“The League of Youth” by Henrik Ibsen (post 2): Interpretation that Hedda Gabler had split personality is supported by Ibsen’s thinking in those terms

In my previous post on Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, I cited clues in the play that suggest Hedda had multiple personality. But is there evidence in any of Ibsen’s plays that he ever actually thought in those terms?

The League of Youth, an early Ibsen play, is usually cited today for having one situation and a bit of dialogue that anticipate A Doll’s House. But the following passage shows that Ibsen had also been thinking about split personality.

“A patchwork! I’ve known him all his life. His father was a little wizened idler — a scarecrow, a nobody. He ran a little general shop, with some pawnbroking on the side — or, more accurately, it was his wife who ran it. She was coarse and gross — the most unwomanly woman I’ve ever known. She had her husband declared unfit to manage his affairs. She hadn’t a kindly thought in her…That was the home where Stensgård grew up. He went to the grammar school. ‘He must be educated,’ said the mother, ‘he’ll make a fine debt-collector.’ An ugly life at home — high ideals at school; his mind, his character, his will, his talents, all pulling different ways…what else could it lead to but a split in his personality?” (1, Act 5, p. 126).*

* [translator’s note] “a split in his personality: This looks like an anachronism now that ‘split personality’ has become such a part of our fashionable psychological jargon, but ‘splittelse i personligheden’ is what Ibsen wrote” (1, p. 332).

Why had Ibsen been thinking about split personality? Had he read about it? Did he know anyone who had it? Did he have it? If you are an Ibsen scholar, maybe you can answer those questions.

1. Henrik Ibsen. “The League of Youth: A Comedy in Five Acts” [1869], pp. 23-143, in A Doll’s House and Other Plays by Henrik Ibsen. Trans. Peter Watts. London, Penguin Books, 1965.