Abstract
This article examines Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts (1881), a play that deals with family threads of sexual promiscuity, insanity, and motherly suffocation, exploring how the play demonstrates the inexplicable workings of fate which no course of antibiotic can reverse. More than being a “problem play” in which Ibsen exposes the social ills of his day, Ghosts has much in common with Greek tragedy. The study analyses Ibsen’s violent attack on conventional morality through the character of Pastor Manders, the tragic plight of Mrs. Alving as she struggles against the ghosts of the past, and the play’s rich symbolism of light, rain, fire, and hereditary disease. The article argues that the play is a reminder that our future is always affected by the choices we make in the past.
Keywords: Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts, conventional morality, Greek tragedy, symbolism, Mrs. Alving, Pastor Manders, Oswald, heredity, social criticism
Ibsen and Modern Drama
A new spirit entered the English Theatre from 1860 under the influence of foreign dramatists, the most famous of whom was Henrik Ibsen. The Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) is generally credited with being the “father of modern drama” and most studies of modern theatre start with his works. He is credited with providing modern drama with realism, lyricism, masterful plot construction and discussion particularly of social issues in the “problem plays” for which he is best known.
The Scandal of Ghosts
Ibsen wrote Ghosts in 1881. When first produced it created uproar from audiences and critics alike because of its uncompromising treatment of a taboo subject — venereal disease. The play was considered so scandalous that it was banned from stages in Norway for about fifteen years and from England’s stages for about five years. On its first presentation, more than 100 years ago, Ghosts was considered an abomination, a gross obscenity.
The Plot and Characters
For the characters in Ghosts, tomorrow is a big day. They are all convening on Rosenvold, the Alving estate, to dedicate the Captain Alving Memorial Orphanage. Mrs. Alving is the widow of Captain Alving, a gentleman widely respected in his community. She kept his true behavior — alcoholism, womanizing, and illness — secret for twenty years. Oswald has secrets of his own: he is terminally ill with syphilis, the same illness his father had.
Attack on Conventional Morality
There are two basic themes in Ghosts. In the first place, it is a violent attack on conventional morality. Pastor Mander embodies everything Ibsen hated in those conventions. Though he sees himself as a moral and ethical leader, he is motivated almost exclusively by fear of what others think of him. The conventional moral code is itself hypocritical, and those who adhere to it are neither morally nor spiritually motivated.
Mrs. Alving’s Struggle
Mrs. Alving is quite contemptuous of the conventional code. She herself as an emancipated woman who has freed herself of her past. But at the conclusion of Act I, she and Manders hear Oswald running after the servant Regina, an echo of the affair between Captain Alving and the servant who was Regina’s mother. In Act II, Mrs. Alving states the second theme of the play explicitly: “We’re all haunted in this world … by the ghosts of innumerable old prejudices and beliefs — half-forgotten cruelties and betrayals … and we can’t get rid of them.”
Symbolism in Ghosts
Ibsen’s poetic ability enables him to enrich the prose plays with symbol, broad as well as narrow meanings. In Ghosts we find many symbols. The first is rain outside of Mrs. Alving’s home — it remains stormy until the truth is faced and the sun begins to rise. Rain is used as a symbol of the cleansing of evil and impurities. The fire that destroys the orphanage is another symbol of truth. Engstrand is also a symbol — he represents society as a whole with his crippled leg and claim to have “two good legs to stand on.” Oswald could be interpreted as a major symbol: freedom, innocence, joy and truth.
Ghosts and Greek Tragedy
The similarity between Ghosts and Greek tragedy, with its single fated action moving to an unmistakable catastrophe, has been felt by many critics. Mrs. Alving like Oedipus is engaged in a quest for her true human condition; and Ibsen, like Sophocles, shows on-stage only the end of this quest, when the past is being brought up again in the light of the present action and its fated outcome.
Works Cited
- Daily Telegraph Theatre Critic, Clement Scott, (British Premier in 1891).
- “Ghosts: The Tragic Rhythm in a Small Figure” by Francis Ferguson, (Original title: “Ghosts: The Theatre of Modern Realism”) From the Idea of a Theatre by Francis Ferguson, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949).
- Alla Nazimova, actress who played the role of Regina in St. Petersburg and Mrs. Alving throughout the United States and at the Empire Theatre in New York in the 1935-1936 season.
- Elizabeth Robins, Ibsen and the Actress, (1928; New York, 1973) p.55.
- The Cambridge Companion to Ibsen, (ed.) James McFarlane (Cambridge University Press, 1944) p.81.
- Ghosts: A Microcosm of Human Behavior by Canova Henderson, Autumn Miller, and Amy Smith (from internet Google.com, Review on Ibsen’s “Ghosts”).
- “Ghosts: The Tragic Rhythm In A Small Figure” by Francis Ferguson, (Original title: “Ghosts: The Theatre Of Modern Realism”), From The Idea Of A Theatre by Francis Ferguson, (Princeton: University Press, 1949).
- Halvdan Koht, The Life Of Ibsen, translated by R. L. Mc Mahon and H.A. Larsen; 2 vols; New York: 1931, p.173.