Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/624

 620 Sturtevant The reason for a lack of confidence between mother and son is often due primarily to an habitual taciturnity, especially characteristic of the peasant. This taciturnity is often further enhanced by the fact that the relations of husband to wife render a free and open discussion upon any subject whatsoever impossible. The husband's mean spirit, his brutality and his tyrannical usurpation of human rights (as in the case of the John Kurt, Harald Kas or Nils Skraedder) force upon his wife a silence which becomes habitual and therefore almost impos- sible for her to break. Thus, thru her silence the mother neg- lects her prime duty of establishing a relation of confidence with her son. Her attitude of silence, furthermore, reacts upon the son who in turn finds it well-nigh impossible to open his heart to his mother and therefore he continues his own way with disastrous results. Such is the case, for instance, with Arne whose first misstep might have been avoided if he had kept his mother in strict confidence. Only this first great catastrophe opens his heart to her and restores a normal relation of confidence between the two. Bj^rnson's sympathy, however, is chiefly on the side of the mother, inasmuch as she cannot be held responsible for an attitude towards her son which has grown out of unavoidable circumstances. Social convention, which sanctions the supreme authority of the father and thus gives full rein to degenerate instincts, is the fundamental cause of this unhappy relation between mother and son. The following passage from Arne well illustrates the point in question. " You won't ever tell me anything," and she began to weep again. "You never tell me anything either," said Arne gently. "But you are most to blame, Arne; I've got into such a habit of keeping silent, ever since I lived with your father, that you ought to have helped me along a little." However much the ideal relations of mother to child may be disturbed or whatever the causes for this may be, Bjo'rnson never depicts an unnatural mother. No principle in life is so vital to her as the love for her child and, therefore, no theory as to human rights or duty towards self (as in the case of Ibsen's Nora) can separate her from her child, whose happiness is identical with her own. In order to promote her child's happiness and retain its love, she is willing to endure injustice