Please read and respond to Act I of Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen. How does Ibsen use dialogue, characterization, and symbolism to teach us philosophy? Use direct examples from the text. Also, end your response with a question for class discussion.
I have a link to the full text below:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8121/8121-h/8121-h.htm#link2H_4_0003
Ibsen uses the dialogue between Mrs. Alving and Manders to emphasize people’s constant need to have a fair reputation. Within this dialogue, it’s revealed that Mrs. Alving did absolutely everything she could to hide her husband from the world. After she came back to her husband, she had to “fight...incessantly, day after day” to keep his character and demeanor a secret from the rest of the world, as it would hurt their reputation if people knew what he was actually like. She sent Oswald away after Mr. Alving’s affair, and was able to take the “upper hand in the house” because of the secret she kept. The orphanage is used as a symbol for all of this, as Mrs. Alving used all of his money after he passed to build it, and “to silence all rumours and clear away all doubt”. The length she went to keep his character and behavior a secret was all to keep their reputation untarnished. I was wondering about Oswald’s history, and how his relationship with Regina plays into the story. By the end of the act, it’s pretty clear that something’s going on between them- Is the significance that it directly parallels Mr. Alving’s affair with their old servant?
ReplyDeleteSosha
ReplyDeleteI realized that Ibsen puts hints here and there in the dialogue to emphasize its important later in the play. For example, the talk about insurance for the orphanage and the carpenter shop that has caught fire. Then enters Oswald “smoking a big meerschaum pipe”, which foreshadows that the orphanage might catch fire because of Oswald. Mrs. Alving is offended when Manders finds a resemblance of Mr. Alving in Oswald. She responds that “Oswald takes after me.” Knowing Ibsen, he will soon reveal a scandal of Mr. Alving that makes Mrs. Alving so upset, which does happen. Mr. Alving had an affair with one of the servants. Of course, the same exact thing happens with Oswald. So much for believing that the child won’t be poisoned once he’s sent far away from home (dramatic irony).
Did Manders want Oswald to get married?
During this act, I was shocked by the similarities between A Doll House and Ghosts. The first thing I noticed was the weird relationship between Regina and Jakob, which reminded me of Nora and Torvald. Since they are not supposed to be the parallels to these characters, I think it is just another depiction of an odd relationship. I also noticed that much of the dialogue is vague and hints to deeper things because of the lack of detail. One example of this is when Mr. Manders suggest to Mrs. Alving that Regina go work for her father. She gets very angry, but the readers are only shown this dialogue:
ReplyDeleteMRS. ALVING. Indeed I shall set myself against it. And besides—Regina is to have a position in the Orphanage.
MANDERS. But, after all, remember he is her father—
MRS. ALVING. Oh, I know very well what sort of a father he has been to her. No! She shall never go to him with my goodwill.
This shows that there could be a deeper secret between Regina and Mrs. Alving, which is revealed in the later part of act one. Ibsen teaches philosophy by showing the thoughts Mr. Manders has regarding insurance and his religious position and by showing the influence on Mrs. Alving. Mr. Manders shows he is nervous about what people think by saying “No, that is just the point; we really cannot do otherwise. We ought not to expose ourselves to misinterpretation; and we have no right whatever to give offence to the weaker brethren”. Originally, Mrs. Alving is dead set against not getting insuring the orphanage, but she is quick to change her mind after being persuaded. Did Mrs. Alving succeed in protecting Oswald from his father, or does he know the truth?
The action and dialogue of the characters is quite naturalistic. Ibsen has the dialogue between the characters, especially in the beginning with Regina and her father, somehow show the reader what is happening without actually saying it; the characters hint at what they mean such as when Engstrand states: “I thought of putting the money into something that would pay. I thought of some kind of an eating-house for seafaring folk–” (4).
ReplyDeleteI also noticed how Ibsen included dialogue about Engstrand mimicking his wife saying to him: “‘Let me go Jacob! Let me be! Please to remember that I was three years with the Alvings at Rosenvold, and they were people who went to Court!”’ (3) and then later on in the act, Mrs. Alving tells Manders about overhearing the incident with her husband and her maid when she heard her say to him, “Let me go, Mr. Alving! Let me be!” (23). I thought it was interesting how it Ibsen puts small details within the dialogue that connect back to other conversations. I also noticed how Ibsen uses the dialogue between Manders and Mrs. Alving to emphasize how their whole lives revolve around keeping a good reputation. Mrs. Alving “suffered a good deal in [her] house” (23) to keep her son Oswald safe and the whole point of the Orphanage to her is to erase “all rumors and clear away all doubt” (24) in order to keep her reputation untarnished. I also got a sense of the emphasis on duty for characters like Mrs. Alving who, as Manders states, “forsook [her] duty as a wife” and eventually her “duty as a mother” (20) and it seems that Mrs. Alving still fulfilled her duty despite her circumstances, by sending her child away so that he would not grow up in a poisoned household.
Questions: Did Oswald ever find out about what his father was like? Does Manders do anything more with the information Mrs. Alving has just told him?
Ibsen's use of dialogue between Oswald, Dr. Manders and Mrs. Alving shows how two are manipulating the other. Manders is horrified by the things that Mrs. Alving and her son say, and they both shock him with their beliefs and ways of life. For example, when referring to the books that she is reading, Mrs. Alving says that "There is nothing more in them than what most people think and believe" after Manders expresses his negative view of them, despite the fact that he hasn't read any of them. Similarly, Oswald continues this trend by saying that he has been a "constant Sunday guest" at households without marriage binding the family. Since the reader saw Manders easily manipulate Mrs. Alving into not buying insurance for the orphange earlier, it is surprising that he is so easily flustered. It shows not only the generational difference between Oswald and Manders, but also the devotion of Mrs. Alving to her son and her trust in his choices. I was confused at the part where Mrs. Anders talks about the affair her husband had with their maid- I know it was meant to mirror Oswald and Regina at the end of the act but I sort of felt like I was missing something . Mrs Anders clearly wants to protect Regina from her father for some reason. I want to know exactly what is going on between Regina and Oswald and if it really is the same situation as that of Mr. Anders and the maid.
ReplyDeleteAs Mr. Pellerin had informed us about previously, Ibsen’s plays were meant to be quite tragic that, at times, it were seen as comical. Two sections of this act that come to mind are when Manders ironically claims that “the last time [Engstrand] was in town, I was really quite touched by him” (13) and the part where Mrs. Alving is describing the affair then, the reader is shown that Regina is yelling the same exact lines as the previous maid many years prior. The first section regarding Mr. Engstrand’s description follows the philosophy of a single story. While Manders regards Engstrand as “a helpless child,” (14) he fails to interpret Mrs. Alving’s intuition of Regina’s father which plays to Manders innocent ignorance.
ReplyDeleteFor the other section of Act 1, the philosophy of nurture vs. nature is tested in the character of Oswald. As previously mentioned, Oswald is shown to be smoking his father’s pipe which confuses Manders due to his appear eerily resembling his father. But, what seemed even more over the top and unexpected, is when Mrs. Alving, who is recalling the events where her husband cheated on her to Manders, is mortified as she hears Regina, almost verbatim from the prior maid, shout “Let me go!” (25) to Oswald. These similarities between Oswald and his father are possibly the beginning of new torment for Mrs. Alving which may lead to more unsettling history of the father that Oswald will reciprocate unknowingly. My question is in regards to the maid that was in a affair with Mr. Alving. Is the maid Regina’s mother, seeing as she also worked there as a maid which also may allude to Mrs. Alving having done something to rid of her.
The dialogue in Ghosts varies a lot depending on who is talking. Ibsen does a really good job of changing his voice as it changes from speaker to speaker. You can tell as soon as Mrs. Alving enters that she is lonely and depressed, and you can tell when Engstrand enters that he is a little crazy. In this way he uses the dialogue and the style in which the characters talk to establish their individual personalities and characterization. An excerpt that highlights this is:
ReplyDeleteManders: But suppose, now, that some accident happened?-- one can never tell-- would you be prepared to make good the damage?
Mrs. Alving: No; I tell you quite plainly I would not do so under any circumstances.
Here you can see that Manders has a very different method of speaking than Mrs. Alving does. Manders rambles and speaks rather frantically, while Mrs. Alving speaks dryly and without much fervor.
The symbolism behind “ghosts” could be implying that certain characters are living their lives by just going through the motions, like Mrs. Alving was when her husband was alive. Her whole life was just an illusion. But when Mrs. Alving says “Ghosts!” when she hears Oswald with Regina it sounds like she is seeing visions from her past, as if the ghost of her husband, and the choice she made to stay with him is haunting her, and she can’t escape it.
I wonder why Mrs. Alving never went through with leaving her husband?
-Anna Vrountas
Ibsen uses the characterization and dialogue of Manders to address theories of psychology. When Mrs. Alving and Manders are discussing the books she is reading he is shocked that she is reading such books, and disapproves of them even though he has never read them. Also, when Oswald enters the play, it is mentioned that Manders has disapproved his way of living as an artist in the past. Ibsen uses these scenes to develop Manders character, who seems to be judgemental and disapproving. This has to do with psychology since for some reason, Manders does not agree with anything that he is not a part of or that other people have talked poorly upon. He seems to value others opinions above his own, and follows the crowd rather than exploring who he is as an individual. I think that these characteristics will play a larger role later in the play, as Manders cannot seem to accept others for who they are and what they are interested in. My only question is that I wonder if we will find out more of what exactly Oswald and Regina’s relationship is?
ReplyDeleteCat
The parallel between Mrs. Alving from Ghosts and Nora from A Doll’s House is intriguing. Even in the start of the book I can already pick up on the resemblance and attitude and how Mrs. Alving is like an older version of Nora who stayed with Torvald. Readers can see that Mrs. Alvng’s interactions with Manders, someone with a big ego and sense of authority, acts similarly to how Nora would act. At first she tries to voice her opinion and concerns about the insurance careful not to degrade Mander’s ego, bit we see she eventually gives in to his sense of authority and knowing. My predictions are that because of Mrs. Alvings long marriage with Mr. Alving she has most likely been conditioned to believe her opinions and views don't matter as much as men and that men are always right. The audience can see that Mrs. Alving is a smart women but unfortunately can’t voice her intellect to the restraint she feels and has been taught to her as a woman. However on the opposite side of the spectrum Regina, also a women, younger than Mrs. Alving has no problem voicing her opinions and standing up to her father. I think it is interesting to see Ibsen characterize two women who are always around each other so differently. It leads to the two types of women we often read about in literature and history. Both usually intelligent with a strong sense of right and wrong but one suppressing their opinions and ideas while the other voices them with confidence. I also can't help but wonder and question if/when Regina gets married if she will fall into the same “conditioning” Mrs. Alving did being taught to believe her voice isn’t as important by her husband, furthermore does marriage and age have something to do with the confidence in a women during this time?
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I really am enjoying about Ghosts is the way Ibsen is carefully setting up the plot. We discussed in class how talking about the attic almost catching on fire and the decision to not get insurance is foreshadowing that the orphanage will eventually burn down. Later on in the act Oswald is discussing his memory of his father telling him to smoke as just a young child, and although Mrs. Alving pretends to forget this, Oswald presses on and says that he remembers his mother carrying him away from his father while crying. This made me wonder (even more!) what the deal was with the father, whether he was an alcoholic or a drug addict or abusive, and those questions were, for the most part, answered later on when Mrs. Alving and Manders are discussing her late husband. In that discussion Mrs. Alving also discusses the father's probable affair with their maid at the time. The relationship that Mr. Alving and the maid had is a "ghost" of the relationship between Oswald and Regina, as Mrs. Alving points out. This made me think of the reasons why Ibsen wrote this play as a response to A Doll House. Oswald spent his early years watching an unhappy couple and learning from both of his parents. Could Oswald's relationship with Regina simply be him acting the way he saw his father acting? Are his strong opinions so confident and spoken with such conviction because he saw that his mother was strong? Maybe if Nora had gone back to Torvald or stayed with him, their children would have behaved similarly as they would have grown up and been raised in similar environments.
ReplyDeleteI also noticed a similar theme to A Doll House of one's duty. Manders discusses that a child's duty is to care for and respect their parents, and that a wife's duty is to blindly stick by her husband no matter the circumstances. I think it is interesting how Ibsen chose to make his response to people's reactions of A Doll House so direct and obvious instead of beating around the bush with his ideas.
Like Cat, I also wonder if we will get to see more into Oswald and Regina's relationship? Do we ever hear more about Mrs. Alving's husband-- Did she marry him for money? Were they ever happy? Does their relationship fall in line with Torvald and Nora?
Ibsen uses the dialogues between Mrs. Alving and Manders, as well as Oswald and Manders, to comment on society's obsession with reputation. Mrs. Alving reveals to Manders that her return to Captain Alving was followed by nothing more than misery and she had kept it a secret from the rest of the world, including Oswald, whom she sent away, because she believed their reputation would be damaged if others were to know about his character.. She used her knowledge of the Captain's affair to gain an “upper hand in the house." In order “to silence all rumours and clear away all doubt," she used all the money that was left after he died to build the orphanage and rid herself of his memory and any remaining financial power over her. Mrs. Alving and Manders have a good understanding of the importance of reputation in their society so after she reveals her secrets they conclude with an agreement to keep things hidden indefinitely because Oswald's life/identity and the success of the orphanage are at risk.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Anna's note on Ibsen's great use of voice to highlight personalities and characterization. Mr's Alving wears an aura of depression and loneliness, and Engstrand is clearly desperate and needy, but the key thing is that both of theses analyses can be drawn by looking closely at the voices Ibsen has assigned to their characters.
The entire act is full of symbols such as the orphanage which symbolizes Regina's lack of a biological family and Oswald's distance with his. Mrs.Alving saying “Ghosts!” when she hears Oswald with Regina in the dining room represents her feeling as though she'll always be haunted by her husband's affair with her servant. Also, Manders serves as a symbol for society's strict expectations and rules. He represents a society that feels entitled to their judgement of another person's life when, in fact, they are not remotely affected by it. But because it's the more dominant group, outsiders, represented by Mrs.Alving, are forced to conform.
Is Regina interested in Oswald or is he forcing himself on her like the Captain did with their servant before? Is she in it for the money? How much money does Mrs.Alving have of her own to save for Oswald's inheritance?
Pastor Manders and Oswald are Ibsen’s voice of philosophy in the play so far. Manders holds very conservative views that are similar to the opinions of the common. Through the common view, Ibsen emphasizes his philosophy. When Manders and Oswald were holding a conversation about a true household, Ibsen’s philosophy about family and gender roles are evident. Manders found it impossible that “ a young man or young woman with any decency of feeling can endure to live in that way” which was a common perspective that ran through society. Ibsen utilizes Oswald here as a way of refuting this counterargument, to support his view of an open mind. Oswald refutes the misconception of marriage by explaining that the “doctrine will scarcely go down with warm-blooded young people who love each other”. Emotions overpower opinions and rules in this situation, allowing Ibsen to give the audience his view of the world. Oswald’s character is also set up to provide a newer philosophy when compared to the public views. Oswald is a young man who has explored the world early, urging him to make new conclusions and assumptions about the world evolving around him. On the other hand there is Manders, a pastor who is closely tied with religion and builds his perception based on it. The two opposing viewpoints enables Ibsen to explain his form of philosophy.
ReplyDeleteKaby Maheswaran
I think that each character that we have met so far represent a set of values, ideoms, and characteristics that all pertain to one specific genre of life and philosophy. Regina is a young maid who works for a loving family, so I think that she represents innocence and youth She hasnt been alive long enough to have gone through true trajedy or heartbreak, and she also would be ok not getting married and having children, which means that she shows characteristics of a much more moden woman. Mrs. Alving is her opposite. She represents wisdom since she has been through so much. She has witnesses the death of a husband, and has experienced two lives: one with her husband and one with her son. Because she refused to not allow her son to be home while his father was alive created a great divide between the two men in her lives. While she didn’t love her husband, especially after the rape/affair with their housemaid, she was forced to live a false life and stay with him unitl he died. Her son, Oswald, represents a the artistic and humanitarain philosophy. With love for great works of literature and art, he has a more abstract view of the world. Oswald sees things for what they could be, not for how they should be. Defending a family stature where the husband and wife are not legally married but have children demonstrates that he is both proactive and progressive. His counterpart, Manders, however, is not at all accustomed to the modernized customs. Seemed almost insulted when Mrs. Alving was reading books with topics that he didn’t resonate with. He didn’t even read books on whatever the topic was, but he knew that he would disagree with whatever it had to say. I think that as we meet more characters and get deeper into the story, these characteristics with either mesh together, or become more separated. Will Manders become hostile and angry towards topics he deeps bad? Will Regina get more life experience and move towards a more adult life?
ReplyDeleteI found the characters of Mr. Manders and Mrs. Alving fascinating in this act because of their erractic personalities. Mrs. Alving is so quick to try and down play any memories that Oswald has of his father in his life like when “he took me on his knee and let me smoke his pipe” (16). Mrs. Alvong quickly acts like this was just a silly dream. But she desperately wants her son to be unaffected by his father, but by her downplaying his fathers involvement in his life, she is causing some damage in that aswell. She is quick to remove any trace of her husband from her sons life, but tirelessly works to keep up his great reputation even after his death. Also, Manders is also an interesting character because when him and Mrs. Alving were discussing the insurance for the orphanage, he did not seem to trusting and believing in the sacred powers of the Lord, but when he is insulting Mrs. Alvings lack of support in her husband, he resorts to religious applications, “You should have considered it your bourden duty humbly to have bourne the cross that a higher will had laid upon you. But, instead of that, you rebelliously cast off your cross, you deserted the man whose stumbling footsteps you should have supported…” (20). He is a priest that does not seem to practice what he preaches and I am interested and intruged to see how this progresses and manifests in the story later on.
ReplyDeleteIbsen’s characters switch personality rapidly, especially when talking to different people. Regina was one character who I noticed did this more than others. When she speaks to Mr. Engstrand, her father, she makes her wish to not be near him obvious. She tells him “I have nothing whatever to do with you. Be off!”. However, once Mr. Manders shows up, she is polite and welcoming. Whereas when her father arrived wet, she told him to “Stop where you are. You're positively dripping.” and that “It's the devil's rain”, with Mr. Manders she tells him that the rain is “such blessed weather for the country” and helps him take off his wet clothes. This rapid character change is Ibsen’s commentary on people’s many faces and that what you know of someone may not necessarily be who they really are.
ReplyDeleteAfter completing Act 1 of Ibsen’s “Ghosts”, it occured to me that this play shares many of the themes and concepts of “A Doll’s House”. It seemed as if Mrs. Alving had no choice but to maintain her marriage with Mr. Alving and put up with with his faults and wrongdoings, while at the same time shading them from Oswald and the rest of society, because if the marriage were to fail, she would ultimately be blamed due to the fact that she is female. This is implied when the pastor reminisces back to when she left her husband’s manor for a short period of time: “Just as you once disowned a wife's duty, so you have since disowned a mother's.” Pastor Manders’ sudden change in attitude after Mrs. Alving reveals the truth surrounding her husband goes to show how difficult the struggles she had to endure as a wife in order to maintain both her husband’s and her own public reputation were. Moreover, I was really intrigued by the parallel between Mr. Alving harassing Johanna and Oswald harassing Regina, and the fact that Mrs. Alving used “ghosts” as a scapegoat to excuse her son’s attempts to seduce her.
ReplyDeleteI thought that Ibsen used his dialogue to foreshadow what would happen later in the play. Since Manders convinces Mrs. Alvin to not purchase insurance because God will protect the orphanage, it's likely that the orphanage will end up getting burned down at some point in the play. This becomes even more ironic after Mrs. Alvin requests that Oswald does not smoke in the garden room. If she is so picky about the dangers of smoking than wouldn't she also be the type of person to purchase insurance? Ibsen also comments on the role of women once again in Ghosts through the sailors club. Engstrand wants Regina to be a prostitute or marry another man just for the money as if Regina was Engstrand’s property or his money-maker. I think that Mander’s represents the way that religion is poisonous to society. It is stupid to think that God would protect the orphanage from harm. Mander’s blindly follows his religion without understanding that you can't simply rely on religion to get you everything you want in life. If Mander’s was our president, nothing would ever get done because religion is nothing but a false hope for him.
ReplyDeleteOne question I have is what is the relationship between all the characters?
Throughout Act One of A Doll’s House, the most prominent recurrent theme that I noticed was the constant clash between traditional rules and reality. This contest is first mentioned after Pastor Manders decries the poor artists living together without having been officially married and Oswald counters that the only reason why these couple have not married is because they “do not have the means to marry.” This theme is repeated throughout the chapter as the conversation switches to Mrs. Alving’s traditional roles of being a wife and mother versus the shortcomings of Captain Alving. By doing so, Isen showing how dysfunctional an absolute adherence to church principles can be. However, it is also interesting how Ibsen does not directly challenge the church’s doctrine as inappropriate for the average middle class working family of the time- having his play instead focus on extraordinary examples to show specific cases where certain aspects of the Christian faith are not inapplicable. Pastor Manders is also portrayed as a fairly despicable character whose overt fear of public opinion was likely not openly shared by the vast majority of priests during the time and thus not very relatable to actual church figures from the eyes of the audience. This shows that Ibsen has no actual desire- or fears the political power of the church to a great enough degree- to uproot the church, he is simply seeking to question the strictest adherences to its laws.
ReplyDeleteHow will the play's characterization of Jacob Engstrand tie back into the story moving forward?
I agree with some of the others, who mentioned that the back-and-forth dialogue between Manders and Mrs. Alving serves as a sort of symbolism for the general tendency to cling onto one's reputation in society, even if that means sacrificing more important things. Mrs. Alving mentions in the play that after she went back to to Captain Alving, her whole life turned horrendous because of his affairs and his general demeanor, but that she didn't share these thoughts with anyone else because she feared retribution from society and also damage to her reputation. As someone of Indian descent, I can personally relate to this as well, as in India, this "obsession" with getting a good name in society is rampant, probably fifty times that of what Ibsen portrays through the play. Women feel obligated to stay with their husbands and "serve" them, even if those husbands are misogynists or treat their wives miserably, all because of this skewed sense of reputation and worrying about what others think, prioritizing others' opinions over one's own hunches and notions. It's also quite interesting to see how Ibsen was so forward-thinking at a time when the entire world had a hierarchy where men were seemingly always at the top, and how Ibsen tacitly satirizes conversations that Pastor Manders and Mrs. Alving have, for instance, peppering them by sarcastically pointing out the inherent flaws in this society, that make people act in ways and say things that they are against. It brings up a question: when, without explicitly being censored, people have no choice but to say things that adhere to societal norms (even if they are not necessarily true), can this society even be considered a democracy?
ReplyDeleteThroughout the play Ibsen uses dialogue and his characters to address different aspects of psychology. He does this without the reader even noticing. His characterization of the different characters helps to portray his thoughts on social trends and different psychological theories. In this play Ibsen comments on society’s obsession with our reputation. We as a society are obsessed with keeping up appearances. Mrs. Alving reveals to Manders that her return to Captain Alving only resulted in misery. She had returned to him to keep up the family’s image. She had to keep her misery a secret from the rest, because her reputation would be damaged if others were to know about Captain Alving’s ways. She did so, in order “to silence all rumours and clear away all doubt”. When Ibsen was writing it is apparent that people’s reputations were very important to them, and today, in 2017, this is still the case.
ReplyDeleteThe symbol that stuck out to me the most was the one of the orphanage, and the “lost children”. Like Domenica said, it represents Regina's lack of a biological family. I also connected this with the distance between Oswald and Mrs. Alving. As a mother, Mrs. Alving sent her son away to protect him and shield him from his father's’ ways. She did this out of care, but in turn strained her relationship with her son. We try to protect those we love by shielding them from the truth, but in the end it ends up hurting them. Ibsen displays this when all of the secrets come to light.
Colleen
In his play “Ghosts,” Henrik Ibsen employs symbolic characters to expound on his personal philosophies and views on society through their characterization, actions and dialogue with each other. Take Pastor Manders, who as a member of the church and one of the singular figures of authority within the town of the play, symbolizes the patriarchal system that controls society. He is characterized as a preachy old fool, who lack the ability to question the outdated and hypocritical morals and values he exalts, and attempts to force others such as Mrs Alving and Oswald into accepting these morals. He literally cannot empathize or see things from the point of view of others if doing so means he must consider ideals contrary to the restricted ones he himself believes unquestioningly. This is seen when, after Mrs Alving tells Manders of her loveless marriage and her unfaithful husband, and after pages and pages he is still scarcely able to comprehend what she is saying as doing so leads to several uncomfortable concedes about his actions and the purity of men. In addition, Manders is obsessed with self image, as seen when he refuses to place fire insurance on the orphanage he and Mrs Alving are building because he thinks doing so would make people question his faith in divine providence, placing more importance on looking religious and pure than the lives and safety of others. For Ibsen, the ruling society is Manders, out of date, weak and idiotic, more obsessed with upholding appearances and unquestioning cruel and hypocritical traditions than with empathizing or helping people. Mrs Alving is also obsessed with appearances, but not for vanity like with Manders, but to protect herself and her family from the ridicule Manders’s society would bring on her if she revealed her true feelings publically. She represents the majority of women who are forced into silence out of fear or reprisal, who desire a better world but are always at the mercy of the patricarcical forces around them. Oswald is also progressive. As a young free thinking artist, he symbolizes the youth who question and rally against the traditional institution, as seen with how Oswald argues with Manders. However through Oswald’s actions, Ibsen points out how Oswald’s society is just as patriarcial as Manders’s, as both never noticed the awful behavior of Mr Alving or the misery Mrs Alving went through, he hardly concerns himself with the opinions or thoughts of his mother while arguing with Manders, and by the end of the act he regresses into the same sexual behavior that his unfaithful father was known for. Ibsen shows that no matter how progressive or free thinking, a patriarchal society still enforces that same ignorance and sexism that a traditional society has.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of Ibsen’s plays was to raise awareness to what he believed were stereotypes women lived by in society. The Dollhouse by Ibsen had Nora walk out on her family to live the life she wanted to live which was seen as negative to many. As a result, Ghosts was written to show a scenario where the women did sacrifice happiness for the family. Ghosts captures the idea of a woman in Nora’s situation but instead of leaving the family stays due to her duties as a woman. In this case, the woman of the story is Mrs. Alving whose “duty was to hold firmly to the man you had once chosen, and to whom you were bound by the holiest ties.” Ibsen uses Ghosts as means to challenge societies philosophy of women and how living by it can lead to pain and sorrow just like breaking it can. He uses the criticism he received for The DollHouse for putting Nora over her duty as women and uses the play to show that a woman's duty does not always lead to happiness.
ReplyDeleteRayhan
Isn't it sort of selfish how Mrs. Alving intends to remove the memory of her late husband? No, I understand what a terrible spouse he was, and how she had to endure his sins and shortcomings for Oswald's sake, but what need is there to keep his estate from Oswald? He was a real, living person, he can't be wiped away from either her or Oswald's memory so easily. Perhaps she wants to do it to dull the memory of his ghosts. Even then I still can't understand the purpose of having everything that Oswald inherits come only from her. But Ibsen, maybe he wants the reader to see how an otherwise noble woman with pure intentions can go overboard in righting her husband's past wrongs. There is a delicate balance between, for example, telling a little white lie and letting it spin out of control. I fear that Mrs. Alving has done the same, only in pursuit of creating a legacy for her and her son, she selfishly neglected the father of her child and all his achievements. "My son shall have everything from me," she says; What if he then needs something you cannot provide, but his father would have been able to? How could she live with the guilt?
ReplyDeleteIn the first act of “Ghosts,” Ibsen uses dialogue to poke fun at and inspect the traditional hierarchy of Norwegian society. I noticed this pattern most with the lines of Engstrand and Regina. To me, Engstrand symbolizes the innermost duplicity of the Norwegian patriarchy. In talking to Regina, whom he has control over, Engstrand is rude, dismissive, and possessive. Engstrand insults Regina, implying that she should prostitute herself and come to his “house for sailors,” and then implies that like her mother, who sold herself to an Englishman for “300 pounds,” Regina should be a prostitute. But when talking to Manders, Engstrand adopts an innocent tone, catering to the desire for power of the Norwegian clergy. To Manders, Engstrand “beg[s] humbly” and treats Manders with “reverence” and “grateful thanks;” yet to Regina, he is domineering. To me, this almost rage-inducing hypocrisy pointed towards the essential hypocrisy of the Christian Norwegian society, in claiming to espouse virtues that it does not actually require of the males that live within it. Just like Captain Alving, Engstrand convinces Manders of his virtue, while actually living as a careless would-be pimp. Ibsen uses dialogue to intensely poke at this double standard with Engstrand, illustrating in an almost comedic fashion the sycophantic and fake nature of Norwegian hierarchy and social standards.
ReplyDeleteI would like to ask the class if we think that in the end, just like Nora finally seized agency in “A Doll’s House,” either Regina or Mrs. Alving will finally push back against the system that has mistreated them so much over their lifetimes.