영어로 읽는 고전 _ 헨리크 입센의 사회의 기둥
『사회의 기둥』은 1877년에 쓰인 희곡이다. 카르스텐 베르니크는 노르웨이의 한 해안 도시에서 존경받는 사업가다. 그러나 15년 전의 인물들이 돌아오면서, 공들여 쌓아 올린 그의 명망은 무너질 위기에 놓인다. 그들은 베르니크가 저지른 추문의 진실을, 그리고 그 책임을 다른 사람에게 뒤집어씌웠다는 사실을 알고 있다. 비밀과 사회적 지위를 지키려는 절박함 속에서 베르니크는 점점 더 위험한 선택으로 나아가고, 마침내 그 선택은 그의 가정과 영혼 모두를 위협하기에 이른다.
Classics Read in English _ Pillars of Society by Henrik Ibsen
Consul Bernick owns the shipyard, sits at the head of every committee, and is spoken of in his town as one of the pillars on which the community rests. The ladies of the Society for the Morally Deficient meet in his garden room and agree that standards have been slipping elsewhere. Fifteen years ago there was an incident involving an actress and a sum of money missing from the firm, and the man blamed for both left for America and has not been heard of since. That man was innocent. The consul was not.
Then Johan Tønnesen comes back, cheerful and unbothered, with Lona Hessel ? the woman Bernick once loved and set aside for a marriage that came with capital. Neither has come for revenge. That is what makes them unbearable: they simply exist, in the same rooms, knowing.
Meanwhile there is a railway concession to be secured and land quietly bought up in advance, and down at the yard the Indian Girl is being patched for a voyage she will not survive. When Bernick learns that Johan intends to sail on her, he says nothing. He does not order a murder; he merely declines to give an order, which he has learned is the same thing with a better name. Then a boy's cap is found missing from the house, and the consul discovers that his own son has stowed away aboard the rotten ship.
Ibsen brings the town to Bernick's door that night with a brass band and a torchlight procession to honour him, and has him stand up in front of it and tell the truth ? all of it. The play's last word belongs to Lona: the spirits of truth and freedom, she says, are the real pillars of society. It is the most hopeful ending Ibsen ever wrote, and he would spend the rest of his career taking it back.
Summary
AUNE goes quietly across, knocks softly at the door of BERNICK'S room, and after a moment's pause, knocks again. KRAP comes out of the room, with his hat in his hand and some papers under his arm.)
Krap: Oh, it was you knocking?
Aune: Mr. Bernick sent for me.
Krap: He did--but he cannot see you. He has deputed me to tell you--
Aune: Deputed you? All the same, I would much rather--
Krap: --deputed me to tell you what he wanted to say to you. You must give up these Saturday lectures of yours to the men.
Aune: Indeed? I supposed I might use my own time--
Krap: You must not use your own time in making the men useless in working hours. Last Saturday you were talking to them of the harm that would be done to the workmen by our new machines and the new working methods at the yard. What makes you do that?
Aune: I do it for the good of the community.
