Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/620

 616 Sturtevant that a policy of brutal force leads to estrangement; but her protests are overruled by the father's high-handed authority. Even Synn^ve's mother, who is anything but well disposed towards Torbj^rn and his suit (she regards him as a sort of young ruffian), does not approve of his father's harsh methods. "He's too severe with the boy," she says. But it is also to be remembered that she shares the ideals of the pietistic sect of the Haugianere. It is above all in Ingrid, Torbj^rn's sister, that we find the typically feminine attitude towards parental author- ity. Like her mother she sympathizes with Torbj0rn but at the same time she understands clearly that it is Torbj0rn's natural stubbornness and sense of independence which is the chief cause of the alienation between him and his father. Since she is not educated beyond the ideal that her father can be wrong, she yields to established authority and therefore tries to remedy the situation by correcting Torbj0rn's faults. In other words, she seeks her way out of the difficulty by the com- mon sense method characteristic of Bj^rnson's feminine ideal in the peasant family, viz., by making the best out of a bad situation. The following conversation between Ingrid and Torbj^rn well illustrates the essential difference between the feminine and masculine attitude of the child towards parental authority. "You are too independent; you know father doesn't like that." "No, I am not too independent; father tried to hold back my arms. " "Yes, especially whenever you tried to strike somebody." "Well, have people a right to say and do things to you, just as they please?" "No, but you might put yourself out a little; father did that himself and nevertheless he has always been a respected man. " To recognize parental authority is not equivalent to forfeit- ing one's self-respect, but this typically feminine view of the remedy is, however, not to Torbjo'rn's liking and it is not until the boy's will has been broken by the catastrophe which befell him at the hands of the treacherous Knut Nordhaug that he accepts her solution.