Ghosts Analysis

Places Discussed (Critical Guide to Settings and Places in Literature)

Alving home

Alving home. Family estate located in Rosenvold on one of western Norway’s fjords. The house’s garden provides the play’s primary setting. This room has a door on the left and two doors on the right. Also on the left wall is a window, in front of which is a small sofa with a worktable in front of it. In the center of the room is a round table covered with books, magazines, and newspapers. Chairs are positioned around the table. The back of the room is a glass conservatory, and a glass door leads to the garden. All in all, it is a very prosaic, if expensively furnished room, in the style of the late nineteenth century.

The glass wall at the back of the garden room sets the atmosphere for the drama as it shows and reflects what is happening in and around the estate. Most of the time, the scene is a gloomy fjord shrouded in mist, which prepares the audience for the subject matter of the play. Later, a huge fire that destroys a new orphanage is visible through the glass. As the play ends, the new day’s dawn sunlight comes through the window. The reading materials on the table also show something about the house and its owner. These items represent the publications of new findings in science at the time, and as the play is a debate over science, they reinforce the subject matter of the script: that a fine house and wealth do not guarantee personal happiness.

Ghosts Historical Context

Norway in the 1880s
Ibsen lived away from Norway from 1863 to 1891. Rather than distancing him from the character of the...

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Ghosts Literary Style

Realism, as a literary movement, flourished in the United States and Europe in the late 1800s, which is when...

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Ghosts Compare and Contrast

1882: German engineer Gottlieb Daimler invents the first internal combustion engine.

Today: Automobiles are so...

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Ghosts Topics for Further Study

Parallels have been drawn between this play’s treatment of syphilis and the current AIDS epidemic. Make a list of suggestions of changes...

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Ghosts Media Adaptations

Ghosts was adapted as a silent film in 1915, starring Erich von Stroheim and Mary Alden. It was produced by D. W. Griffith.


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Ghosts What Do I Read Next?

Ibsen’s play An Enemy of the People was started before Ghosts but was not finished until after the latter play. It is a...

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Ghosts Bibliography and Further Reading

Archer, William, ‘‘Ibsen and English Criticism,’’ in Fortnightly Review, Vol. 46, No. 271, July, 1889,...

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Ghosts Bibliography (Great Characters in Literature)

Clurman, Harold. Ibsen. New York: Collier Books, 1977. This introductory study provides the general reader with a good starting place for reading about Ibsen. Clurman, a renowned stage director, discusses the plays as theater as well as literature. His discussion of Ghosts clarifies a misunderstanding about the play’s title and explores at some length the motivations of the characters.

Fjelde, Rolf, ed. Ibsen: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965. Sixteen essays that cover Ibsen’s conception of truth, realism, and stage craftsmanship, among other topics. Francis Fergusson...

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