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“It's not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that walks in us. It's all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we can't get rid of them.”
-Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts
Does a son pay for his father’s crimes? Can a family of seemingly pristine morals in fact consist of morally depraved and inherently hollow people? Does the past really stay in the past? Ibsen’s ‘Ghosts’ asks many more of these questions. Set in 1880s Norway, Ibsen’s ‘Ghosts’ is perhaps one of the most unremittingly bleak plays ever.
Introduction
Name of the Book - Ghosts
Written By - Henrik Ibsen
Genre - Tragic Drama
Language - Written in Norwegian and translated into English
About the Author
Picture Credit- Wikipedia
Born on 20th March 1828, Henrik Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. One of the founders of modernism in literature, Ibsen is also known as the Father of Realism. He was one of the most influential playwrights of his time.
His major literary works include ‘Brand’, ‘Peer Gynt’, ‘An Enemy of the People’, ‘Emperor’ and ‘Galilean’, ‘A Doll's House’, ‘Hedda Gabler’, ‘Ghosts’, ‘The Wild Duck’, ‘When We Dead Awaken, ‘Rosmersholm’, and ‘The Master Builder’. Ibsen is the most commonly performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and A Doll's House was the world's most performed play in 2006.
Plot - Spoiler Alert!
Helen Alving is preparing for the inauguration of an orphanage in her late husband’s memory. Despite her husband’s debauchery and constant affairs, Mrs. Alving stayed with him to protect her son, Osvald, from scandal and out of the fear of social judgment.
Over the course of the play, she discovers that her son whom she had sent away to keep him from the sins of his father, has syphilis. She becomes distraught upon another discovery that Osvald has fallen in love with the housemaid Regina Engstrand, who is in fact Osvald’s half-sister.
In a subplot, Jacob Engstrand, Regina’s father who had married Joanna (her mother) while she was pregnant with Alving’s child, tries to persuade Reina to come and work for him in a hostel he intends to open for sailors.
He insinuates that Regina could prostitute and bring in money. Regina refuses vehemently and even when the priest Father Manders asks her to go, she declines, asking him for a way she could climb up the social ladder.
Towards the end of the play, everything just falls apart. The orphanage catches fire and is burnt to the ground and the secret of Captain Alving’s affair with his maid Joanna is brought to light. When Regina finds out the truth of her relationship with Osvald, she leaves, leaving Osvald utterly destroyed.
He asks his mother to give him a heavy dose of morphine and free him of his painful existence. The play ends with Mrs. Alving in a quandary, unable to decide whether she should act following her son’s wishes.
Themes Involved
Morality is the first theme that has been highlighted in the play. Captain Alving’s constant debauchery and his immoral behavior although not explicitly shown in the play, is the constant discourse that goes on in the play. Mrs. Alving sends Osvald away to protect him from his father’s immorality but in the end, it’s like the ghost of his father is still there.
The next theme is that of duty and self-sacrifice. We are given the information that Mrs. Alving had once left her husband and had only returned on Father Manders’ advice that it was her duty to serve her husband. She had to come back to her immoral husband and live with him, first because of her duty as a wife and then that of a mother to Osvald.
Last but not the least, there is a dominant theme of past, inheritance, and moving on. When Mrs. Alving hears Osvald making a move on Regina, she is instantly reminded of the moment when she caught her husband with Joanna. It’s like the ghosts of the two had returned in the form of their children. Osvald gets the unfortunate inheritance of his father’s venereal disease.
Psychological Analysis
The play talks of Euthanasia with Osvald’s wanting his mother to give him an overdose of morphine. Euthanasia, also known as assisted suicide, is the practice of intentionally ending the life of a person or helping them in doing so, to relieve them from pain and suffering.
It is practiced in the case of a long-term illness, only when the person agrees to it and not without the presence of a physician. To read more about Euthanasia, visit eatmynews.com.
Famous Quotes
“It is the very mark of the spirit of rebellion to crave for happiness in this life”
“It's not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that walks in us. It's all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we can't get rid of them.”
“People so easily forget their past selves.”
The Bottom Line
‘Ghosts’ is definitely a thought-provoking book. It is interesting and way ahead of its time in the way that while writers in the 1800s didn't usually talk about immorality, adultery, or venereal diseases, Ibsen brings them to the front in the most modern way.
My Ratings for the Book - 5 on 5
Get the Book from Amazon at Ghosts
Written By - Sakshi Singh
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