Brand (play)

Brand is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It is a verse tragedy, written in 1865 and first performed in , Sweden on 24 March 1867. Brand was an intellectual play that provoked much original thought.

Brand is a priest who wants to take consequence of his choices, and is therefore deeply bound to doing the "right thing". He believes primarily in the will of man, and lives by the device "all or nothing". To make compromises is therefore difficult, or by his moral standards questionable at best. His picture of God is clearly derived from the Old Testament. His beliefs render him lonely in the end, as people around him, when put to the test, as a rule can not or will not follow his example. Brand is arguably a young idealist with a main purpose: to save the world, or at least Man's soul. His visions are great, but his judgment of others may seem harsh and unfair.

The word "Brand" means fire in Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and German.

At the beginning of the play, we find Brand in the mountains, and confronting three different kinds of people: a farmer, who doesn't dare to brave an unsure glacier on behalf of his dying daughter, the crazy beggar-girl Gerd, who claims to know a bigger church in the hills, and hunts for a great hawk, and finally, Einar, a young painter with an easy-going attitude, and his fiancée, Agnes. Einar and Brand were in school together, and their conversation ends in a long discussion about the envisioning of God. Brand taunts Einar for portraying God as an old man, who "sees through his fingers", and wants to envision God as a young, heroic saviour. He means that people have become too sloppy about their sins and shortcomings, because of the dogma that Christ, through his sacrifice, cleansed humanity once and for all.

In the end, Brand vows to take a fight, mainly in his own soul, with those three "minds" he just met: The lazy mind (the farmer), the wild mind (Gerd), and the easy-goer (Einar). He ponders Man's purpose, and the difference between what is, and what should be. Here, we find the famous sentence: What you are, be fully, not in parts and pieces.

Brand enters the valley in which he was born, and finds great famine and need. The local mayor distributes bread for the hungry in strict rations, and Brand questions the need for it. Meanwhile, a mother comes from the other side of the fjord, telling of her husband who needs absolution, because he, in dire need, killed one of his children rather than seeing him starve. Then he harmed himself. Nobody dares to venture the high sea, but Brand goes in a boat and, to his surprise, Agnes follows him. Together, they sail across, and the man gets his absolution. Brand muses over the remaining children, and what this experience might do to them, when a couple of farmers show up and demand that he stay with them as their priest. Brand is reluctant to do this, but they use his own words against him, and he gives in.

...
Wikipedia