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laws that Henrik Ibsen wrote out against in his later works. Ibsen believed
that these bourgeois beliefs were hindering the individual's, as well as the
conventional ideas. In "A Doll House" and "Ghosts", both heroines are
course of modern drama were immediate and profound".1 More than any
significance which the theater had lacked since the days of Shakespeare.
For the better part of fifty years, Ibsen contributed to giving European
reputation of being the greatest and most influential dramatist of his time.
day. Routines, and schedules usually taken for granted, are suddenly
turned upside down as they are forced to confront a major crisis. Nora, in
"A Doll House", must finally confess to her husband that she borrowed
she carries around with her, and those she perpetuates into the lives of the
children in her care. She is forced to come to terms with her own
clear that these women have only themselves to blame, and forces them to
It is the tragic life feeling that gives Ibsen's drama its unique
freedom, truth and love, in short, a happy life. In Ibsen's world the main
character strives toward a goal, but this struggle leads out into the cold, to
loneliness. Yet the possibility of opting for another route is always there,
one can chose human warmth and contact. The problem for Ibsen's
protagonists is that the choices can be deceiving, and the individual cannot
always see the consequences of his decision.
and threatening. It turns out that the world is in motion; old values and
previous conceptions are adrift. The movement shakes up the life of the
individual and jeopardizes the established social order. Here we see how
Yet what starts the whole process is the need for change,
Ibsen is a powerful conceptual writer. This does not mean that his main
later, have made this accusation - and it is fairly obvious that Ibsen was
their values and their understanding of existence. The concepts they use to
In 1879, Ibsen sent Nora Helmer out into the world with a
demand that a woman too must have the freedom to develop as an adult,
independent, and responsible person.3 The playwright was now over 50,
and had finally been recognized outside of the Nordic countries. "Pillars of
Society" had admittedly opened the German borders for him, but it was "A
Doll's House" and "Ghosts" (1881) which in the 1880s led him into the
European avant-garde.4
plaything or a pet rather than as an independent person with real needs and
emotions. These attitudes reflect the shallow and sexual nature of their
marriage. Nora is oblivious to this, however, until later in the play. When
she finally faces this reality, she is humiliated and disgusted. Nora has
forged her father's signature in order to borrow money. This is the terrible
secret she must hide from Torvald. She feels she cannot tell him the truth,
now.5
does much more than frighten Nora. He also forces her to realize that her
social transgression was not so very different from his own. This
realization sparks an awakening in Nora. She is beginning to peel away
Just think how a guilty man like that has to lie and play the
own wife and children. And about the children, that is the
Shortly after this lecture she shies away from seeing the children and
makes plans to see them less often so that she may avoid 'polluting' them.
this is the first indication that she will begin to make some significant
shifts in her life.
It is not until she is forced into it that Nora accepts that she
on honesty and trust. Sadly, Nora is still convinced that the 'wonderful
thing' will happen when Torvald discovers the truth. She believes that he
loves her so deeply that he will protect her. Not only will he stand beside
and instead cares only for appearances. She might have seen this coming
his children, but insists she remain living in the house in order to keep up
appearances. It is at this point that Nora must confront her true self.
Helmer tells her, "but no man would sacrifice his honor for the ones he
But you would have it so. You and Papa have committed a
of my life.9
Nora leaves him, her old ideals and even her children to search for her own
answers. She leaves it all behind with the closing of the door.
authority. Nora puts it this way: "Now I'll begin to learn for myself. I'll
try to discover who's right, the world or I".10 As noted earlier, when the
own.11 Although her future is insecure in many ways, Nora seems to have
husband, completely breaking off with the most important institution in the
took acute problems that afflicted the bourgeois family and placed them on
But Ibsen dramatizes the hidden conflicts in this society by opening the
doors to the private, and secret rooms of the bourgeois homes. He shows
These were the aspects of the middle-class life one was not supposed to
Rosenvold in "Ghosts".13
Both plays are quite short in duration, the main protagonist is female, and
both plays take place over a very short span of time. However, this play
has no sub-plot. Only the characters involved in the main dramatic action
are ever introduced. This technique makes the strength of the play all that
much more powerful. There are no distractions to lessen the force of the
become a good wife. She led a good and virtuous life because it was the
right thing to do. Ibsen, in writing "Ghosts", made her pay for sacrificing
her own personal needs.Ibsen points out that each generation learns from
the one before it, and that the ghosts remain with us unless we are willing
to struggle against them. He also makes clear that this struggle is not only
message Ibsen sends with the severe punishment of Mrs. Alving in this
play.
miserably unhappy that she ran to Pastor Manders for help. He scolded
her and persuaded the miserable young woman to do the dutiful thing and
return to her husband. For many years Mrs. Alving quietly ran the
life's hardest battle?" To which Mrs. Alving remarks, "Call it rather your
most pitiful defeat." Manders can't believe that and gently says, "It was
both".14
everything to perpetuate those old stigmas. She goes so far as to send her
trace of his father in him. Then, ironically, she writes letters implying that
the boy's father is nothing less than a hero. There are many such
inconsistencies in Mrs. Alving's character.
At the same time that she reads books of which the Pastor
Although she despised the man, she does it in order to quiet any slanderous
guilt. "Her decision to be her own judge of what is right and wrong
de-throning of authority and the installation of the self in its place could
not be erected without a feeling of guilt"15 Perhaps she felt that she had
failed him in some way, taking the responsibility upon herself to bear.
Regina, she considers arranging her marriage to prevent the two being
telling her son the truth about his father. She regrets her life-long
cowardice, and yet still does not speak out. She is frightened by the ghosts
mothers that exists again in us, but all sorts of old dead
ideas and all kinds of old dead beliefs and things of that
kind. They are not actually alive in us, but they are
Perhaps Ibsen felt that he had not made his message clear with
Mrs. Alving. Perhaps he felt that the loss of her own happiness was not
punishment enough. For she now finds out that all of her efforts were for
naught. Oswald tells her that he is very ill. Her guilt grows as he tells her
about the doctor who diagnosed him. He had insinuated that Oswald's
father was not a virtuous man. Oswald had rushed to his father's defense
Mrs. Alving does something even more perplexing near the end
of the play.She feels freed that she can finally tell her awful secrets when
Oswald explains that he wants to take Regina with him simply because she
is full of "the joy of life".17 It is only at this point that Mrs. Alving feels
she can speak. Sadly, this is because she can now make Mr. Alving's
sexual transgressions her fault. She now feels responsible, "I brought no
holiday spirit into his home either. I had been taught about duty and that
sort of thing that I believed in so long here. As though this wasn't enough,
she goes on to shoulder the blame even further when she says, "I am afraid
He is suffering from the syphilitic paresis and will soon need his mother to
administer the fatal dose of morphine that he carries with him. It is poetic
justice that Mrs. Alving should be the one to end his life. She has let
cowardice beat her all her life and now she must face the consequences not
spirit. Both this work, and "A Doll's House" contain, for all their despair,
a warm defense of happiness and the joy of life - pitted against the
bourgeois society's emphasis on duty, law, and order. It was in the 1870s
that Ibsen oriented himself toward his "European" point of view. Even
contemporary dramas.19
town, the kind Ibsen knew so well from his childhood in Skien and his
him a sharp eye for social forces and conflicts arising from differing
these social and ideological conflicts are more exposed than they would be
in a larger city. Ibsen's first painful experiences came from such a small
exercise a negative control over the individual, create anxiety, and inhibit a
This was the atmosphere of his youth that formed the basis for
his writing and world fame. As an insecure writer and man of the theater
drama. He began with this national perspective. At the same time, from his
theater. In the history of drama, early in the 1850s Ibsen carried on the
the young Ibsen was occupied with day to day practical stagework, and it
follows that he had to keep himself well informed about the latest
was his conveyance of the ideological conflicts of his day into the theater.
used by a modern dramatist. From this he may have arrived at the idea of
down from the father to both of his children. An inescapable, tragic flaw.
In other words, Ibsen was in close contact with the art of the
stage for a long uninterrupted period. His six years at the theater in Bergen
(1851-57) and the following four or five years at the theater in Kristiania
from 1857 were not easy.23 But he acquired a sharp eye for theatrical
produce hanging over him; one that led to fumbling attempts in many
see during these years. His goal was clearly national. Together with his
They had a joint program for their activities. Ibsen was especially
concerned with the role of theater in the young Norwegian nation's search
material from the country's medieval history and perfected his art as a
dramatist.
volition in order to achieve true humanity, is clear. This is the only way to
real freedom - for the individual, and it follows, for society as a whole.
Nora and Mrs. Alving are two examples of this message. The
only way either of these women could free themselves was to rid
themselves of all these outdated social restraints. Choosing the right path
for themselves as individuals, not what was best for society or what was
expected of them. Nora wasted eight years of her life married to a man
that she realized was a "stranger" to her. She had been so busy playing a
role to suit and please him that she completely lost sight of her true self.
She risked her honour for a man that didn't appreciate or respect her as an
individual person. In all fairness, however, it must be stated that it would
have been impossible for Torvald to know her any better as an individual
years with a man she did not love. She focused her entire life on trying to
keep any part of her husband from infecting and contaminating Oswald,
her only son. She had no idea that he had long since infected the boy with
syphilitic paresis. She also had no idea that this same son would die in her
arms because of her inability to stand up for herself and demand respect.
Mrs. Alving lost the better part of her life, a chance at happiness and her
only son. All because of a fear of breaking out of the old confinements.
celebrity.25 It was not easy for him to return. The many years abroad, and
the long struggle for recognition, had left their indelible stamp. Towards
the end of his career, he said that he really was not happy with the fantastic
His style and talent set a new precedence for the drama of his
and leaves the task of developing and the ultimate result to the individual
reader's ability".27
Ibsen felt that studying individual plays without the whole as a group was
insensible, " . . . Ibsen [felt that] all the works he [had] created, however
they differ[ed] in style, to be integral phases of one consistent
works.28 However, due to the length and nature of this paper, it was
should keep in mind that these two plays are simply that, two plays from
Ibsen greatly valued the individual's and the nation's search for the true
inner self. He did not believe in conforming to rigid social structures, but