A study on Halvald Solness' character in Hendrik Ibsen's The Master Builder

Literature begins in the creative possibilities of human language and in the desire of human beings to use their language creatively. It means, language is the tool \nof human in creating literature. By studying literature students can learn many thing which can be found in literature, such as: human's ways of life, human's values, and human's culture. Besides that, literature also enriches our life because it increases our capacity for understanding and communication. \nDrama is the part of the literature that the writer is interested in. In studying \ndrama, the writer feels that the interaction between the person in drama is more alive \ncompare to the other forms of literature. \nThus, he takes a character study because character is the one who plays the \nimportant role in a drama and also the one who brings the message of the play from \nthe author to the readers or audiences. \nBy conducting the a study on character analysis we can learn that a character or \na person is a unique individual. Each of us has different personality and behaviour \ndetermine by environment, education, and society. Therefore by conducting an analysis \non character we can enlarge our vision about life and human. \nIn this study the writer takes Hendrik Ibsen's play, The Master Builder because \nthe writer feels that this play is very interesting to be analyze. This play reflects about \nthe reality of life that we all have to face someday when we gets old. The reality about \nthe pressure that a man has to bare when he feels that he is not young anymore and the \nfear that his position will be taken over by the young generation . \nIn conduction a character study on Hendrik Ibsen's The Master Builder the \nwriter uses Little's point in analyzing the character, literary analysis and also contents \nanalysis. Thus, the writer focuses his study on the characters found in the play \nespecially the protagonist which finally comes to some interesting finding: \nI. Halvald Solness is a successful builder, he is considered as a lucky person in \nphysical and material things but his fear to the youth and his unhappy \nmarried life have ruined all his life, every actions that he does reflect his \nfear. As a result, he lives in fearful and unhappy life because of his own fear. \n2. Halvald Solness because of his own fear to the youth has created bad \nrelationships with other people around him. He refuses to let Ragnar work \nindependently. He has a negative thinking about Dr. Herdal concerning his \nsanity. He uses Kaja Fosli, his book-keeper in order to make her finance, \nRagnar, works for him. He also betrays Aline, his wife, by having an affair \nwith Hilde Wangel. \n3. The theme of Hendrik Ibsen's The Master Builder is about the downfall of a \nman because of his own fear to the youth. And as the protagonist, Halvald \nSolness is able to embody the theme convincingly. He is a man who has \nfeeling of fear to the youth that he believes is going to take over his position \nas master builder. His fear has has forced his to make a flaw tragic error \nwhich takes and destroys his whole life. But, when he finds a new hope of a \nhappy life, he wakes up and tries to reach it. However he fails because he \nfinally falls down from the top of the building and dies miserably. \nBased on the finding that the writer found in Henrik Ibsen's The Master \nBuilder, we can learn an important lesson about reality of life. That is we all are going \nto be old someday and our position will be replaced by the young generation. And as a \nhuman being, we should not be afraid with the youth and the old age, but we have to \naccept it as a normal thing and not as a threat to us.