Overview: We discussed Ibsen's play A Doll House and viewed the end of Act III. Nora leaving Torvald is famously called, "The door slam heard around the world." At the time, the powers that be forced Ibsen's hand, and he reluctantly changed the ending in order to avoid the outright ban on his play. He believed that we are haunted by ghosts of the past. He understood this idea needed to be addressed in his next play:
Ghosts! When I heard Regina and Oswald in there, it was as though ghosts rose up before me. But I almost think we are all of us ghosts, Pastor Manders. It is not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that "walks" in us. It is all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we cannot shake them off. Whenever I take up a newspaper, I seem to see ghosts gliding between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the country, as thick as grains of sand. And we are so pitifully afraid of the light.
Directions: Below, view the original ending and read the alternate ending of A Doll House. Next, please read Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen, Act I. You can find links to the complete play, audio, and film below. Next, compose a comprehensive blog response (300-400 words). In your blog response, first explore A Doll House: How does this new ending make you feel? How does it alter Ibsen's message and intent? Remember, Ibsen wrote Ghosts as rebuttal to this ending and the public's reaction. Next, what can we expect to see in Ghosts? Please use the questions below as a guide to your response. You may choose one quotation and explore it in depth, choose a combination of questions, or explore symbols listed in question 11. Please use at least 2-3 major quotations in your response. I provided a cross-section of quotations to help you begin.
Original Ending of A Doll House
Alternate Ending of A Doll House
NORA. ... Where we could make a real marriage out of our lives together. Goodbye. [Begins to go.]
HELMER. Go then! [Seizes her arm.] But first you shall see your children for the last time!
NORA. Let me go! I will not see them! I cannot!
HELMER [draws her over to the door, left]. You shall see them. [Opens the door and says softly.] Look, there they are asleep, peaceful and carefree. Tomorrow, when they wake up and call for their mother, they will be - motherless.
NORA [trembling]. Motherless...!
HELMER. As you once were.
NORA. Motherless! [Struggles with herself, lets her travelling bag fall, and says.] Oh, this is a sin against myself, but I cannot leave them. [Half sinks down by the door.]
HELMER [joyfully, but softly]. Nora!
[The curtain falls.]
- How do the stage directions for Ghosts set the mood for the play?
- Given the realistic setting of the garden room Ghosts, what other components of realism should the audience or reader expect?
- How is Regina representative of mobility between the classes?
- How does the behavior of Regina Engstrand and Engstrand toward each other in show that Henrik Ibsen is challenging conventional expectations?
- What role do Regina Engstrand and Engstrand fill in the development of the plot?
- How does Pastor Manders's treatment of Regina Engstrand change over the course of Act I?
- How do the two mysteries raised early in the conversation in Act I contribute to suspense in the plot?
- What do Mrs. Alving's comments about the books she is reading in Act I suggest about the society she lives in?
- How do Mrs. Alving's and Pastor Manders's responses to the books Mrs. Alving is reading define each character? Who would Ibsen side with in this case?
- How does Henrik Ibsen use Pastor Manders's ideas about insuring the orphanage to deepen his characterization of the pastor?
- How are the following used as symbols in the play: Orphanage, Ghosts, Artist, Priest, Sailors, Captains, Men. Woman, the characters themselves?
Quotations
- Regina: Yes, you may be sure we'll see about it! Me that have been brought up by a lady like Mrs. Alving! Me that am treated almost as a daughter here! Is it me you want to go home with you?--to a house like yours? For shame!
- Engstrand: Then never mind about marrying them. You can make it pay all the same. [More confidentially.] He--the Englishman--the man with the yacht--he came down with three hundred dollars, he did; and she wasn't a bit handsomer than you.
- Mrs. Alving: Well, I seem to find explanation and confirmation of all sorts of things I myself have been thinking. For that is the wonderful part of it, Pastor Minders--there is really nothing new in these books, nothing but what most people think and believe. Only most people either don't formulate it to themselves, or else keep quiet about it.
- Pastor Manders: Object to in them? You surely do not suppose that I have nothing better to do than to study such publications as these? … I have read enough about these writings to disapprove of them.
- Pastor Manders: When Oswald appeared there, in the doorway, with the pipe in his mouth, I could have sworn I saw his father, large as life.
- Mrs. Alving: Oh, how can you say so? Oswald takes after me.
- Pastor Manders: But how is it possible that a--a young man or young woman with any decency of feeling can endure to live in that way?--in the eyes of all the world!
- Oswald: Well, then, allow me to inform you. I have met with it when one or other of our pattern husbands and fathers has come to Paris to have a look round on his own account, and has done the artists the honour of visiting their humble haunts. They knew what was what. These gentlemen could tell us all about places and things we had never dreamt of.
- Mrs. Alving: Soon after, I heard Alving come in too. I heard him say something softly to her. And then I heard--[With a short laugh]--oh! it still sounds in my ears, so hateful and yet so ludicrous--I heard my own servant-maid whisper, "Let me go, Mr. Alving! Let me be!"….It was my purchase-money. I do not choose that that money should pass into Oswald's hands. My son shall have everything from me--everything.
- Mrs: Alving: Ghosts!
