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Updated: May 23, 2025
The conclusion of the play Ellida's clinging to Wangel and rejection of the Stranger depends entirely on a change in Wangel's mental attitude, of which we have no proof whatever beyond his bare assertion.
The poet ought to have invented some material or, at the very least, some impressively symbolic proof of Wangel's change of heart. Had he done so, The Lady from the Sea would assuredly have taken a higher rank among his works. Let me further illustrate my point by comparing a very small thing with a very great.
Now this is inevitably felt to be a weak conclusion, because it turns entirely on a condition of Wangel's mind of which he gives no positive and convincing evidence. Nothing material is changed by his change of heart. He could not in any case have restrained Ellida by force; or, if the law gave him the abstract right to do so, he certainly never had the slightest intention of exercising it.
Psychologically, indeed, the incident is acceptable enough. The saner part of Ellida's will was always on Wangel's side; and a merely verbal undoing of the "bargain" with which she reproached herself might quite naturally suffice to turn the scale decisively in his favour. But what may suffice for Ellida is not enough for the audience. Too much is made to hang upon a verbally announced conversion.
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