I suggest, then, that this _erregende Moment_
ought always to come within the first act--if it is to come at all There
are plays, as we have seen, which depict life on so even a plane that it
is impossible to say at any given point, "Here the drama sets in," or
"The interest is heightened there."
_Pillars of Society_ is, in a sense, Ibsen's prentice-work in the form
of drama which he afterwards perfected; wherefore it affords us numerous
illustrations of the problems we have to consider. Does he, or does he
not, give us in the first act sufficient insight into his story? I am
inclined to answer the question in the negative. The first act puts us
in possession of the current version of the Bernick-Toennesen family
history, but it gives us no clear indication that this version is an
elaborate tissue of falsehoods. It is true that Bernick's evident
uneasiness and embarrassment at the mere idea of the reappearance of
Lona and Johan may lead us to suspect that all is not as it seems; but
simple annoyance at the inopportune arrival of the black sheep of the
family might be sufficient to account for this.
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