Henrik Isben's drama, Rosmersholm, is...
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Henrik Isben's drama, Rosmersholm, is a play the critics assume not everyone can appreciate. The plot is depressing, but not all that unfamiliar. The story line is lived out around us every day. The plot is woven around a former Norwegian pastor Rosmer and his new love, who believe they can carve out a happy life for themselves. They believe they can be free. However, they are haunted by the death of Rosmer's wife, Beata, who had committed suicide eighteen months earlier. All of the struggle to be free does not bring them relief from the accusations of their friend Professor Kroll, as well as the judgment of their own consciences. In the end, their despair carries them to the bridge and a double suicide. As one laboriously works through the play with these characters one witnesses what it is like for people to live without the benefit of forgiveness. The freedom to act, to live, to love could come to Rosmer and Rebekkah, his love, only when they were forgiven. Whether their guilt was imagined or not, they had to be forgiven to be free. The judgment they felt was the judgment that hangs over all human relationships that are not freed from bondage by the forgiveness of sins. Peace comes by justifying faith.
