Peer Gynt

Peer Gynt Summary | Part 1 Act 1 Scene 1 Summary

This part of the play tells the story of Peer Gynt's youth.

On a hillside near their farm, twenty-year-old Peer Gynt struggles to convince his elderly, frail mother Aase that the story he's telling, about how he went hunting and lost his gun, is the truth. She calls him a liar and then tells him to tell her again the story of what happened. In passionate poetic language, Peer tells her how he found a beautiful deer, shot and wounded him and then jumped on his back in order to slit its throat. He goes on to say that the deer wasn't as wounded as he thought it was and that it jumped up and ran with him across the countryside. Again in passionate language and with vivid images of soaring eagles, rushing air and gaping caverns that catch Aase up in the excitement of his story, he tells how the deer ran and jumped and leapt in an effort to get Peer off its back. At one point, Peer says, the deer encountered his reflection in a lake. He says the reflection came to life and fought with the real deer, which eventually won the battle and swam across the lake to freedom. Peer says the deer ran off and he made his way home.

At first Aase is relieved that Peer wasn't hurt, but then she realizes that his whole story is just another of Peer's lies and that everything he talked about actually happened years ago when she was a young woman to a man named Gudbrand. Peer tries to tell her that things can happen twice, but Aase is having none of it. She starts weeping and wailing about how Peer is so irresponsible, how he's just as cocky and sure of himself as he was when he heard a visiting preacher say that his mind was sharper than most, and complains about how lazy he's been since his father left. Peer tells her to be patient, and says he's destined for great things, like being king or emperor. Aase tells him he belongs in a madhouse, but then she remembers that there's a rich girl in town, Ingrid, who seems to think he's worth spending time with, and says he can't be all bad.

Peer starts to leave, saying he's going to go court Ingrid, but Aase tells him that while he was out having his adventure with the deer Ingrid accepted the marriage proposal of another man, and that the wedding's the next day. Peer says he can get to the farm where the wedding is taking place by the evening and pretends to be the deer that he just spoke about. He grabs Aase up onto his back and in spite of her telling him to let her go, jumps about with her. He lets her off, and starts on his journey. Aase says she'll be right behind him, but Peer sets her on the roof of one of the farm buildings and runs off. As Aase shouts after him to get her down, two Old Women arrive. Aase tells them what Peer did, and where he's running off to. As she worries that Peer will probably be killed, the two old women call to some men to come and help her down.