Peer eventually returns to Solveig, but not before he comes to see that he has wasted his life. The revelation comes from his meeting with a subtly frightening character called the Buttonmoulder who approaches Peer near the end of the play. It is the Buttonmoulder's job to round up all the souls who are neither bad enough for hell nor good enough for heaven and melt them down like so many imperfect buttons so they can be used in the making of new souls. He tells Peer that he too must be melted down because, like all the other mediocrities, he has "never been himself." His words set Peer on a last, desperate search to discover what the Buttonmoulder means and to become, if possible, "himself."
Near the end of the play, Peer asks the Buttonmoulder what is meant by "becoming oneself." The Buttonmoulder tells him it means "putting yourself to death."
Neither saint nor sinner, Peer finally learns he has been a worthless nonentity who existed only in the love of a faithful wife, and at the end of the play he is waiting to be melted down, like all useless things, by the Button Moulder. "He who forfeits his calling, forfeits his right to live," wrote Kierkegaard, who believed, like Ibsen, that careerist self-absorption and mindless self-seeking are the most monstrous waste of life. Or, as the Button Moulder puts it: "To be yourself, you must slay yourself."… To be yourself is to kill the worst and therefore to bring out the best in yourself' The Button-molder is a character that appears in the last act of Peer Gynt. He reveals that he is sent from "the Master" to fetch Peer's soul. Peer replies that it cant be! Like this, without any warning! The Button moulder explains that human beings who have done something distinctively good or bad live on in heaven or hell. Peer gynt used to mold buttons. The button moulder refers -- "you've worked at the craft" process of purification that the soul is to undergo?? condemnation or salvation. If Peer goes into the ladle he loses his identity The Button Moulder has orders to fetch Peer's soul, because Peer is no sinner on the heroic scale but to call him a good man would be going too far, not one thing nor the other... Peer did not want to be melted...somewhat of a horror of losing one's identity. Now you were designed for a shining button... to be oneself is to slay oneself... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peer Gynt's central conflict is between selfhood and self-sufficiency, expressed by the phrases man be thyself and be to thyself enough Peer is incapable of sacrifice and therefore of devoting himself to the pursuit of any external end His final salvation comes through Solveig, who symbolizes spiritual maturity and valididty, gained by sacrifice to an external object. NON-EXISTENT Peer has taken no consistent line of action, either toward good or evil, by reason of his self-absorption. he is spiritually non-existent. The Button molder intends to melt his soul as a loopless buttopn therefore a useless button Peer refuses to believe that he has not been himself. Begs Solveig to tell him where peer gynt has been since they parted. she answers in my faith, in my hope, and in my love. there is no longer any need to fear the Button molder for Peer's soul has been found and redeemed. **although he is unquestionably an individual having a well-defined personality, he is also Everyman, undergoing the universal experience of finding his own identity.