Introduction

The first performance of Henrik Ibsen’s three-act play Ghosts occurred on May 20, 1882, in Chicago, Illinois. Ibsen wrote and published the play the year before, calling it a family drama. The action occurs at the Norwegian country home of Mrs. Helen Alving, a widow whose husband, Captain Alving, died ten years before. Mrs. Alving’s son, Oswald, a painter, has come home for the dedication of an orphanage in his father’s memory, but his arrival and subsequent events call up the ghosts of the past.

Ibsen does not shy away from controversy, and Ghosts realistically presents the struggles of a dysfunctional family. The play sharply critiques traditional morality even as it shows the misery of people suffering from unfaithfulness and venereal disease even as they contemplate euthanasia and incest. The play ends without a resolution, leaving readers to continue to wrestle with the characters’ dilemmas.

Plot Summary

Ghosts opens with a conversation between Regina Engstrand, Mrs. Alving’s maid, and her father, Jacob Engstrand. Jacob, a carpenter, has just completed his work on the orphanage, and he wants Regina to return home with him and help him open a tavern for sailors. He tells her there must be “a petticoat in the house” to liven up the evenings. Regina firmly declines.

Pastor Manders arrives as Jacob leaves. He reminds Regina that her father “is not a man of strong character” and suggests that she provide him a “guiding hand” as a daughter’s duty. Regina would rather have a place with an upper-class family and wonders if the Pastor can find her one.

Mrs. Alving enters, and she and the Pastor discuss the orphanage business. The Pastor recommends that they do not insure the building, for such an act would indicate that they do not trust God’s providence. The conversation turns to Regina and Jacob, and Mrs. Alving declares that she will not allow the girl to return to her father’s home.

Oswald comes in, and Pastor Manders is shocked by his resemblance to his late father. Oswald resents the Pastor for opposing the young man’s artistic career. He casually taunts the Pastor about his friends who live together and raise children without being married. The Pastor is horrified, and after Oswald leaves, he speaks to Mrs. Alving seriously about her situation.

Pastor Manders first reminds her of the early days of her marriage when she left her husband, and the Pastor urged her to return to him out of her duty as a wife. He tells her that she is now failing in her duty as a mother, first by sending her son away when he was young and then by refusing to correct him now. Mrs. Alving responds that her husband never changed his ways; he was drunk and unfaithful their whole married life, so she sent her son away from their “polluted home.”

Mrs. Alving also relates an affair between her husband and her maid, Johanna. That relationship resulted in Regina. From the other room, Mrs. Alving and the Pastor hear Oswald making a pass at Regina, and Mrs. Alving whispers, “Ghosts!” Her past is repeating itself.

As the play goes on, Mrs. Alving and Pastor Manders continue their conversation. The former explains how she paid Johanna to leave and how Johanna married Jacob, who raised Regina as his own. Now, she says, Regina must leave the household at once, but she cannot return to Jacob, who is not really her father.

Jacob arrives, asking for a prayer meeting at the orphanage, and the Pastor confronts him about Johanna and Regina. Jacob insists that he actually saved...