Monologue

Ella Rentheim Monologue from John Gabriel Borkman

From John Gabriel Borkman by Henrik Ibsen

female · anguished · 1:21 min

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Erhart--your son, Borkman. (BORKMAN: Has he really been so close to your heart?) Why else should I have taken him to me, and kept him as long as ever I could? Why? (BORKMAN: I thought it was out of pity, like all the rest that you did.) (In strong inward emotion.) Pity! Ha, ha! I have never known pity, since you deserted me. I was incapable of feeling it. If a poor starved child came into my kitchen, shivering, and crying, and begging for a morsel of food, I let the servants look to it. I never felt any desire to take the child to myself, to warm it at my own hearth, to have the pleasure of seeing it eat and be satisfied. And yet I was not like that when I was young; that I remember clearly! It is you that have created an empty, barren desert within me--and without me too!

About this piece

Ella Rentheim reflects on her emotional desolation and the impact of abandonment, revealing her inability to feel compassion or warmth after being deserted.

30s · despair · isolation · betrayal · identity

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