We All Have a Past
In the play, Rosmersholm, by Henrik Ibsen, the white horse symbolizes the past we can’t release. All of us have a past. Not only are we born into this world beholden to those who have come before us, made up of the flesh, dreams, and stories of our ancestors, but our own histories, events, and experiences mold themselves into our DNA.
In the book Live Bait by P. J. Tracy, a police officer, Gino Rolseth, notices a scar on the chest of a retired colleague. Upon learning that the man’s own father had cut him, he closes his eyes and thinks “of all the history that makes up a man, that you never knew everything about anybody, and that there were monsters everywhere.” [1]
We never know everything about ourselves, either. Some memories linger, some hide, some simply fade. The monsters, though, tend to hover close to the surface of our minds where they lie unnoticed until some action, word, or touch disturbs them. Then we become startled, frightened, even lost.
A patient I visited recently put it this way: some days you feel fine; some days you are brought low by the memories. But she believed that even when you’re hurting, pain need not be the end. You can laugh at yourself, for instance, or list things you’re grateful for. Every day, she comes up with two ways she has been blessed and two ways she has blessed others. If nothing else, she reminds herself that right now, in this moment, she is all right.
Neither Rosmer, nor Rebecca, the woman he loves, can even imagine that coping such might be possible.
Beset by Guilt
As Ibsen’s play opens, Rosmer’s wife, Beata, has been dead a for a year, having thrown herself off a bridge into the millrace where she drowned. Rebecca is living with the widow, having moved into the couple’s home some time before Beata died. Longing for a marriage of her own, Rebecca insinuated herself into the couple’s relationship, and she and Rosmer fell in love. Then Rebecca set to work making Beata believe that Rosmer wished her gone so he might be free to marry Rebecca instead.
In this way, Rebecca becomes complicit in Beata’s suicide. The guilt weighs upon her.
Rosmer, too, is beset by guilt. Upon learning that his deceased wife had sent letters to a newspaper editor and to his brother-in-law that hinted at a romantic liaison between him and Rebecca, Rosmer cannot deny his own culpability. Though his relationship with Rebecca has never been anything but platonic, Rosmer does love her, and his wife realized that. Thus, Rosmer drove her to the desolation that caused her death.
Beset by Betrayals
Yet Rosmer has an idea that he and Rebecca might get past even this and find happiness together, only Rebecca is haunted by an even more painful guilt. Some years ago, she had an affair with a man she had thought was her stepfather. It turned out, he was her biological father, making their relationship fully incestuous. Unable to get past this horror, and still despairing of her role in Beata’s death, Rebecca refuses to marry Rosmer.
In his effort to convince her to do so anyway, Rosmer says, “Your past is dead, Rebecca. It no longer has any hold on you – has nothing to do with you – as you are now.” [2]
Yet she knows better. Her innocence is gone, and since, for her, innocence “is at the root of all joy and happiness,” she could never again be content. [3] Once she thought she could live in a dream where everything worked out, but having been hurt irreparably and having hurt others in ways that could not be undone, she no longer believes in fairy tales.
She knows now that security is not attainable, and love is a lie. At one time, she wanted Rosmer. Maybe she cared for him because of who he was, but more likely she desired him because he symbolized the love and nobility for which she longed.
As the play comes to a close, Rebecca remains trapped in the memory of her life’s betrayals. She cannot shake them.
Throwing Up the Game
Rosmer, too, for all his brave words to Rebecca, cannot let go of his guilt. He decides that if he cannot find happiness with Rebecca in this life, he will go with her into the next. Certain she will never have what she wants, Rebecca insists that she “must throw up the game.” She must take her own life. He decides he will go with her.
Not believing him, she says that yes, he must go with her “and be [her] witness.” [4] She does not think he will die with her. After all, he has gone as far as the bridge, but never any farther, not even with her. Surely, he will not follow into some unknown place, into the water, the afterlife. After all, Rebecca can tell that, like her, he cannot get past his own memories. He cannot not let go of his guilt and regret. Unable to move forward into the future, he cannot give Rebecca his love.
Yet though he cannot follow her into life, it seems he can follow her into death. Together, the couple leaps into the millrace.
The Past that Kills
The audience does not see them jump, but the housekeeper does. Aghast, she cries out, “What is that white thing?” [5]
It is the ghost of Beata drawing Rosmer and Rebecca to her. It is the white horse, the past they could not shake. Now, they will never have a chance. The past they could not put from their minds, the memories they could not forget, killed them. It is, perhaps, a fitting ending to this tragic tale, for had they not, in their way, committed murder? Do we deserve happiness when our crimes have been so terrible?
But this is not the question Ibsen is asking. He is more curious about how we are haunted, how memories beset us, how guilt drives us mad. If we do not let go of our pasts, we will die, even if our bodies remain alive. [6]
Lethal White
This is a theme that J.K. Rowling, writing as Robert Galbraith, explores in her mystery series about the private detective Cormoran Strike. Unlike Ibsen, she is not content to let her characters die from their pasts. Both Strike and his work partner, Robin Ellacott, have stories that give them nightmares and rise up at inconvenient times to frighten them. Strike lost his lower leg in the war; Ellacott was raped. In her fourth book, Lethal White, Rowling creates other characters who also wrestle with haunting memories.
In Lethal White, Rowling precedes each chapter with quotes from Rosmersholm. She incorporates the image of the white horse, which ends up being not a ghostly figure that destroys, but a symbol that helps Strike and his partner, Robin, solve the mystery. In her book, there is hope of healing. Yes, our past traumas change us. That can’t be helped. But they need not control us. We can heal and move on.
One of the characters of Rowling’s book, Billy Knight, witnessed what he thought was a boy’s murder and burial. Now an adult, Billy has schizophrenia, so no one believes what he tells them about what he’s seen. Yet Strike believes him and sets out to discover the truth. What he finds is that the boy whom Billy thought had died had merely passed out, and the body that was buried belonged to a horse, not a person. When he learns the truth, Billy finds freedom.
Ways to Heal
One way we release ourselves from the past is to change the story. We find a new truth, change the ending, create a different meaning. Could Rosmer and Rebecca have found peace if they had believed in redemption? If they had figured out a way to repent, might they have made a life for themselves?
There are many ways to heal. Through their work, Robin and Strike keep facing their fears. This forces them to be honest with themselves if not with other people, and this brings them a measure of freedom. Some people seek counseling or self-help groups. Faith in a god can offer hope, connections, love.
No matter how we work on our inner selves, it takes a long time to let go of our past. Recovery is a journey. From our histories, we can gain wisdom. We don’t get cured from the memories that ail us, but healing is possible. One day, we may find we have moved on, at least a little bit. Our scars will have eased and stretched.
At the end of Lethal White, Robin has started her healing journey. Unlike Rosmer and Rebecca, she has hope.
Inward Renewal
The patient I spoke with, who shared her technique for keeping the ghosts of her past at bay, quoted Paul’s second letter to the Christian community in Corinth in which he instructs the congregants not to lose heart. “Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16 NIV).
He is referring here to the way in which we grow old in body, infirm, weak. Life brings us trials and toils, we may be hungry or weary or even full of sorrow for the losses of this life, yet in the grand scheme of things, this is minor, for within us, our spirits grow strong. For Paul, this meant we draw closer to God. We feel the love of the divine in our hearts, growing in grace, maturing in wisdom.
This is what it means to heal. It is a false dichotomy to think we either die like Rosmer and Rebecca or find a joyful life in freedom from the past. It’s not one or the other. Though never completely free of the stories that have formed us, we can be well. We can be whole in the sense of being who we are meant to be. We can be peaceful, content, connected, alive.
If we allow it, our inner self will be renewed day after day. Our stories will be retold; our memories remade. Though there may not be a cure for the terrors of our minds nor for the empty places in our hearts, there is healing. Monsters of one kind or another may live within us. Though we might not be able to make them go away completely, we can learn to make friends with them so that inwardly we may be renewed.
In faith and fondness,
Barbara
Credits
- Tracy, P. J., Live Bait, New York: Penguin, 2005, 348 ebook.
- Ibsen, Henrik, The Pretenders and Two Other Plays, New York: E. P. Dutton, 1915, 307.
- Ibid 307.
- Ibid 314.
- Ibid 314.
- For more about the play, see “Rosmersholm,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosmersholm and “Lethal White: Ibsens’ ‘Rosmersholm,’” Hogwart’s Professor, December 26, 2018, https://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/lethal-white-ibsens-rosmersholm/.
Photo by Lespinas Xavier on Unsplash
Copyright © 2020 Barbara E. Stevens All Rights Reserved
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