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Ghosts: A Family Drama in Three Acts
(1881)
Original Danish title: Gengangere
Translated and with an Introduction by Scottish critic and author William Archer (1856-1924).
This play was first staged in 1882. Like many of Ibsen's better-known plays, Ghosts is a scathing commentary on 19th-century morality. Helen Alving is about to dedicate an orphanage she has built in the memory of her dead husband, Captain Alving. She reveals to her spiritual advisor, Pastor Manders, that she has hidden the evils of her marriage, and has built the orphanage to deplete her husband's wealth so that their son, Oswald, might not inherit anything from him. Pastor Manders had previously advised her to return to her husband despite his philandering, and she followed his advice in the belief that her love for her husband would eventually reform him. However her husband's philandering continued until his death, and Mrs. Alving was unable to leave him prior to his death for fear of being shunned by the community. During the action of the play she discovers that her son Oswald (whom she had sent away so that he would not be corrupted by his father) is suffering from inherited syphilis, and (worse) has fallen in love with Regina Engstrand, Mrs. Alving's maid.
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Recent Forum Posts on Ghosts: A Family Drama in Three Acts
Ghosts - The dreadful ending
Reflecting on my own marriage, I have just seen Ghosts in a new light. The Young Captain Alving and Pastor Manders once had, like youthful Oswald, a full measure of the joy of life. Mrs Alving’s sterile subservience to duty drove the captain to syphilitic adventures and ultimate emptiness. Looking for a better life, the young Mrs Alving flees to Pastor Manders who, like her, puts duty and propriety first, becoming hypocritical in middle age. Oswald, dying of syphilis - the legacy of his parent's joyless marriage - returns home from Paris. He finds temporary relief from the sterile home environment in warmth from the glowing embers of the Captain’s memorial, the orphanage. While his dutiful mother is as cold as ever, the memory of his father can still provide a little warmth. Mrs Alving finally cries, “No, no, no!--Yes!--no, no!” in response to Oswald’s, “The sun--the sun”. She screams despairingly, not so much at the catatonic Oswald, as at the devastation she has wreaked on her family, and on her own life, by putting duty before joy and warmth. The ghost of a young, joy-filled captain - deprived of a warming sun - returns to devastate her.
Helene Alving in Sodom and Gomorrah
In struggling to get an overview of 'Ghosts', I realised that Mrs. Alving is the only character who behaves throughout with integrity, who does her duty, in this latter-day Sodom and Gomorrah. Captain Alving and Pastor Manders, idealists as young men, soon become tainted like other corrupt and dissolute 'pillars of society'. The drunkard Engstrand and his wife, Johanna, live a lie. On returning from Paris, Oswald is worn down by living in this joyless and wicked society. Regine loses hope and will drown like her father before her. Genesis 19:24____Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven; Finally fire and brimstone begins to fall as it did on those two 'cities of the plain': the orphanage is gone and Manders and Engstrand with it. Young Oswald and Regine have fallen into despair like their common father. The lone survivor of the conflagration is Mrs. Alving - the one righteous person. Oswald. Everything will be burned up; nothing will be left that is in memory of my father. Here am I being burned up, too. (REGINA looks at him in alarm.) If all this isn't bad enough, the righteous Mrs Alving has one last and terrible burden to bear. She, like Abraham, is asked to sacrifice her only son, her one hope for the future. Genesis 22:2____And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering... But will the angel of the LORD also call unto Helene out of heaven, saying, "Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him"?
Regine
Captain Alving's daughter, Regine, may be crucial to understanding the ending of ‘Ghosts’. In considering Oswald's questionable paternity, I had overlooked the curious impact of Regine's paternity on the ending. Until she learns that Captain Alving was her father, Regine has a positive, upbeat outlook on life. Afterwards, as Mrs Alving prophesies, 'Regine−−I can see quite well−−you are going to your ruin!'. Why the turnabout in Regina’s outlook? The obvious reasons seem hopelessly inadequate: her mother conceived her out of wedlock; she has been brought up as a maid rather than a chamberlain's daughter; her step father and mother had long deceived her; or marriage with terminally-ill Oswald, her bother, is impossible now. One may have expected Regine to be relieved that Engstrand is not her father. But no. Isn’t it strange that Regine says nothing about her true father? This may be a key to the ending. Regine realises that she has inherited the failings of her father, a ‘pillar of society’, just as Oswald had inherited syphilis. All of a sudden she too is tangled in societies’ web of hypocrisy, and she rebels in a tragic way. A telling exchange (late in Act II) is: Oswald. Yes, as my wife−−if she insists on that. Manders. But, good heavens−−! Regina. It is not my fault, Mr. Manders. Oswald. Or else she stays here if I stay. Regina (involuntarily). Here!
Why the title 'Ghosts'?
The belief and prejudice of myopic society has fashioned the lives of each character in the play. Long ago, the dampening effect of this prejudice broke the spirit Captain Alving and Pastor Manders, while still young men. The ghosts of belief and prejudice continue to haunt Mrs Alving, now an enlightened and independent thinker. Her own prejudice had helped cripple her husband, dreadfully wound her son, Oswald, and hoodwink her maid, Regine. Following the terminally-ill Oswald's recent return from Paris, these ghosts stalk in the endless rain, in dreary and overcast days. Foremost among Mrs Alving's concerns is being a dutiful and loving mother to her sick son. Despite misgivings, she hopes she hopes to do more than her duty. But finally the sun comes out and the ghosts of prejudice vanish (like Hamlet's ghost vanished with the dawn). The truth of Mrs Alving's life now lies naked in the broad sunlight. Horrified, she says, 'No, no, no!−−Yes!−−no, no!'
The doubtful paternity of Oswald
In this thread I intend to post all textual evidence that bears upon the paternity of Oswald. Was his father Captain Alving or Pastor Manders? Since Ibsen shows rather than tells, this evidence is certain to be implicit rather than explicit. All the evidence, of courses, will be subject to interpretations that do not relate to Oswald's paternity because Ibsen (like all good playwrights) intends multiple meanings. I expect the weight of evidence will bear heavily on the question of paternity. It may prove that the identity of Oswald's father is unknowable both to the characters and those experiencing the play. If so, the ramifications are manifold.
Oh, so difficult to grasp!
Having read ten Ibsen plays in several weeks, 'Ghosts' has baffled me, even after a rereading. Still it’s wonderfully challenging. As the play ends, Oswald begs his mother for a morphine overdose to end 'the great, killing dread' - to do her duty. What are we to make of this, and dread of what? At age seven, Oswald was sent away from home by his mother. ‘Home’ and 'child' are central elements in several Ibsen plays. He looks on his mother with recrimination either for sending him away or for crushing his father's 'joy of life'. As Pastor Manders says, she sent her 'child forth among strangers', and he asks, ‘And in what state of mind has he returned to you? ’. She seems a woman who values duty beyond moral courage. Oswald remembers his father with remorse and admiration, but concedes, '"father"! I never knew anything of father'. Sparkling Regine, his half sister fascinates him. A distant memory of Johanna and his spirited father perhaps? Regine inherited her father's 'joy of life': Oswald, his mother's dour negativity. If Oswald is mentally ill, is his mother responsible for a disorder ‘inherited’ from her? If his mental disorder is intractable, how could Regine have helped him, and why would calamity still hover, with her ultimately coming 'to the rescue at the last' with euthanasia by morphine'? Why exactly does Regine forsake him? What are we to make of the other homes in the play, the two memorials: the incinerated orphanage and finally Jacob Engstrand's "Chamberlain Alving's Home" for sailors? And what is Ibsen's overall thesis?
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