Summaries and Analysis

Plot summaries, character analysis and thematic discussions of the major works of Norwegian literature.

Henrik Ibsen

A Doll’s House – summary and analysis
Plot, characters, turning points, themes and analysis of the ending.

Hedda Gabler – summary and analysis
Character analysis of Hedda, the burning of the manuscript, symbols and why she shoots herself.

Peer Gynt – summary and analysis
Act by act summary, the Button Moulder’s question, Solveig’s answer and what Ibsen was actually doing.

Ghosts – summary and analysis
The hidden past, inheritance and repetition, and why the play was banned in 1881.

Hunger – summary and analysis
What happens, who the narrator is, why it matters and what makes it the first modernist novel.

Pan – summary and analysis
Glahn as unreliable narrator, the two stories Pan tells at once, and the nature of self-destruction.

Growth of the Soil – summary and analysis
Isak, Inger, Eleseus and Sivert; the critique of modernity; the Nobel Prize.

Kristin Lavransdatter – summary and analysis
All three volumes, the characters and the world Undset built.

Synnøve Solbakken – summary and analysis
Torbjørn’s development, the symbolic geography of the novel and the peasant tale tradition.