This paper discusses phenomenological ambiguity in the plays of the Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906). Ibsen’s works reflect the philosophy of two major phenomenologists: Hegel and Kierkegaard. Hegel discusses the relationship between self and otherness as the most critical feature of human awareness. The self and the other are inextricably linked. To destroy the other is to destroy the self. On the other hand, the existentialist Kierkegaardian worldview advocates the essential being who must take individual responsibility, and the process of self-realization must happen internally. The protagonists of A Doll’s House (1879), Ghosts (1881) and Hedda Gabler (1890) reflect this phenomenological ambiguity in Henrik Ibsen. While Hegel argues that the master-slave dialectic is critical to identity formation, Kierkegaard focuses on individual responsibility and choice for the construction of identity. Ibsen’s characters are caught in the tragedy of self-realization, heroic as they struggle for it but also poignantly flawed as, despite achieving self-realization, they fail to establish a connection with the phenomenal world.