- dence in Ibsen's modern plays, from Pillars of Society
onwards. One or two other much slighter coincidences—such as, in A Doll's House, Mrs. Linden's former acquaintance with Krogstad—are accounted for by the fact that Norway is a very small country, in which, roughly speaking, every one of the town-dwelling upper and middle class knows, or has heard of, every one else.
As I have pointed out in the introduction to Rosmersholm, The Lady from the Sea is the first play in which Ibsen entirely abandons social satire and devotes himself to pure psychology. It is also the first play in which he trenches on the occult. He was to go much further in this direction in The Master Builder and Little Eyolf; but already he pursues the plan, which was also Hawthorne's, of carefully leaving us in doubt as to whether, and how far, any supernormal influence is at work. On the whole, however, he probably intends us to conclude that the Stranger's uncanny power over Ellida exists only in her imagination.
