It descends, no doubt, from the Aristotelian
maxim that a tragic hero must neither be too good nor too bad; but it
also belongs to a moralizing conception, which tacitly or explicitly
assumes that the dramatist's aim ought to be "to justify the ways of God
to man." In these days we look at drama more objectively, and do not
insist on deciding in what degree a man has deserved death, if only we
feel that he has necessarily or probably incurred it. But in order that
we may be satisfied of this, we must know him intimately and feel with
him intensely. We must, in other words, believe that he dies because he
cannot live, and not merely to suit the playwright's convenience and
help him to an effective "curtain."
As we review the series of Ibsen's modern plays, we cannot but feel
that, though he did not shrink from death, he never employed it, except
perhaps in his last melancholy effort, as a mere way of escape from a
difficulty. In five out of his thirteen modern plays, no one dies at
all.
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