I think that Ibsen is both a product and a head of his times. His ideals about a different world stem from the society in which he lives in however this has caused his views to be ahead of his times.
He was a product of his times as he was a part of the realist movement that began in 1840 just 12 years after he was born. His childhood life would have impacted him also however I think that he was ahead of his times in his beliefs about society and in humanism. In 1978 he stated “A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men, and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view.” (See blog post here) few years later in 1913 women were finally given a right to vote. This would suggest that his ideals were quite progressive for society in that time.
