Ghosts

In Henrik Ibsen’s play, “Ghosts,” Ibsen portrayed the significance of how society’s system of perpetuation of the original standards and morality, could corrupt the new generation’s idea of a proper society. Ibsen also shows the audience how social status, as well as situations involving moral standards of a family, could corrupt peoples’ views of morality.

In the play, Mrs. Alving, the protagonist, is confronted with problems regarding her past and moral standards, and how those problems greatly affect her in the present. Mrs. Alving was to be a dutiful mother and wife, but she had an unhappy marriage since her husband, a well respected figure in his community, philandered with other women throughout their marriage. Mrs. Alving didn’t want to live with her womanizing husband, and left him. She ran away to her minister, Pastor Manders, whom she was in love with at the time, but was sent home by him, reminding her of her wife duties, and that he, as a minister, needed to protect his reputation. Pastor Manders is a stereotypic person, for this reason, he neglected Mrs. Alving’s problem because he believes that a wife’s duty is not to be her husband’s judge, and told her to stay with her husband instead to, hopefully, change their love for each other. With this in mind, Pastor Manders’ clerical status in the play, at the same time, contradicts Mrs. Alving’s moral standards in her marriage. Although Mrs. Alving complied with Pastor Manders’ advice, Mr. Alving’s philandering did not cease until his death. In addition, Regina, the servant of the Alving estate, is the illegitimate child of Mr. Alving and Mrs. Alving’s former maid, Joana. Regina does not know her originality since she was adopted by Jacob Engstrand, a carpenter, who lat...

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...to her how she shouldn't be giving him love even if he was conceived and born in the womb. Because he was sent away at an early age of his life, Oswald did not receive any love from his parents, hence, why he believes that a person shouldn't owe anything to the other even though they are blood related.

In closing, the play ends with Oswald suffering from the effects of syphilis, pleading for the sun--the sun representing his joy in life and the light of truth-- and Mrs. Alving considering whether or not to kill Oswald. The “ghosts” that Mrs. Alving keeps bringing up are the dead principles of law and order that she had learned to follow, and the lies of the pasts that would eventually “haunt” the future. The play shows the audience how moral standards can change into wickedness and wrongdoings that are, in the end, considered to be acceptable in desperate situations.