45 pages • 1 hour read
Henrik IbsenPeer Gynt
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1867A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Crowns, Kingdoms, and Steeds
From the beginning of the play, Peer believes that he is truly meant to be an emperor. Repeatedly, he claims to be a prince and tries on different crowns and kingdoms. And as Peer tells the troll princess: “You can tell a prince by the steed he rides!” (79). His first steed, the reindeer, may or may not be imaginary. The reindeer takes him far from home, nearly killing him, and would allow for a heroic return home if he were to be believed. The reindeer antlers become a symbol of what would be the end of his search for greatness when he hangs them over the door to his hut. His first potential kingdom is the troll kingdom in the mountain. Peer and the troll princess ride her steed, Grane, who is a pig. The kingdom is similarly bleak, as the troll princess explains, “Ah! You don’t understand. That’s our custom, here in the mountains. Nothing is what it seems. For example, when you come to my father’s palace, you probably won’t recognize it. You’ll think it’s a rubble-heap” (78). Peer is ready to accept the troll kingdom until the king tells him that he must undergo an operation to give up his human self.
Peer tries to become a king through deceit and unethical behavior but is foiled each time. In Morocco, Peer first attempts to build his empire through money. He has earned a fortune through trade and plans to infiltrate the Greco-Turkish War in an effort to grab power. However, his friends, who he enlists in this endeavor, are appalled at his unscrupulousness, so they steal his yacht (his steed) and his money. He then takes the stolen steed and clothing of a sheikh, claiming once again to be a prince. He attempts to carry Anitra off on his horse, describing a kingdom that is a thousand miles away. Peer imagines that he can start his kingdom, his Peeropolis or Gyntiana, in the desert, but this turns out to be an illusion. Anitra is only pretending to desire him in exchange for jewels. She steals his steed and runs away.
Once Peer decides to become a scholar instead of an emperor, he has a crown foisted upon him as the king of the madmen. When Begriffenfeldt finds him at the Sphinx, he drags him back to his “Institute” (150) and crowns him the emperor of enlightenment. Alternately, he calls him the “emperor of self” (157). With a crown of straw and a throne of mud, Peer receives his first real taste of power, as the inmates immediately heed his poor advice, even to the point of killing themselves. He discovers quickly that this is not a desirable situation and faints. Once he returns to Norway as an old man, he falls back into his yarnspinning ways, regaling a group of potential buyers with lies about a castle that he is auctioning off. His true kingdom, however, is mirrored by the eulogy of the boy who chopped his finger off. The nine-fingered man “fought his own small war, the peasant’s war” (170) for his family and farm. Similarly, the kingdom that waits for Peer is with Solveig in the hut he built himself.
The Ladle
As a child, Peer had a casting-ladle that he used to melt tin into buttons, which he believed were the same as silver coins because to him, they looked the same. The ladle represents both the pliability of reality through perspective and the malleability of the self. Throughout his life, Peer makes and remakes his own image. For the herd girls, he is a troll. To the troll princess and Anitra, he is a prince. To his friends in Morocco, he is a man of taste and good breeding. When he meets Begriffenfeldt, Peer presents himself as a scholar, leading Begriffenfeldt to believe that Peer’s take on the Sphinx is profound. Once Peer returns to Norway, he tells the story of the Devil who, attempting to prove that he had an odd talent, performs a trick with a pig. Reflecting on the Devil’s disbelieving audience, Peer says, “Poor old Devil. Forgot the first rule of showbusiness: don’t outsmart your audience” (175). Peer, who has based his life on illusion, is commenting on the fact that illusion is about changing perspective and it must meet the audience where they are.
At the end of the play, the Button Molder finds Peer and tells him that Peer is ready to die and that his soul will be melted down in his casting-ladle with other souls to be reformed and reused. As Peer has been constantly making and remaking himself, he has no definite form. Furthermore, this seems to be the case with most people. When the Button Molder tells him that he’s supposed to collect a man named Gynt, Peer asks if it might not be another person, listing relations with the same last name. The Button Molder tells him that he melted those people down years before. The concept of erasing and resetting Peer’s self, melting it with other selves so that it is no longer even the same substance, means that all of Peer’s actions in the play and throughout his life have been for nothing. If the self is ever-changing, there is nothing to preserve. This negates the selfishness of centering one’s life on a desire to be true to oneself, making such a life pointless.
God, The Devil, and Everything in Between
At the start of the play, Peer is a self-proclaimed Christian, as was typical in Norway. Åse repeatedly cries out to God for help, blaming the Devil for Peer’s unwise actions. But in Morocco, Peer’s view of God and the Devil become beings to bargain with. They are no longer entirely clear and discrete. When explaining to his friends his sense of self, he calls it: “The world here, inside my noddle. That’s what makes me me and no one else—unless God’s the Devil in disguise” (122). When his friends steal his yacht, he asks God for retribution, negotiating by reminding him that although he sent idols to China, he also sent missionaries. And although the yacht explodes, seemingly in response to Peer’s prayer, the Devil is the only visible manifestation of Peer’s Christian belief system, along with other beings who don’t fit into Christian mythology.
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By Henrik Ibsen
