poeticism entails that they must die in order to realise their love — that they can only “see what is

irredeemably lost” once they “dead awaken” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 283). These images are connected by

associations that are ultimately generated by the subjective imagination, thus they are irrational, but

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meaningful at the same time — like Breton’s surrealist image of a man cut in half by a window

(Breton, 1972, p. 21).

By understanding the play this way, we find that some of its nonsensical or perplexing

elements can actually be interpreted as deeply meaningful, as in the case of Irene’s insanity, and the

main characters’ sudden death, which takes place precisely at their moment of utmost joy. If we

view the story as the story of love, as told through a chain of poeticised images, rather than the story

of any particular person or character, we may see the characters and their death as (rather than the

subjects of their own narrative) components of this ulterior narrative. In a sense, they are

dispensable, as vehicles for the message of true love. This interpretation of the story alleviates their

sudden death of its perplexing quality. It also is in alignment with the play’s moments of meta-

theatricality, such as Ulfheim’s warning to Irene and Rubek about their dangerous path. All images

and characters of the play are puppets, or “avatars’” for the true-love message, and are therefore of

a purely metaphorical or symbolic value.

3.8 In Conclusion

It is ultimately the character of Irene who acts as the main crux between Ibsen’s play and

surrealism. By considering Toril Moi’s analysis of Irene as an idealist like Rubek, I have concluded

that to consider Irene as beholden to idealism is to dismiss the poeticism of her actions and words.

And by investigating the origin of her greatest plights — Rubek’s idealist sin against her — I have

found that the real reason for her misery is the betrayal of her innocence. Thus, I have concluded

that in order to heal herself in the wake of this betrayal, Irene brings forth the dream into reality —

her way of viewing the world and communicating with others through irrationalism and metaphor is

in alignment with Breton’s idea of bringing forth the dream into reality (Breton, 1972, p. 14). Irene

projects meanings of subjective significance onto the outer world, and acts in accordance.

I have found that Irene appears further surreal in an analysis of her character contrasted

against that of Rubek. To conduct this analysis I have defined the two characters’ differing attitudes

as that of the surrealist, and that of the aesthete. Rubek, lacking the innate poetic understanding that

Irene possesses, yet attached to the title of ‘artist,’ is fixated on aesthetics that are devoid of any

truly poetic sentiment. Irene’s ability to poeticise is what distinguishes her from the aesthete, and

further makes her a surrealist, capable of augmenting reality through sheer imagination.

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I have also found in this chapter that further surreal elements are present in the general

atmosphere of the play. Irene seems to bring the force of surrealism with her, and this force slowly

overtakes the world of the play, as other characters begin to exhibit a certain poeticism of their own.

As Irene’s surrealism gradually becomes an influence over Rubek, a sense of surrealism also

eclipses the play as a whole, culminating in the avalanche that buries the two main characters.

Finally, in this chapter I have found that it is possible to view When We Dead Awaken

through the lens of Roland Barthes’s surreal notion that a narrative may centre around an object that

is transferred through several images, rather than centring around a character, or multiple characters

(Barthes, 1979, p. 119). This is a surreal idea because it depends on the subjective interpretations of

the imagination that beholds it — it is irrational to suggest, as Barthes (1979, pp. 119-127) does,

that an eye may become an egg, but the subjective imagination may hold certain associations which

link the two objects together. Similarly, the image of a “transfiguring joy of light” which shines

across the face of Rubek’s sculpture, is translated into the morning light at the top of the mountain

(Ibsen, 2014, p. 277). This concept of Barthes’s offers more evidence that certain images found in

When We Dead Awaken are of a surreal nature.

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Chapter 4: Henrik Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken and André Breton’s Nadja

4.1 Nadja and Irene

In this chapter I will discuss the similarities between When We Dead Awaken and Breton’s

1928 surrealist novel Nadja. While Breton’s manifesto offers a theoretical framework through

which to analyse the play, it does not establish what a surreal character or persona may look like in

a text. Therefore, in this chapter I will use Nadja as a reference for the surreal feminine archetype

which I have discussed previously: the persona of Nadja from Nadja is perhaps the original surreal

feminine. As I will illustrate, there are many parallels between Nadja and Irene of When We Dead

Awaken. Each woman plays the role of romantic counterpart to a male protagonist, and further the

role of ‘irrational’ female figure who, using her irrationality, enlightens the male protagonist to

some kind of greater truth. In other words, each woman uses her innate understanding of the surreal

to influence her male counterpart.

Breton’s novel is based on his own real-life experiences, therefore Breton himself is the

main character of the story, which covers his relationship with a woman who calls herself Nadja.

Their relationship begins when he meets Nadja on the street, and her unorthodox appearance piques

his interest. Nadja is dressed in a unique way (Breton describes her as being “poorly dressed”) but it

is above all her manner of carrying herself that intrigues him (Breton, 1960, p. 64). He describes his

first sighting of her as follows: “She carried her head high, unlike anyone else on the sidewalk. And

she looked so delicate she scarcely seemed to touch the ground as she walked” (Breton, 1960, p.

64). And later: “I had never seen such eyes. Without a moment’s hesitation, I spoke to this unknown

woman . . . She smiled, but quite mysteriously and somehow knowingly, though I had no reason to

think so” (Breton, 1960, p. 64).

In this first description of Nadja we can see Breton’s fascination with the seemingly

fortuitous, meaningful nature of their meeting. For Breton, Nadja exudes an inborn kind of

mysticism — as if she can see more than meets the eye; there is already a feeling of destiny about

their relationship. This meeting transpires around a third of the way into the novel, and Breton has

already set up a framework of surrealist philosophy in which to view what will take place between

himself and Nadja. The first part of the novel covers a handful of incidents that Breton considers to

be of a surreal nature. His introduction to the poet Paul Eluard is an example of such an incident —

while at the theatre, a young man approaches Breton, mistaking him for a friend killed in the war;

few days later, via mutual friends Breton begins corresponding with a poet named Paul Eluard; !63

upon meeting Eluard in person, he sees that it is the same young man who had approached him at

the theatre (Breton, 1960. pp. 24-27). This type of coincidence, which hints at some deeper, hidden

(perhaps unconscious) connection between the otherwise seemingly unrelated or random events of

daily life, is a staple of the surreal.

The story of Breton’s romance with Nadja continues with anecdotal depictions of several

moments shared between the two of them. Breton is increasingly mesmerised by Nadja’s attitude

toward the world around her, her way of life, the things she shares with him and, perhaps most

importantly, the things she purposefully keeps mysterious. Breton’s sense of this knowingness

which he described seeing in Nadja upon their first meeting is a continuing theme — there are even

moments in which she displays an apparent ability for clairvoyance. On one occasion, in a strange

part of town, Nadja points to a dark window she has supposedly never seen and declares that it will

soon light up, and be red — to Breton’s amazement, exactly this happens, as the window lights up

and is seen to be covered by a red curtain (Breton, 1960, p. 83).

In theme with this penchant for a certain mysticism is Nadja’s use of poetic language and

generally metaphorical perspective on life. Reflecting on Nadja toward the end of the novel, Breton

offers some examples of her keen poeticism: “With the end of my breath, which is the beginning of

yours,” “If you desired it, for you I would be nothing, or merely a footprint,” and “I knew

everything, so hard have I tried to read in my streams of tears” (Breton, 1960, p. 115). Being

familiar with Irene’s own use of metaphor, it is difficult not to see the parallel between her way of

speaking — the irrationality, yet sharp beauty of her words — and these supposed statements from

Nadja. I will explore this in greater detail later on in the chapter.

The darker flip-side to Nadja’s poetic charm is her tragedy, her vulnerability. Breton’s initial

description of her eyes is telling: “What was so extraordinary about what was happening in those

eyes? What was it they reflected — some obscure distress and at the same time some luminous

pride?” (Breton, 1960, p. 65). Nadja is described throughout the novel as constantly being on the

verge of distress. It becomes quite obvious early on that in Nadja’s portrayal the reader is

witnessing the description of a woman who is, to some degree, mentally ill. By the end of his book,

Breton reveals that some time after ending his relationship with Nadja, he is informed that she has

been institutionalised, “after the eccentricities in which it seems she had indulged herself in the

hallways of her hotel” (Breton, 1960, p. 136).

This conclusion leaves Breton to grapple with the cusp between his beloved surrealism and

insanity. Nadja’s words, her unfettered approach to life, hold profound meaning for Breton despite

her insanity. This is to say, one of many conclusions to be drawn from Breton’s novel is that !64

irrationality is capable of its own meaning and beauty. His final tribute to the immensity of Nadja’s

character is perhaps seen here: “I have taken Nadja, from the first day to the last, for a free genius”

and:

I have seen her fern-coloured eyes open mornings on a world where the beating of hope’s great wings is scarcely distinct from the other sounds which are those of terror and, upon such a world, I had as yet seen eyes do nothing but close. (Breton, 1960, p. 111)

Thus is the surreal attitude — cherishing the possibility absolute freedom in the face of life’s

absurdities. In Nadja’s case, due to some perhaps as-yet obscured error, the price for this freedom

was insanity.

I agree with the assertions of Silvia Kadiu, who, in her article “Surrealism in André Breton’s

Nadja” writes that “Nadja’s ability to see beyond the realm of immediate reality and to recreate

herself into a chimerical figure makes her the archetype [. . .] of surrealist aesthetics” (Kadiu, 2014,

p. 2). She also mentions that Nadja “encapsulates the surrealist yearning for an emancipated mind

and for an unrepressed unconscious” (Kadiu, 2014, p. 2). These are the very qualities that make

Nadja a prime example of what I term the ‘surreal feminine’. By demonstrating that Irene shares

with Nadja these qualities which make her an embodiment of surrealist ideals, that Irene herself can

be understood as exemplary of the surreal feminine archetype, it becomes even more plausible to

understand When We Dead Awaken within a surreal context.

Both women seem connected to a deeper reality — fragmented between the palpable,

objective realm that we consider the sphere of daily life, and the realm of intuition and poetic

understanding. This is seen in the poetic, symbol-oriented way that both women communicate with

others and navigate the world around them. Each woman’s ability to connect with this poetic realm

has an enchanting effect on her male counterpart — artists Breton and Rubek. Yet the two romances

have very different, perhaps even opposite, endings, revealing a wide range of implications for the

ambitions of surrealism.

The perhaps most poignant surrealist thread seen in both Nadja and Irene is the tendency to

utilise images as symbols — the dream-images of surrealism. As I have discussed in detail in the

previous chapter, Irene took ordinary images, such as a sunrise or Rubek’s sculpture, and used them

as a means of communication and as a source or signifier of meaning in her life. Rubek’s sculpture,

for example, came to be synonymous with her very own life, her soul, and that of her metaphorical

child with Rubek; the image of the sunrise became synonymous with her devotion to Rubek. These

attributions of meaning are irrational, yet nonetheless real, at least for Irene.

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Nadja, too, generates such symbolic images. Breton expresses great esteem for Nadja’s

highly symbolic drawings, which he considers attributable to the surrealism of her general

character. It would seem that she uses her drawings to express the sentiments that rational language

fails to capture. Just in the way that Rubek initially has difficulty understanding Irene’s irrational

language, Breton often finds himself struggling to follow Nadja when she speaks. At one point

during their conversation, Nadja seemingly at random asks “Who killed the Gorgon, tell me, tell”

which prompts Breton to confess to the reader, “I have more and more difficulty following her

monologue, which long silences begin to make unintelligible” (Breton, 1960, p. 106). Yet, though

he is unable to relate to her words, Breton finds great value in the symbolism of Nadja’s

illustrations. One such illustration is that of what Nadja calls the “Lovers’ Flower” — a flower with

two sets of human eyes for petals, which seems to spring from the mouth of a snake (Breton, 1960,

p. 116). Breton wrote the following about this image:

Nadja has invented a marvellous flower for me: “the Lovers’ Flower.” It is during a lunch in the country that this flower appeared to her and that I saw her trying — quite clumsily — to reproduce it. She comes back to it several times, afterwards, to improve the drawing and give each of the two pairs of eyes a different expression. It is essentially under this sign that the time we spent together should be placed, and it remains the graphic symbol which has given Nadja the key to all the rest. (Breton, 1960, p. 116)

It is clear, through this description of Nadja’s continuous effort to perfect her drawing, that this

image holds great value for her in interpreting her relationship with Breton. It ultimately symbolises

for Breton, too, the entirety of their time spent together — he also sees it as the symbol which “has

given Nadja the key to all the rest” (Breton, 1960, p. 116). This comment, with room for

interpretation, seems to point to Breton’s theory, described in his manifesto, that the surreal image

holds the power to generate more and more surreal imagery (Breton, 1972, p. 22). This may also be

an indicator that Nadja’s mindset was becoming increasingly irrational.

Similarly to how Irene identifies with Rubek’s sculpture, Nadja attaches her own identity to

the image of Melusina, who she wishes to resemble to such a degree that, as Breton writes, she

“goes through the trouble of asking her hairdresser to arrange her hair in five strands as a pentagram

on her forehead” (Breton, 1960, p. 129). Though there is little mention of this figure otherwise, one

of Nadja’s many illustrations includes a depiction of herself as what Breton calls a “siren” (Breton,

1960, p. 122). It is safe to assume that there is a connection in this image of the siren to Melusina, a

mythical female figure often portrayed as having a fish’s tail.

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I have described Irene’s use of poeticism and symbolic imagery as indicators of surrealism,

and will now explore in greater detail how Nadja herself operates with a similar sense of poeticism,

which Breton considers to epitomise the ideas of his manifesto, describing her way of life as the

“extreme limit of the surrealist aspiration” (Breton, 1960, p. 74). Both women use images, which

they imbue with meaning through their own respective psyches, to understand, and communicate

with, the world around them — and both women toe the line of insanity due to this detachment, or

semi-detachment, from reality. In fact, one may consider the two stories of these women to be

inversions of each other: Nadja begins ‘free’ and ends up in an asylum, whereas Irene emerges from

an asylum and her story ends in death, perhaps a type of freedom. Their romances, too, are inverted;

Breton (though initially attracted to her mysterious character) slowly draws away from Nadja due to

her increasing insanity and ultimately separates from her completely, while Rubek is totally

consumed by Irene’s insanity, to the point of his own death.

Despite these differences, the innate sense of poeticism seen in both women is much the

same. Like Irene’s metaphorical description of herself as being dead, and her tendency to identify

with Rubek’s sculpture, Nadja embellishes her own identity with illusions and metaphors, and

presents herself to others through poetry and symbolism. Even her name — “Nadja” — which she

has given herself, is explicitly symbolic. When Breton meets Nadja for the first time and she tells

him her name, she immediately explains its meaning: “She told me her name, the one she had

chosen for herself: ‘Nadja, because in Russian it’s the beginning of the word hope, and because it’s

only the beginning’” (Breton, 1960, p. 66).

The poetic ambiguity of this explanation for her name is on theme with her tendency toward

elusive behaviour — much about Nadja is inconsistent or erratic, such as the fact that she will

appear one day dressed poorly and dishevelled, the next dressed rather meticulously and well-kept.

Her attitude toward Breton is likewise erratic; there is one moment when Breton sees her in town,

by chance, some few minutes before the two had agreed to meet at another location, and she admits

to having intended to dodge their meeting — Breton summarises this poetic sort of unpredictability

of her character as being “based . . . on the purest intuition alone and ceaselessly relying on

miracle” (Breton, 1960, p. 114).

When asked by Breton the simple question, “Who are you?” Nadja’s response speaks

volumes about her character and its aptitude for embodying the surreal: “I am the soul in

limbo” (Breton, 1960, p. 71). She is the soul that lives at the crossroads of subjective and objective,

of dream and reality. “Soul in limbo” is indeed an adequate title for Irene as well, whose entire role

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in the universe of her story is to function as the soul in limbo who convinces Rubek to cross over to

the ‘other side’; one may view Rubek and Irene’s death as a choice of dream over reality.

As I have mentioned before in this chapter, another way that Nadja shrouds herself in

metaphor is by identifying with the mythical figure of Melusina, to such a palpable degree that she

makes attempts to physically resemble the myth, as Breton describes:

Nadja has also represented herself many times with the features of Melusina, who of all mythological personalities is the one she seems to have felt closest to herself. I have even seen her try to transfer this resemblance to real life, insisting that her hairdresser spare no efforts to arrange her hair in five distinct strands in order to leave a star over her forehead. The strands must be coiled besides, to make ram’s horns in front of her ears, the spiral of such horns also being one of the motifs she most frequently related to herself. (Breton, 1960, p. 129).

This way of seeing the self as capable of transforming into a sort of alternative persona, or an

outright illusion, captures a certain sentiment of Breton’s surrealism. Silvia Kadiu explains this link

concisely as follows:

Nadja, the epitome of contingency and unpredictability, naturally becomes a bridge towards the marvellous for Breton, who insists both on her visionary abilities . . . and on her power to create a marvellous reality by imagining and reinventing herself as the legendary character of Melusina . . . Nadja’s ability to see beyond the realm of immediate reality and to recreate herself into a chimerical figure makes her the archetype and the artistic accomplishment of surrealist aesthetics. (Kadiu, 2014, p. 2)

Irene, too, embodies this ability to “recreate herself into a chimerical figure” which makes her an

“archetype” of the surrealist vision. By re-envisioning herself as dead (or as being past death) and

insisting that others acknowledge this subjective reality, she too is able to place herself outside of

ordinary reality.

This ability to create an alternate reality, and in a sense bypass real life, can also be seen, for

example, in the way that both Nadja and Irene speak vaguely and often nonsensically about their

individual pasts. Irene speaks of having killed husbands and children, and having been buried alive

by mysterious, unnamed perpetrators. Nadja also relates to Breton tall tales about events she has

experienced in her past, one of which he describes as follows:

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Who is the real Nadja — the one who told me she had wandered all night long in the Forest of Fontainebleau with an archaeologist who was looking for some stone remains which, certainly, there was plenty of time to find by daylight — but suppose it was this man’s passion! (Breton, 1960, p. 112)

By deconstructing what happened before, and refashioning it into poetry, metaphor and

extravagance, Irene and Nadja alike allow themselves to exist more freely and more subjectively;

they create themselves and their respective realities. They also create more at which to marvel —

their recreated selves functioning like Breton’s idea of the fairy tale for adults — “fairy tales still

almost blue” (Breton, 1972, p. 16).

This effort to raise oneself above ordinary reality, to recreate oneself or reimagine oneself in

order to explore the boundaries of reality, is a central surrealist idea — it exemplifies a disregard for

ordinary existence that is crucial to Breton’s surrealism. In Nadja, Breton at times flirts with a

politicised vision of surrealism, believing it to be a potential revolutionary act on the societal level.

In fact, just before laying eyes on Nadja for the first time, he describes the people on the street as

such: “I unconsciously watched their faces, their clothes, their way of walking. No, it was not yet

these who would be ready to create the Revolution” (Breton, 1960, p. 64). It is then that he notices

Nadja for the first time, and describes her as being markedly different from the rest: “She carried

her head high, unlike everyone else on the sidewalk” (Breton, 1960, p. 64). This introduction to

Nadja allows us to infer, already, that Nadja is a potential agent of the revolution Breton desires.

Silvia Kadiu makes the case that, for Breton, Nadja is “proof of the possibility of [surrealism’s]

political practice” and describes what makes her so, as follows (Kadiu, 2014, p. 3):

[Nadja’s] ability to transform the trivial into the marvellous and her limitless imagination and unconformity — all of these surrealist traits are important for Breton insofar as they stand for the possible disruption of bourgeois norms. (Kadiu, 2014, p. 3)

Irene’s likewise talent for “transforming the trivial into the marvellous” is seen not only in her belief

that she is dead, but in such moments as her childlike ability to reimagine flower petals as white

swans (Kadiu, 2014, p. 3).

In fact, both women’s use of images as symbols goes hand-in-hand with their ability to

reimagine themselves and life outside of the confines of the ordinary (or the bourgeois). If not led

solely by the demands of ordinary, practical life, one must go inward to find motivation for one’s

actions, a sense of direction — and thus project meaning outward on the physical realm, via the lens

of the inner eye, or the imagination (Breton, 1972, p. 4). This is the surrealist way of deriving !69

meaning from existence; a subtle example is Nadja’s habit of riding the metro, strictly for the

purpose of observing other people:

Yes, evenings, around seven, she likes to be in the Metro, second-class. Most of the people in the car with her have finished their day’s work. She sits down among them, and tries to detect from their expressions what they are thinking about. Naturally they are thinking about what they have left behind until tomorrow, only until tomorrow, and also what is waiting for them this evening, which either relaxes or else makes them still more anxious. (Breton, 1960, p. 68)

This habit of Nadja’s is not simply a bit unconventional — it is a sort of symbolic act. Whereas

riding the metro is usually an activity done out of pure practicality, Nadja makes it into a symbolic

gesture, doing it not because she has to, but because she wants to, and not for the ordinary reason of

needing a way home from work, but because she wants to imagine what others are thinking and

feeling. In this way, she transforms an everyday feature of the world around her into an

extraordinary experience, by projecting her own meaning onto it, for the purposes of her inner life.

This is the same sentiment with which both Nadja and Irene create symbols out of the things

they experience in the world around them. Nadja poeticises several images throughout the book,

turning them into emblems for her inner map of meaning. Her affinity for Melusina is perhaps one

example, but there are many others — such as the image of a hand on fire, suspended over the

water. This image translates into an advertisement which she and Breton see later on the street —

the outline of a red hand. It also translates into the image, or concept, of fire alone, which she

identifies with Breton; this is perhaps the most significant symbol of the book. She tells Breton that

“The hand of fire, it’s all you, you know” and later, as people turn their heads to look at Nadja and

Breton as they walk through town, “they can’t get over seeing us together. That’s how rare that fire

is in your eyes, and in mine” (Breton 1960, pp. 100, 106).

Nadja also creates symbols by drawing them, such as the “Lovers’ flower” which I have

described earlier in this chapter. This is not the only time she uses a flower as a symbol in the

context of her relationship with Breton. On the topic of Breton’s philosophical vision, she says the

following to him:

But . . . this great idea of yours? I was just beginning to understand it so well. It was really a star, a star you were heading toward. You can’t fail to reach it. Hearing you speak, I felt that nothing would hold you back,

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nothing, not even me . . . . You could never see this star as I do. You don’t understand: It’s like the heart of a heartless flower. (Breton, 1960, p. 71)

Nadja’s verbal illustration of this “heartless flower” perfectly exemplifies the urgent functionality of

the surrealist (perhaps also symbolic) image, at least in the eye of the beholder. The absent heart of

this flower is purely a product of Nadja’s imagination, yet it emerges to her rife with meaning, and

it is the sole vessel capable of communicating what she wishes to communicate. One is reminded of

Irene’s need for Rubek to acknowledge that she is “her own shadow” — or the passionate despair

with which she pulls a knife behind his back upon hearing that he has disfigured her “child,” the

sculpture. Irene believes in the meaning of these metaphors so fervently that she is desperate for

others to agree with their reality, as we can see again in her exchange with Rubek about the

“shadow”:

Irene: . . . [the nurse] goes around practicing witchcraft. [Confidently] Imagine, Arnold, she has transformed herself into my shadow. Rubek [tries to calm her]: There, there, there — we all have a shadow. Irene: I am my own shadow. [In an outburst] Don’t you understand that? Rubek [heavily]: Yes, yes, Irene — I do understand. [. . .] Rubek: You have a shadow that torments you. I have my heavy conscience. Irene [with a joyfully liberating scream]: At last! (Ibsen, 2014, p. 273, italics in the original)

Here Irene is adamant that Rubek agree with her on the exactitude of her metaphor — she does not

feel relieved of her frustration until Rubek demonstrates that he comprehends the meaning of her

“shadow” metaphor. A similarly poetic image used by Irene is that of the sunrise; one can track this

image to its inception, as a romantic metaphor invented by Rubek, all the way to its final form —

the image that bears Irene’s love and desperation. It is also this image, of course, which ultimately

kills her.

Both women depend on such symbols to express themselves, understand themselves, and be

understood by others. Breton explicitly acknowledges this while remembering a conversation with

Nadja:

She uses a new image to make me understand how she lives: it’s like the morning when she bathes and her body withdraws while she stares at the surface of the bath water. “I am the thought on the bath in the room without mirrors.” (Breton, 1960, p. 101)

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This apparently irrational statement — “I am the thought on the bath in the room without mirrors”

— is reminiscent of Irene’s poetic language, nonsensical in everyday terms yet clearly intended to

deliver meaning. Just as a certain consistency can be tracked throughout Irene’s use of poeticism

and symbolic imagery, there is a consistency, or perceivable code, to Nadja’s symbolism as well.

Certain statements seem to express some kind of logic to her irrational thinking, such as in her

discovery of the flaming hand image:

But what do you think it means: fire and water, a hand of fire over the water? (Joking): Of course, it’s not good luck: fire and water are the same thing, fire and gold are quite different. (Breton, 1960, p. 86)

Once again, while they appear to be irrational, Nadja’s statements about these elements — fire,

water, gold — seem to reference a continuum of thoughts which form a pattern for her, connecting

also to her association of fire with Breton. In the same way that Irene’s poeticism is proof that she

falls not on the side of sheer irrationality and insanity, but on the threshold between the realm of

insane detachment and the realm of shared, ordinary reality, Nadja seems to exist (at this point in

the book) at the sweet spot of Breton’s surrealism — combining rationalism and irrationalism.

This structured insanity — Nadja’s poeticism — is exactly what compels Breton to be

infatuated with her, and to some degree share in the belief of her symbolism. It is the same power

which Irene uses to draw Rubek in and convince him of her own reality. In the following subchapter

I will use examples from the texts to demonstrate how both women influence their male

counterparts, through the poeticism and irrationality of their behaviour.

4.2 Enchantment of the Surreal Feminine

Thus far in this chapter I have discussed the many similarities between Irene and Nadja, and

what makes them both exemplary of the surreal feminine role. Now I will take a closer look at the

similar ways they interact with the male protagonists of their respective storylines, thus further

highlighting Irene’s role as a surreal figure. I will begin by briefly establishing a comparison

between these male protagonists — Breton and Rubek — who also share many characteristics

between them.

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Both Breton and Rubek are artists (perhaps aesthetes) who find themselves engaged in a

reckoning with their relationships to their art. Rubek reckons with the possibility that he has lived in

vain as a sacrifice for his art, while Breton is forced to reckon with the boundaries of his surrealism,

and its flirtation with the irrational and insanity. In both cases, the surreal feminine, through the

enchanting nature of her irrational behaviour, acts as the initiator for the male artist’s reckoning

with his art; the male artists are seduced by the natural poeticism they find in the irrational

behaviour of the surreal feminine.

As I have covered in the previous chapter, Irene has a natural sense for poeticism that

Rubek, the artist, lacks. Similarly, Breton sees Nadja as a sort mascot for his surrealism, a visionary

who is able to tap into the surreal realm with ease, but ultimately the darkness of her mental

instability comes between them, and Breton is left to confront the haziness of the boundary between

his surrealism and insanity. The story of Rubek and Irene ends quite differently — Rubek becomes

completely enthralled by, and even complicit in, Irene’s irrationality, which leads to their death, or

what may be called their double suicide. Though these two stories of romance have quite different

endings, the processes by which Nadja and Irene each become an enchanting force in the eyes of the

male artist are actually quite the same.

This process of enchantment begins from the moment that each woman appears in the text.

From the initial descriptions of both Irene and Nadja, it is apparent that each woman carries with

her the force of the surreal — they are both described as being quite distinguished from others in

physical appearance, and seem to visually exemplify the dream imagery of surrealism. Irene, in fact,

is nearly mistaken for a dream altogether by Rubek.

Irene is first introduced near the beginning of the play, when Rubek speaks of a woman he

saw in the middle of the night — from his window he has seen her wandering the grounds of the

resort at which he and his wife Maja are staying. He asks the manager of the hotel whether it is

possible for anyone to have been bathing during the night. “For heaven’s sake Rubek,” Maja

interrupts, “it’s just as I said to you this morning — you’ve been dreaming,” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 246).

Rubek continues to describe to the manager what he’s seen — a “bright figure” followed by

“another figure. And it was quite dark. Like a shadow,” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 247). During this

discussion, Irene herself walks onto the scene. She is dressed completely in white, notably ghost-

like, and followed by a nurse-nun dressed in black and wearing a silver cross. The stage directions

detail that “waiters with napkins over their arms come to the door of the hotel and peer at the two

strangers in curiosity” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 247).

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Described as a white, bright figure wandering the night, Irene may be initially mistaken by

readers for a ghost. More evidence that she evokes death comes with Ulfheim’s comment upon

seeing her nurse, the “Sister of Mercy”, emerge from the hotel — “Would you look at that over

there. The black crow. — Who’s being buried?” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 252). Thus Irene’s appearance

plays a major role in her introduction as a figure on the brink between realms. She brings with her

the energy of another reality — even her appearance inspires the curiosity of strangers, like the

waiters who pause their work to stare at her. This, along with the manner in which she first appears

to Rubek — like a dream — is foreboding of the fact that she will later usher Rubek into the world

from which she has emerged, by bringing him into her irrationality and introducing him to the

bridge between reality and dream.

Irene’s introduction into the play is quite comparable to Breton’s first sighting of Nadja, our

exemplary surreal feminine. To start with, there is a certain amount of foreboding which precedes

the first appearance of each woman. In Irene’s case, it is the discussion between Rubek and his wife

Maja concerning the presence of “silence” and Rubek’s dream-like memories of their recent train

journey to the resort, which I have discussed in Chapter 3 in greater detail. Maja complains of the

silence around the resort, saying that even the “noise and disquiet” in town had “something dead

about it” — a comment which can easily be read as a premonition of Irene’s emergence into the

story, as well as her seduction of Rubek which leads to his death (Ibsen, 2014, p. 240).

In Nadja, Breton forebodes Nadja’s appearance by establishing a theme of coincidences and

events that seem to have an element of pre-destiny, like his meeting with Paul Eluard which I have

described earlier in the chapter. Ben Highmore, in the book Everyday Life and Cultural Theory: An

Introduction offers a concise description of surrealism’s fascination with coincidence and anything

ordinary which appears at the same time to be fated:

Surrealism is about an effort, an energy, to find the marvellous in the everyday, to recognise the everyday as a dynamic montage of elements, to make it strange so that its strangeness can be recognised. The classic Surrealist can be seen as Sherlock Holmes-like: faced with the deadly boredom of the everyday, the Surrealist takes to the street, working to find and create the marvellousness of the everyday. (Highmore, 2002, p. 47)

Thus Breton prepares the reader for Nadja’s arrival by insisting that things are perhaps much

stranger and more meaningful than they seem.

The very first description of Nadja establishes her as a symbol for the mystifying complexity

present in the ordinary, much like Irene is introduced as a symbol of death, or hidden realms. And !74

just as Rubek’s first sighting of Irene — ghostlike and almost seeming to walk straight out of his

submerged memory — signifies her singular influence in his life, Breton’s first sighting of Nadja

signifies a peculiar, almost pre-destined, connection between the two of them:

. . . already there were more people in the street now. I unconsciously watched their faces, their clothes, their way of walking. No, it was not yet these who would be ready to create the Revolution . . . Suddenly, perhaps still ten feet away, I saw a young, poorly dressed woman walking toward me, she had noticed me too, or perhaps had been watching me for several moments. She carried her head high, unlike everyone else on the sidewalk. (Breton, 1960, p. 64)

Here, Nadja appears just as Breton is pondering his “Revolution” and observing the bourgeois

crowds on the street. She is visually distinct from the others — with her head held high she gives

the impression of dignity, and is further described as “curiously made up,” with Breton remarking

that he “had never seen such eyes” (Breton, 1960, p. 64). Nadja appears like a direct answer to

Breton’s idea of revolution — already she is a symbol for his surrealist philosophy.

These first descriptions of Nadja and Irene portray them as immediately distinct from other

people as well as from their general surroundings. Just as Irene’s unusual presence distracts the

hotel waiters from their work, Nadja consistently exhibits a similar effect on others throughout

Breton’s novel — in one of Breton’s memories of Nadja, a waiter is so distracted by her strange

allure that he continuously drops and breaks things, at which Breton remarks that “Nadja is not at

all surprised. She knows her power over certain men,” (Breton, 1960, p. 99); in another, three

different men at a train station “throw” kisses to her; Breton describes her reaction: “She receives

this kind of homage with both satisfaction and gratitude. It always happens to her, and she seems to

enjoy it a great deal” (Breton, 1960, p. 107). This bewitching effect of the irrational feminine is a

harbinger of the revelation she will bring into the male protagonist’s life.

In Chapter 3, I have gone into detail concerning the ways Irene proves to have an increasing

influence over Rubek through the course of the play. To start with, Rubek hardly recognises Irene,

which is peculiar considering that she played a major creative role in the making of his most famous

work, and that in addition to this there is a clear romantic history between the two of them. Yet by

the end of the play, Irene’s irrationalism and her way of interpreting things through a poetic lens

seems to gain control over Rubek, almost like an intoxicating force. Her intuitive, dreamlike use of

symbolism — her attribution of meaning to certain images — is like a language that she uses,

however consciously, to convince Rubek to journey up the mountain with her, to their deaths. As I

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have argued in the previous chapter, Irene’s natural sense for poeticism is the perfect answer to

Rubek’s longing for aestheticism — she offers him the poetic beauty which he himself is not able to

generate. The ‘intoxication’ of this irrationalism leads them to their death.

Nadja displays virtually the same quality of poetic understanding as Irene. The way that

Rubek, the artist, is enthralled by the natural poeticism of his past model is very similar to the way

that Nadja, through her mental illness, embodies Breton’s surrealist ideal. The irrationalism of the

surreal feminine appears to the male artist like the answer to his aesthetic desires — he sees in her

an authentic, effortless impression of what he wishes to produce aesthetically himself.

From Nadja’s first appearance, one can already gather that even the way she situates herself

among the rest of society is itself irrational in nature — she is “poorly dressed,” she holds her head

high, and rather than being simply a part of the bustle, she takes an interest in her surroundings by

noticing Breton and approaching him (Breton, 1960, p. 64). During their first conversation, the true

charm of her irrationalism takes hold; she relates to Breton that she likes to sit on the metro and

observe the people traveling home from work, to imagine what they might be thinking (this, as I

have discussed previously, is itself a mark of surrealism — in that it is an act of willing the ordinary

into the extraordinary), which spurs Breton into a rant about the societal admiration for work ethic:

“People cannot be interesting insofar as they endure their work . . . How I loathe the servitude

people try to hold up to me as being so valuable” (Breton, 1960, p. 68).

This rant of Breton’s is long and impassioned, but Nadja expresses little interest in it and

makes no move to engage his ideas further: “Nadja listened to me and made no attempt to

contradict my statements. Perhaps she had intended nothing less than an apology for labor. She

begins telling me about her health . . .” (Breton, 1960, p. 70). Nadja goes on to explain that her

health is rather poor and that, unable to afford a trip prescribed by her doctor, “she has convinced

herself that some arduous form of manual labor might somehow substitute for the cure she cannot

take. Therefore she attempted to get a job in a bakery, and even in a pork-butcher’s, where, as she

decided in her purely poetic way, there are more reasons to feel well than elsewhere” (Breton, 1960,

p. 70).

This instance, in which Nadja refuses to engage Breton’s fierce intellectualism, and prefers

to entertain the extraordinary notion that one may find happiness and good health in a butcher’s

shop, is the perfect example of how the surreal feminine’s poeticism reworks the rational into the

marvellous, the absurd, or the irrational. It is precisely her ability to do this that makes her

extremely enchanting to Breton. As the two are parting ways at the end of this initial conversation,

Nadja offers a compliment to Breton: !76

She keeps me a few minutes more to tell me what it is about me that touches her. It is — in the way I think, speak, in my whole manner, apparently: and this is one of the compliments which has moved me most in my whole life — my simplicity. (Breton, 1960, p. 71, italics in the original)

Nadja’s irrationalism sees Breton’s rational mind as an effect of simplicity. Breton is perhaps for

once confronted with a force, in the form of Nadja, that escapes the grasp of all his rational

inclinations — by fondly considering Breton to exhibit, above all, simplicity, Nadja becomes

something larger, more complex, more dangerous; she is exactly the chimera of the surrealist aim.

Irene’s irrationalism has essentially the very same appeal for Rubek. Irene’s way of

poeticising the world, which appears to others as a mental instability, captures Rubek’s artistic

imagination, and this poeticism is actually able to convince him to die in its name. Thus the surreal

feminine uses irrationalism to create a sense of being bound together in secrecy with the male

protagonist — as if, through symbolism, poetry, and a sense of destiny, they share in a secret reality

that others cannot reach. When Rubek laments to Irene that “There is something hidden behind

everything you say” he does not resign himself to alienation from her, but swiftly adds that “I must

be the only person who can guess at the meaning of this” which Irene confirms — “You should be

the only one” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 256).

This moment of dialogue is deeply emblematic of their relationship, and the compulsive

nature of their connection which will lead them to their death. Rubek and Irene each believe that the

other holds within them the answer — the solution — to their misery. Later on in the play, Rubek

explains to Maja that there is a casket inside his chest with an “unpickable [sic]” lock, where “all

my visions are kept” and that Irene alone holds the key to this casket: “when she went away,

vanished quite without trace, the lock jammed shut. She had the key, and she took it with

her” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 270). And just before climbing to their death, Irene, calling herself “this young

resurrected woman of yours,” exclaims to Rubek that she can “see all of life laid out on its funeral

bier” — to which Rubek responds determinedly, “Then let us two dead people live life this one time

to the full” (Ibsen, 2014, p. 293). In this moment, Irene is now no longer alone in believing herself

to be dead — Rubek has fully committed to the irrational notion that he, too, must die, and only in

this manner, with his now co-conspirator, Irene.

The bond created between Nadja and Breton by Nadja’s irrationalism is based much on

similar feelings of fated-ness, and the idea that the two of them share in a unique understanding or

experience of the world around them. Nadja continually plants this idea in Breton’s imagination

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throughout the novel. Her metaphor of fire, which I have discussed previously, is heavily laden with

the notion that there is a secret force at play, or a secret element of enlightenment, that not everyone

can perceive, and yet both herself and Breton take part in. She tells Breton that she associates with

him all images having to do with fire, and remarks that people who stare at them on the street “can’t

get over seeing us together. That’s how rare that fire is, in your eyes and in mine” (Breton, 1960, p.

106). This moment is, again, deeply emblematic of the exchange of sentiments taking place

between the two of them — Nadja is using her poetic sensibility, her almost psychic talent for

symbolism, to create an intimacy with Breton which verges on conspiracy. Although Breton

ultimately finds himself alienated by Nadja’s irrational thinking, there are moments in which her

unique brilliance seems to him to “approach the extreme limit of the surrealist aspiration, its furthest

determinant” (Breton, 1960, p. 74, italics in the original).

Nadja’s irrational, albeit extraordinarily poetic, way of not only envisioning reality but of

functioning in every aspect of her life, is what draws Breton to her as he actively searches for new

ways of investigating his surreal vision. He finds that in many ways Nadja is the embodiment of the

most essential surrealist idea: bringing dream into reality. This quality is not simply self-contained

— the surreality of Nadja’s aura is projected outward onto others, and reverberates in their reactions

to her (I am reminded of the waiters in When We Dead Awaken, who stop their work to gawk at

Irene upon her first entrance). Breton is totally enchanted by Nadja, despite his inability to

completely comprehend the way that she sees the world, and the alienation he at times feels from

her as a result.

The crucial similarity between Irene and Nadja is the effect of their poeticism on the male

protagonist, who is wildly captivated and inspired by the poeticism of the irrational feminine

presence, yet entirely lacks the ability to implement such kind of irrationalism or poeticism himself.

Breton ultimately rejects Nadja because, while he finds her inspiring as muse, he also finds that he

cannot relate to her in a reciprocal manner, while Rubek is entirely subsumed by Irene’s surrealism

to the point of death (though, he does not seem to be converted to the surrealist mindset, but rather

bewitched and destroyed by its exterior influence). Neither man is able to reciprocate the poeticism

of the surreal feminine, but both to some extent fall prey to its influence.

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Conclusion: Ibsen and the Possibilities of Surrealism

Ibsen may generally fit best under the category of realism, but many non-real elements

certainly show up in his work. When We Dead Awaken is perhaps the most non-realist of them all,

with characters like Irene, who speaks almost entirely in a language of riddles which, in all

practicality, only she herself can understand. Irene’s intense irrationalism — which voices itself

through metaphor and poetry — means that she escapes the confines of realism. Her character is not

best understood through realism, because she is constantly referencing the beyond of the real world.

This is why I have proposed that Irene, along with many other elements of the play, is perhaps best

understood through the lens of surrealism.

Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism introduces surrealism as a philosophy that combines the

objective realm with the inner, subjective realm. This notion is not only concerned with the

production of art, but with the very way we conduct ourselves through our daily lives. Breton’s

surrealism wants to make our lives better — proposing that, by rediscovering the capacity of the

inner eye (or “imagination”) which is all-too-often left behind in childhood, we may reincorporate

subjectivity and the nature of dreams into daily life, thereby creating a greater existence for

ourselves (Breton, 1972, pp. 4-40). This, I believe, is the aim of Irene’s poeticism. By poeticising

and reimagining the world around her as more than what it is — as beyond itself — Irene was able

to create a greater and more meaningful existence for herself, as an antidote to the pain caused by

Rubek. It is in this new form that she returns to Rubek’s life.

By taking a closer look at surrealism, I have asserted that it is not actually incompatible with

realism — and that even if we take When We Dead Awaken to be a mostly realist work, we can still

analyse it through a surreal lens, and come to a better understanding of the play in doing so.

Surrealism, as I have illustrated in the case of Irene, is essentially a reimagining of reality — it is a

poeticisation of ‘the real’ which expands the real beyond itself. The real becomes something other,

but this other still contains within itself the real, by necessity — this is Breton’s concept of

incorporating the realm of subjectivity and “the marvellous” into the realm of the ordinary; the

surreal must be constituted by both of these worlds (Breton, 1972, pp. 10-16).

Thus, we may consider surrealism to contain within it realism; a surreal work is built upon

the foundation of the ordinary. The same can be true for singular elements of a work which prove to

be surreal amid a framework of mostly realistic depictions, as in the case of When We Dead

Awaken. Such elements are stretched beyond themselves, made into more extensive versions of

what they are. !79

Understanding Irene in a surreal context means that her irrational claims — or, rather, her

complicated metaphors — are not indicators of insanity, but of an evolved imagination. If we accept

that her irrationalism has a function — a role, in the surrealisation of reality — we can start to see it

as having meaning, and then suppose that all of her nonsensical claims and actions have meaning as

well (and not only as they regard Rubek, but as expressions of Irene and her own desires). What we

may initially see as Irene’s insanity (she is, after all, considered to be insane to some extent in the

play, having been institutionalised) is thus actually an innate sense for poeticism, and not for the

sake of aesthetics, but as a way of experiencing the world. (When Irene insults Rubek by calling

him “poet!” — she actually means “aesthete,” because her qualm with him is that his use of

metaphor revolves around aesthetics and appearances, rather than a true sense of meaning, poetry,

or beauty).

As I have argued, through her poeticism Irene is able to turn things into extended versions of

what they are — like the nun, who becomes additionally Irene’s shadow, or the flower petals, which

become also flamingoes, or the sunrise, which becomes indeed the apex of both death and the

exaltation of love. Irene is even able to poeticise her self-perception, by considering herself to be

dead. The quality of these metaphors is essentially surreal because they are not delusions, in that

Irene does not truly believe herself to be dead, she does not think that the flower petals are actually

flamingoes, but she is able to comprehend these things as transformed, while maintaining contact

with the reality of what they are in the objective realm. Irene knows that she is alive, but she

understands herself as dead. This discrepancy is essential in understanding her character. As I have

argued, without acknowledging Irene’s irrationalism as meaningful (in other words, as a surreal

attribute), we cannot fully understand its allure for Rubek, or its connection to the ambiguous nature

of the play in general.

It is Irene’s talent for surrealism which presents itself to Rubek as the thing he is missing in

his life, and which ultimately convinces him to essentially kill himself. Rubek’s longing for a muse

to serve his art is his most central predicament; he lacks the innate poetic inspiration he needs in

order to make art, and his young wife Maja has no interest in poetry, aesthetics, or art itself. In other

words, Irene’s poetic nature appears to him like the missing ingredient — the one possible answer

to his artistic dilemma. Rubek hardly recognises Irene to begin with, but by the end of the play, he

has claimed that she holds the key to the artistic aspirations locked away in his heart, he has offered

her to come live with himself and his wife and act as his live-in muse, and, finally, has given his life

for her love. The influence of her irrationalist sensibility seems to have an almost bewitching effect

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on others, especially those particularly susceptible in that they long for a sense of meaning but

cannot generate it themselves.

By analysing When We Dead Awaken through the lens of surrealism, I have also found that

there are further surreal elements in the general atmosphere of the play. Because Irene’s poeticism is

what makes her a force of surrealism, increasing signs of poeticism exhibited by other characters

indicate that there is a greater, more general force of surrealism which overtakes the play as whole.

Maja’s premonition of Irene’s arrival, for example, through her comments regarding that the noise

and bustle of town had “something dead about it” is evidence that Irene’s surrealism is reflected

also in the play’s general atmosphere (Ibsen, 2014, p. 239).

As I have described, Irene is not the only irrational female character to bewitch a male artist

protagonist — the irrational feminine figure is somewhat of a trope in surrealist literature, which I

have termed the ‘surreal feminine.’ I have found that comparing Irene side-by-side with other such

figures only strengthens a surrealist reading of her, and accentuates the validity of examining When

We Dead Awaken within a surreal context. In André Breton’s Nadja, Breton makes himself the

protagonist, and writes of his love affair with Nadja, a woman who is not only irrational but, in the

end, certifiably mentally ill. Nadja and Irene are not only comparable in that they toe the line of

insanity and verge on alienating those around them — there is also an intensely alluring effect to the

unorthodox ways they each see the world. Nadja, like Irene, poeticises the ordinary, as a mode of

navigating daily life; she creates a pictorial symbology that functions like a map of her experiences

(there is a hand on fire floating over the water, this hand is also the red hand she sees on an

advertisement, and this thread of fire also symbolises Breton and her love for him).

It is this sentiment of poeticising the ordinary — poeticising life through the reimagining of

objects, images, and self — which makes When We Dead Awaken surreal. By accepting what we

interpret as certain irrationalities (like the idea that Irene is actually a member of the living dead, or

the sudden death of Rubek and Irene just after the announcement of their love) as surreal

phenomena, we afford them their irrationality while at the same time gleaning from them an

expanse of virtually endless meaning. When Rubek tells Irene that there is “something hidden”

behind everything she says, he is perhaps discovering that in order to understand her, he does not

have to decode her metaphors exactly, but must only realise for himself that the origin of their

meaning lies within.

In conclusion, surrealism is an alternative lens through which to view When We Dead

Awaken, and in doing so, discover new meanings in the play that evade other schools of thought,

such as realism, or Toril Moi’s reading of the play as Ibsen’s last comment on idealism. Surrealism !81

essentially allows irrationalism space for its full capacity as an interpreter of meaning. Irene’s

character, I believe, is vastly misunderstood if she is not granted the credit she deserves, as

irrational interpreter of the meaning of love and beauty. Irene is, if nothing else, a lens through

which the world becomes fragmented into larger-than-life images, and reality is accentuated, as an

extraordinary version of itself — by attributing utmost meaning to Rubek’s sunrise metaphor, she

grants light the ability to restore joy and love, and gives her life in its pursuit — her ultimate

message is perhaps that love is only possible through death, at the very least because of it.

By accepting that it is possible to interpret When We Dead Awaken as a work containing

surrealist elements, it is also acknowledged that genres which appear to be at odds with one another

(and for all practical purposes indeed are at odds with one another), like realism and surrealism,

actually have it within them to be compatible, and exist within the same frame. Perhaps further

investigating the link between Ibsen and the 20th-century avant-garde of literature leads to a better

understanding of Ibsen’s last play, as a force of literary innovation, and a tribute to the complex

beauty of the human experience.

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