Peer Gynt Characters: Peer, Solveig, Åse, the Button Moulder and the Trolls

In short

The characters in Peer Gynt are not all realistic people. Some are family
members, lovers and social figures; others are mythic or symbolic. Together
they test the same question from different angles: has Peer ever become a real
self?

Character	Role in the play	What they reveal
Peer Gynt	Anti-hero and wanderer	Imagination without responsibility becomes evasion.
Solveig	Faithful beloved	Love and memory may preserve what Peer cannot preserve himself.
Åse	Peer’s mother	Peer’s lies can be both cruel and tender.
The Dovre King	Troll king	Self-sufficiency can become moral selfishness.
The Great Boyg	Shapeless obstacle	Evasion can feel easier than confrontation.
Anitra	Desert figure	Peer’s fantasies of power and desire are easily punctured.
The Button Moulder	Final reckoning	A life without shape may be melted down and recast.

For the full plot, start with Peer Gynt summary.

Peer Gynt

Peer Gynt is one of Ibsen’s most famous anti-heroes. He is imaginative, vivid
and entertaining, but he is also unreliable, selfish and unable to remain
answerable to anyone. His problem is not lack of personality. It is lack of
form.

Peer constantly changes role: village braggart, mountain adventurer, would-be
troll, businessman, prophet, emperor of the self, old wanderer. Each role gives
him a temporary identity, but none becomes a life. That is why the Button
Moulder can threaten to melt him down. Peer has not become distinct enough.

Peer’s development

Peer’s development is really a long refusal to develop:

1. He escapes ordinary responsibility in the Norwegian village.
2. He learns the troll principle of living for himself.
3. He turns evasion into worldly adaptability abroad.
4. He returns home and discovers that a life of avoiding oneself has left almost
   nothing to defend.

This makes Peer comic and tragic at once. He is often ridiculous, but the final
question is severe: what remains of a person who has never truly chosen?

Solveig

Solveig is the most important counterforce to Peer. She sees something in him
that the rest of the world cannot depend on, and she waits for him through his
long absence. Her faithfulness can seem impossibly idealised, but Ibsen uses it
to create the play’s final ambiguity.

At the end, Peer asks where he has been himself. Solveig answers that he has
been himself in her faith, hope and love. The answer may save him, or it may
only postpone the Button Moulder’s judgement. The play does not settle the
question.

Solveig matters because she represents continuity. Peer is movement without
commitment. Solveig is commitment without movement.

Åse

Åse is Peer’s mother. She knows his lies, excuses and failures, but she also
loves him fiercely. Their relationship gives the play its most human emotional
centre.

The death scene with Åse is crucial. Peer turns her dying into a fantasy journey
in which he drives her toward a royal welcome. The scene shows both the beauty
and danger of his imagination. His storytelling comforts her, but it is also the
same faculty that lets him avoid reality everywhere else.

The Dovre King

The Dovre King rules the trolls and offers Peer a life according to the troll
motto: be sufficient unto yourself. The phrase sounds close to selfhood, but it
means something different. It means living by appetite, self-justification and
tribal comfort.

Peer refuses the physical transformation into a troll, but he accepts much of
the troll principle in practice. That is why the Dovre King matters later: he
shows Peer that he has been troll-like for most of his life.

The Great Boyg

The Great Boyg is one of the strangest figures in the play. It is not a clear
enemy with a face, body or motive. It is an obstacle that cannot be fought
directly. Peer’s solution is to go around it.

That response becomes a pattern. Peer repeatedly avoids hard confrontation by
finding a way around it: around duty, around guilt, around love, around truth.
The Boyg is therefore less a monster than a method.

Anitra

Anitra appears in the North African section of the play. Peer imagines himself
as a powerful exotic figure, but Anitra’s presence punctures the fantasy. She
does not become the romantic or spiritual figure Peer imagines. She uses his
desire and leaves him diminished.

Her role shows how Peer’s fantasies depend on turning other people into
characters in his own story. They rarely remain there.

The Button Moulder

The Button Moulder is the figure who gives the final act its force. He is not a
devil and not a conventional judge. His task is practical: Peer has not become a
clear self, so he can be melted down and recast like unused material.

This image is more disturbing than punishment. Peer is not grandly evil. He is
insufficiently himself. The Button Moulder turns a vague life into a concrete
threat.

Character relationships

Relationship	What it shows
Peer and Solveig	Evasion confronted by faithful memory.
Peer and Åse	Imagination as tenderness and avoidance.
Peer and the Dovre King	False selfhood disguised as freedom.
Peer and the Great Boyg	The habit of going around rather than through.
Peer and Anitra	Desire shaped by fantasy and self-deception.
Peer and the Button Moulder	The final test of whether a life became anything.

Why the characters still work

The characters still work because they make inner life visible. Peer is not just
a man who travels. He is a series of evasions. Solveig is not just a woman who
waits. She is the possibility that another person’s faith can hold a self
together. The Button Moulder is not just a fantasy figure. He is the question
the whole play has been asking.

That is why Peer Gynt can move between comedy, folklore, satire and
existential drama without losing its centre.

Read more

• Peer Gynt summary
• Peer Gynt book page
• Henrik Ibsen biography
• A Doll’s House summary
• The Wild Duck summary