Woman in the Attic

Author: [German] Salome Heyne / Ma Zhencheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: She wants to spread her wings to fly over the road ahead, to know if the wings will break or fly. — Ibsen Ibsen's female protagonists undoubtedly reflect today's women. — Rolf Ulmann Salome was the confidante of Nietzsche, Hegel, and Freud, and one of the most controversial intellectual women of her time. As soon as Ibsen's play was staged, she was already the only female critic. The republication of her critical essays marks a major event in Ibsen studies and Victorian studies. — Women's Studies: A Core Biography Worth Recommending This book is of undeniable value to scholars and students researching Ibsen's feminist literary criticism, while also providing a unique hand view of a truly woman; though often in conflict with contemporary conventions, she still moved forward with confidence and vigor, pursuing the self-perfect goal of the fictional female protagonists in Ibsen's works with desperation. — Fred Muldrow Many outstanding actresses have performed in Ibsen's plays, but among those of her time, no one else wrote critical essays on Ibsen's plays except Salome. Forty years later, Meyer Benveniste called this book undoubtedly the most brilliant collection of Ibsen criticism. German writer Salburg once said that Salome was a "muse with extraordinary abilities, and men who interacted with this woman became pregnant, and after meeting her for a few months, they could give birth to a spiritual rebirth for the world." As the lover of Nietzsche, the lover of Rilke, and the confidante of Freud, Salome was almost the woman in men's hearts! Her extraordinary independence of personality overcame the shackles imposed on women by the times, and her pursuit of freedom and spiritual progress made her life shine with brilliance. In fact, as soon as Ibsen's play was staged, she was already the only female critic. Through the wise words and poetic images in the book, we will understand this truly woman who combines wisdom and beauty; though often in conflict with contemporary conventions, she still moved forward with confidence and vigor, pursuing the self-perfect goal of the fictional female protagonists in Ibsen's works with desperation. Salome was a controversial figure, and some of her behavior was still avant-garde by today's standards. People still talk about her life stories to this day, most notably her romantic entanglements with the elite of her time. In this regard, she rivals her predecessor George Sand. Both possessed extraordinary charm—not just in appearance and demeanor, but perhaps even more so in their extraordinary minds and talents; both were known as "collectors of famous men," and both were pioneering feminists. While George Sand is celebrated for her colorful experiences and numerous novels, Salome, as we learn from her biography, was also a prolific writer, covering a wider range of genres: novels, biographies, critical essays, psychological research reports, etc. Yet people still prefer to talk about her life, as if her works pale in comparison to her experiences. To this day, her fame is largely associated with her "close relationships" with Nietzsche, Rilke, and Freud. This is undoubtedly unfair to Salome; though her experiences were indeed extraordinary. The reason for this impression may be that her works have never been published in China—except for that alleged memoir, deliberately written in a confusing and obscure manner to conceal the facts. Now, the publication of The Woman in the Attic: Salome on Women in Ibsen's Plays has changed this situation. In this book, Salome discusses the female characters in six of Ibsen's plays—A Doll's House, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm, The Sea Gull, and Hedda Gabler—using literary descriptions combined with psychological analysis, offering an insightful feminist perspective. Perhaps some readers may not be familiar with these six plays by Ibsen. They might only know A Doll's House, aware of Lu Xun's famous essay Nahra After Her Exit. But this does not hinder reading the book. Because Salome devotes much of the text to describing their stories, she reenacts the plays on the page, narrating them in a way that does not diminish Ibsen's original work; at the same time, she weaves in her own reflections, interpretations of their rebellious methods, and especially her imaginative speculations on their motivations, as if casting a beam of light truly into the depths of the stage, revealing the hidden fluctuations of their hearts. Through her arrangement, the stage scenes, lighting, props, and costumes in her writing become symbols of their inner selves. These plays almost all explore the relationships between men and women in families, marriages, and emotional crises, even including how women face and choose in cases of incest. Salome and Lu Xun have different focuses; she is not concerned with the ultimate fate of these women, nor with Ibsen's plays themselves. Instead, she is concerned with their souls, the fresh ideas they reveal in their spiritual development, and their mockery and challenge to the seemingly stable patriarchy, as if they were real people. In the book, she privately uses her own behavior and experiences as models to empathize with the characters, supporting and praising them. In a sense, this is precisely the motivation behind her writing the book—a subtle defense of her own actions. Because her own life was far more diverse and unconventional than the women in Ibsen's plays. Interestingly, at the very end of the book, she uses an allegorical approach to compare the six women to different birds in an attic, each with their own unique temperaments, all spreading their wings to break free from the cage of family. Salome comments on Nora: "The posture of flying itself is everything, even if it means falling to the ground and dying—it is worth it, carrying a tragic hue. 'In the blurred, trembling outlines, a dreamlike picture of realityed before it. Starving eyes searched the sun, with drooping wings, falling alone among the piles of Christmas trees, the ghosts of resentment—could anyone say that the wild duck in this dream had not achieved true liberation?'" This book is said to be the only critical work on the female characters in Ibsen's plays. In the book, Salome's approach is peculiar; she subtly connects these women to her own experiences, blending rational analysis with emotional narration, hiding her insights within poetic descriptions of them, and meticulously depicting their inner struggles. Therefore, rather than being a scholarly paper, it is more like a long essay or a psychological report. As for the author herself, she was one of the most controversial intellectual women of her time, a woman who had long left the attic. Her wisdom and experiences made her a pioneer among the women she wrote about, and she understood the immense obstacles women faced in society in pursuing their ideal lives and love. The book contains her personal experiences and heartfelt words, as if she were their confidante, understanding and guiding their lives. In this sense, it is only fitting that Salome wrote about them.