Mad Men: The Mountain King

This past episode was fascinating for a few reasons: we finally got to see who Don had phoned in last week's episode (The Jet Set), we learned who the blonde woman was from the car dealership where Don used to work many years ago, the power vs. dominance theme threading through it, and the literary allusion to Peer Gynt. The name of the episode is called "The Mountain King, and "In the Hall of the Mountain King" is the name of the orchestral piece in the Henrik Ibsen play, Peer Gynt. This is the same piece that the little boy is playing on the piano at Anna's house.

A little about Peer Gynt: Peer Gynt is the son of a successful farmer named Jon Gynt. Jon Gynt blows all his money on and is forced to leave his family and become a wandering salesman. Peer is regarded as a failure in his family, thought to be foolish, and his mother scolds him for having an overactive imagination. She mocks him for losing his chances of marrying the daughter of the wealthiest farmer around. The daughter is to be wed the next day, so Peer goes to the wedding in hopes that he can still be with her. His mother follows him so she can prevent him from making a complete fool out of himself, but it is too late.

The wedding guests laugh at him. He is a joke. There, he meets a family of outsiders, and he is immediately attracted to their daughter. She wants nothing to do with him. He ends up running away to the mountains with the bride instead. Because of what he's done, he has to venture further into the mountains, as his mother and the outsiders' daughter searches for him. On his travels, he meets three lusty milk maids. He drinks with them all day, and the next day, he has to face his terrible hangover. He ends up bumping his head on a rock and faints, and this is the exact point in the play when his dream takes place, which will last through all of the second act.

In the dream, he meets a beautiful woman, dressed in green; she is the troll mountain king's daughter. She takes Peer to the mountain hall where her father, The Mountain King, makes a proposition: if he marries his daughter, he will make him a troll. Peer ends up turning down the offer and leaving. And his adventures continue. At the end of the play, Peer asks, "What is it to be one self?", and he discovers that the answer to his question is simple: "to overcome one's self".

Don Draper/Dick Whitman vs. Peer Gynt
- They are classic anti-heroes.
- They were both born on a farm and both ridiculed by family.
- They both ran away with the bride: Peer escaped into the mountains with the bride from the wedding, and Don married Betty to get away from his former life. Or, some could even say, he "married" the real Don Draper's wife, becoming a surrogate husband, providing her with the all the things she needed in her life, just so he could go on living his life as Don.

- The three lusty milkmaids could be compared to Midge, Rachel, and Bobbie. Peer drinks with them all day and has to deal with the consequences, in this case, a hangover. Don cavorts with them and then has to face the repercussions, in this case, the deterioration of his marriage and his family life.

- The "Mountain King" and his daughter are the European man, Viscount Willy Monteforte, and his daughter, Joy. If you also remember, the first time Don sees Joy, she is wearing a green dress. The troll mountain king's daughter is clad in green when she meets Peer.
- The Europeans (Trolls) offer Don a life to be one of them, in this case, nomads who wander the world. Having Joy would be just one of the perks, just as marrying the king's daughter would sweeten the deal of Peer becoming a troll.

- The theme of Peer Gynt is "the self", and one could say this is a major focal point in Mad Men.