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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
slow-paced
“I am half inclined to think we are all ghosts…it is not only what we have inherited from our fathers and mothers that exists again in us, but all sorts of old dead ideas and all kinds of old dead beliefs and things of that kind. They are not actually alive in us; but there they are dormant all the same, and we can never be rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper and read it, I fancy I see ghosts creeping between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the world. They must be as countless as the grains of the sands, it seems to me. And we are so miserably afraid of the light, all of us.”
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
This Henrik Ibsen play will have you pondering for days. There’s no actual ghosts in Ghosts; it’s about the secrets and lies that haunt people even decades later. The plot centers on Mrs. Alving, a widow whose life was never perfect — and oh, does it get worse with the beginning of a revelation of past hidden truths.
The strength of this play lies in how it demonstrates that the true “ghosts” in the life are not frightening spirits, but rather, what we try to conceal — past mistakes, regrets and untold stories.
The strength of this play lies in how it demonstrates that the true “ghosts” in the life are not frightening spirits, but rather, what we try to conceal — past mistakes, regrets and untold stories.
Written in 1881; in part a reaction to the controversy of A Doll’s House. Perhaps Ibsen’s “darkest” play – depicts a grim, squalid, nasty world of “moral chaos”, in one critic’s words, as the inevitable result of attempting to paper over an untenable family situation. In this sense Ghosts implicitly responds to the question “what if Nora had stayed?” Feels ahead of its time in the directness of its references to STIs, addiction, and prostitution/trafficking. The bleakness of Oswald’s awareness of his progressive disability is very compelling. I tend to agree with most critics that Manders is a weak character – a caricature of an utterly ineffectual cleric, as many of Ibsen’s churchmen are. Helen Alving, on the other hand, is a great character, and operates very differently to Ibsen’s best-known heroines. There is nothing she can do to reverse the moral degradation into which her household has fallen, but it is fascinating to witness her acuity and her candor, her moral and intellectual flexibility, and the subtle negotiations she attempts as events progress.
I don't think I've read widely enough to truly understand what makes a play good or bad, but to me, this seemed like a perfect play. It feels similar to O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night in that it is a play about a small group of deeply sad people trapped in a house together, and moreover, trapped by their diseased relationships to each other. Of course, added to this is Norwegian gloom. Despite its doom and gloom, it is a tremendously moving play that still feels relevant, despite its historical datedness, as compared to Rosmerholm.
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated