The Master Builder | Author Biography

Henrik Ibsen was born on March 20, 1828, in Skien, Norway, to Knud (a businessman) and Marichen (Altenburg) Ibsen. His wealthy family was thrown into poverty in 1834 when his father lost his store. As a result, Ibsen was forced to leave school at age fifteen and accept a position as a pharmacist’s assistant. The humiliation his family suffered as they sold off most of their property to pay off debts became a dynamic in his later plays, especially in A Doll House (1879) and John Gabriel Borkman (1896). Fire, which was a constant threat to Skien’s wooden shacks, was...

[The entire page is 362 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

Summary and Analysis – Themes – Characters – And much more...