Ghosts

Metadata

Gutenberg ID

—

Title

Ghosts

Language

en

Book source

Global Grey

Description max 80 words

Henrik Ibsen's "Ghosts" presents a harrowing domestic drama centered on Helen Alving, a widow raising her son, Oswald, while managing an orphanage dedicated to her late husband's memory. The play confronts the corrosive effects of hypocrisy, hereditary disease, and societal repression. With a stark, realistic tone, it challenges rigid moral conventions and exposes the "ghosts" of the past that haunt the present, appealing to readers who seek profound psychological insight and social critique.

Summary up to 500 words

Set in the winter of 1879-80, Henrik Ibsen's *Ghosts* opens with Pastor Manders and Helen Alving preparing for a ceremony honoring her late husband, Lieutenant Alving. The atmosphere is one of rigid propriety, enforced by Manders, who represents the stifling conventions of society. However, Helen reveals a dark truth to the Pastor: her husband was a dissolute man who engaged in secret orgies with his servant, Johanna. To protect her young son, Oswald, from this corruption, Helen sent him away to school and secretly funded the orphanage to silence rumors about her husband's character. She also arranged a marriage between Oswald and the orphanage's caretaker, Regina, hoping to provide him with a healthy environment. The play's tone shifts dramatically when Oswald returns from a walk, hallucinating the ghosts of his father and Regina. He reveals a terrifying secret: he suffers from a hereditary disease, likely syphilis, which he inherited from his father. Oswald has prepared a box of morphine pills, intending to end his life when the disease inevitably returns, as he fears the degradation of becoming a helpless infant again. He rejects his mother's attempts to comfort him, accusing her of lying to him about his father's virtue and denying him the truth. As the narrative progresses, the tension escalates. Regina, who has been nursing Oswald, decides to leave, revealing she knows the truth about his condition and her own past. She warns that if Oswald takes after his father, she will too, but she cannot stay to nurse him. Oswald's mental state deteriorates rapidly; he becomes obsessed with the sun, a symbol of the truth he cannot bear. In a climactic moment, he reveals his intention to take his own life, locking his mother inside the house to prevent her from seeking help. The play ends with Oswald succumbing to his hallucinations and despair, leaving his mother in a state of utter horror and helplessness, trapped by the very ghosts she tried to exorcise. Through this tragedy, Ibsen critiques the destructive power of societal hypocrisy and the devastating consequences of hiding uncomfortable truths from the next generation.

LLM editorial rating

4.2/5

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https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/ebooks2/henrik-ibsen_ghosts.epub

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