Ghosts (Ibsen)

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Inge Keller (left) as Mrs. Alving, Ulrich Mühe (center) as son Osvald and Simone von Zglinicki as maid Regine Engstrand (right) in a production by Thomas Langhoff , 1983

Ghosts. A family drama in three acts is a play by Henrik Ibsen (1881, norw. : Gengangere Et familjedrama i tre akter. ). Note1

background

Ibsen, who portrays the self-destruction of a family in “Ghosts”, called the play in the subtitle “family drama”. The stage work can be classified in the social drama category . By putting a mirror in front of society, Ibsen criticized outdated conventions and illustrates the tragic consequences of this lag using the example of a family and its members.

“Ghosts” was rejected by a number of theaters in Nordic countries because at the time it was seen as an attack on the existing social order and the rights of the individual in a society that go beyond the basic needs of the individual were discussed. Therefore, it was premiered on May 20, 1882 in the Aurora Turner Hall in Chicago . In addition to the world premiere, it was the first time ever that a play by Ibsen was performed in America. The family drama was played in the original language for Scandinavian emigrants. The roles were therefore cast with Danish and Norwegian actors. The German premiere took place on April 14, 1886 at the Theater Augsburg as "private screening" instead, because the censorship had no public performance allowed the first public showing was then on 21 December 1886 the stage of court theater of Meiningen . Ibsen was personally present at both performances.

roll

  • Helene Alving , widow of the captain and chamberlain Alving
  • Osvald , her son, artist
  • Manders , pastor and advisor to Mrs. Alving
  • Jakob Engstrand , carpenter and Regine's stepfather
  • Regine Engstrand , servant in the house of Mrs. Alving and Osvald's half-sister

action

The play is set on Mrs. Alving's estate on a large fjord in western Norway. The entire action takes place in a garden room of this property.

first act

Jakob Engstrand and his daughter Regine talk to each other. She should move into town with him. After completion of the children's asylum, which Ms. Alving is currently building in memory of her deceased husband, he wants to build an asylum there for seafarers. Regine could help him there and maybe make a good match. She mockingly refuses ( you won't get me home forever. [...] In a house like that? Ugh! ), She wants to stay with the Alvings, where she is housekeeper, receives education, like a daughter assumed and where Osvald lives. Regine: The sooner you drive, the better for me . Regine reproaches Engstrand: when he was drunk he often told her that it was none of his business, that she was a Fi donc , that he had tortured his mother to death. He also has a pied de mouton [Engstrand has a crooked leg since he was thrown down a flight of stairs by drunk sailors and wears a wooden heel - one reason why he often drinks (to numb pain)]. When he makes a comment about Osvald ( Oho, he probably won't - ) she chases him away.

Pastor Manders appears and is now talking to Regine. After a few generalities, they turn to Regine's father. Manders tells Regine that she should take care of her father more: Her father is not a really strong personality [...]. He so badly needs a guiding hand. [...] He needs someone around him, whom he likes, whose judgment he can value. He confessed that to me so honestly [...]. Regine refuses, however, and withdraws.

Mrs. Alving appears and speaks to the pastor. You first direct the conversation to Osvald, who has not been home for over two years. Mrs. Alving is overjoyed that he has come back from Paris and Rome: Oh my dear, my beloved boy, he has a heart for his mother . Then they come to talk about the children's asylum. Pastor Manders took care of the foundation documents and the financing. He believes that insurance is unnecessary because the asylum is under God's blessing. In fact, he fears gossip on the matter. He asks Mrs. Alving about Regine and her father, but Mrs. Alving parries: Oh, I know best what kind of father he was to her. No, with my consent she never comes to him.

Osvald enters . Already well known as a painter, he is now at home indefinitely and is currently taking a break. Pastor Manders compares Osvald to his father: When Osvald came through the door earlier with a pipe in his mouth, I felt as if I were seeing his father in person , which Frau Alving fends off: Osvald is coming after me. When Osvald talks about a childhood memory with his father, Mrs. Alving fends off that too: Oh, you don't remember anything from those days. Pastor Manders fears that Osvald never got to know a real home , because he was given away at the age of seven and lived abroad for twenty years. Manders is dismayed by Osvald's views on the subject of family and children: he raves about the free life abroad. Then he gets a headache and leaves.

Manders speaks to Mrs. Alving about their previous marriage. She had left her husband only a year after their wedding. She reminds the pastor that Alving was not a good husband. Manders points out, however: [...] a wife is not called to be the judge of her husband. It would have been your duty to humbly bear the cross, which a higher will had deemed useful to you [...] Pastor Manders believes it is a virtue that, at risk of his reputation, he has set Mrs. Alving on the path of duty and to the house of your wedded husband , whereupon he lived lovingly and impeccably with her until the end of his days. The asylum is now a confession of her guilt. Similarly, he sees her failure as a mother in the fact that she gave Osvald - just seven years old - to a foreign country and thus charged herself with guilt. Mrs. Alving now describes her point of view to the pastor, as she has sworn to herself. Her husband died just as nefariously as he lived all his days , the marriage was nothing but a covered abyss . Regine emerged from a relationship between her husband and the housemaid Johanne. Engstrand later married Johanne. So that Osvald did not grow up in these circumstances, she gave him away with a heavy heart. She took care of everything and thus increased the fame of her husband, who - made mentally ill by syphilis - was delirious. With the asylum she wanted to dispel any doubts about the respectability of the family. Then she wanted to forget her husband forever and only be there for her son.

In the dining room Mrs. Alving hears Osvald approaching Regine: Ghosts. The couple in the winter garden - it's back .

Second act

Enter Mrs. Alving and Pastor Manders . You talk about the relationship between Osvald and Regine. Regine must go. Her mother was once sold to the carpenter Engstrand with a trousseau , for which he took the blame with the child, as Pastor Manders says. Mrs. Alving laments her own position in the past: If I were what I should be, I would take Osvald aside and say: Hear my boy, your father was a depraved subject - the pastor thinks Mrs. Alving should give Osvald the illusion of his good father and refers to the fourth commandment, according to which one should respect and honor father and mother. When she ponders whether Osvald might marry his half-sister, Manders is outraged. Mrs. Alving: We all come from connections of this kind, as you can hear. And who was it who set this up here in the world, Pastor Manders?

Mrs. Alving draws her point of view: When I heard Regine and Osvald in there, I felt as if I saw ghosts before me. But I almost think we are all ghosts, Pastor Manders. It is not just what we inherited from father and mother that haunts us; also old, dead opinions of all kinds, old, dead beliefs and the like. They are not alive in us; but they are stuck in us and we cannot get rid of them. If I just pick up a newspaper and read it, I see such ghosts creeping around between the lines. They seem to live all over the country. They seem as innumerable as grains of sand. And that is why we are so terribly shy of light, we are all together. Against Ms. Alving's compulsion into marriage, to do duty and obligation in the name of God and on Mander's behalf, her whole mind rebelled as something repulsive: That was the time when I began to examine the seams of your teaching. I only wanted to untie a single knot, but when I opened it, everything was immediately undone. And then I realized that the hem was sewn with the hot needle. Mrs. Alving wanted to marry Pastor Manders, but he sent her back to her husband, for him (Manders) the hardest fight and the greatest victory of his life , for her his most pathetic defeat and a crime against both of them .

Engstrand enters . He would like to ask the pastor about a prayer in the now finished asylum. Mrs. Alving remains the silent listener. Manders immediately turns to Regine. Engstrand thought that nobody knew about the situation, since Johanne, his late wife, had sworn to him. However, Mrs. Alving knew of everything. Pastor Manders is concerned: And in all these years they have kept the truth from me. Hiding from me that I have placed such absolute trust in you in everything and everyone. Engstrand is aware of his guilt; he tells the events in a different way (the money went completely into Regine's education) so that the pastor is reconciled with him again. Manders and Engstrand leave, Osvald joins them.

Osvald tries to confess his mother to his condition, that he is mentally shattered and will never be able to work again. He never led a wild life. [...] And yet it comes over me! This terrible misfortune! He describes how he had the disease already as a child and later in Paris, the doctor who said to him: There is something worm-eaten in them from their birth. [...] The sins of the fathers are haunted on their children. He looks to himself to blame, since his father was honest: if it were something that I inherited - something that you can't do. But as! To have gambled away everything in such a shameful, thoughtless way of one's happiness, one's health, of everything - one's future, one's life -! Mrs. Alving is telling him here that she would do anything for him, that she would not refuse anything.

Osvald asks his mother about Regine, she is well built , so full of joie de vivre , ready to receive him . He dislikes the place: I just mean this: the people here are taught that work is a curse and a punishment for donations, and life is miserable, and we are best served if we get it behind us as soon as possible bring us. [...] But the people out there don't want to know anything about it. There is no one who still really believes in this kind of salvation teaching. Out there, happiness can be so exuberant just because you are in this world. Mother, did you notice that everything I've painted revolves around the joy of life? Always about the joy of life. There is light and sun and Sunday air - and there are shining human faces. That's why I'm afraid to stay here with you at home.

Osvald craves alcohol; Regine is supposed to bring champagne and get a glass for herself. The three drink. It seems that Mrs. Alving is trying to change her son's mind. When she sees that Regine seems to reciprocate Osvald's feelings, she wants to reveal everything to the young people, but at that moment Pastor Manders returns from the evening prayer in the asylum.

The conversation of the four runs past each other. When Mrs. Alving wants to say everything again, screams come from outside: the children's asylum is on fire.

Third act

Engstrand accuses Pastor Manders of setting the asylum on fire during the common prayer, but the latter denies. Mrs. Alving sees it soberly: It's better that it turned out that way. This children's asylum would not have blessed anyone. She hands over all administration to the pastor. Engstrand is ready to take the blame if the foundation funds support the seaman's asylum. Here, too, Engstrand is only concerned with the well-being of his daughter. The pastor and Engstrand drive away.

Osvald enters . He speaks of his terrible fear. He asks Regine to always be there for him, to be of service to him, a service that his mother cannot render him. Frau Alving thinks she understands: You should have seen your father as a very young lieutenant. He was full of joie de vivre . [...] And then such a child had to enjoy life - because he was like a child back then - he had to live in a medium-sized city that had no joy to offer, no amusements. He had no goal in life; he just had a job. He had no work to put body and soul into; he just had business. And he didn't have a single friend who could have grasped what joie de vivre really is, just day thieves and drinking brothers - [...] I also didn't bring any sunshine into his house. I'm afraid I made your poor father's home unbearable.

Mrs. Alving reveals Regine as Osvald's half-sister, who now looks at things in a different light: If I had known that Osvald was sickly, then - And now that there can be nothing serious between us - No, I am not interested in me for the sick people here in the country. She wants to hurry after Pastor Manders, get a share of the hush money for the terrible carpenter , still manage to drink champagne with people from the estate , even if she didn't grow up like the child of a man from the estate . Adieu. She goes off.

Mrs. Alving worries about the father's picture. But Osvald denies that he doesn't care. Feel love for their father when a child has nothing to thank their father for? Never knew him? That was superstition, ghosts . Mrs. Alving understands. Osvald is grateful to his mother, he knows that she likes him, that she can still be immeasurably useful to him. He assures himself that there is nothing in the world that she [Mrs. Alving] would not do for him if he asked her to. You only live for him.

Osvald explains his illness to her - after an attack in Paris a doctor diagnosed him: softening of the brain . Another seizure, and he would fall back to the level of an infant, would have to be fed ... He doesn't want to be a nursing case for years, all his life. The service that Regine should have rendered him is now to be completed by his mother: he has saved up morphine for it. (I gave you your life!) I did not ask you for life. And what kind of life did you give me? I don't want it. You should take it from me again!

The sun rises, Osvald has a seizure, goes mad. Mrs. Alving trembles with horror , is desperate , torn between the love for her son and his last will.

Film adaptations

criticism

Julius Stinde , who has also emerged as a critic of Ibsen and naturalism, has his Wilhelmine Buchholz report on a performance of the ghosts :

“Theater was not dear to us. Fritz lent various stages lamps, writing utensils, support clocks and such showpieces to stylishly dress up the scenery, on which the value of the pieces is becoming more and more dependent, and, if a drama still did not go right, received a few package seats so that the house was in the newspapers appeared filled because, where there are pigeons, pigeons fly to We also had to make decoys
for the ghosts , once, but never again. There is a woman who has an asylum built in memory of her deceased husband, a chamberlain, but because he was drinking and singing, she reproaches herself for lying to herself and the people with this monument, and she accuses the pastor of having him did not get up and away with her when she ran away from her husband and knocked in the preaching room. Nice wife! Her son Oswald is a painter who comes from Paris and finds it too gray in his Norwegian home, which is why he drinks champagne with his daughter's carpenter Engstrand and does beautiful things. The mother knows that her son's girl is a half-sister of the deceased chamberlain and says: Just one more bottle, life is short and my son wants to have fun, that's what he got from his father. Such inherited tendencies are ghosts. Nice mother. Then the asylum burns down, Oswald helps extinguish the fire, the exertion pays him the rest, he becomes awkward on the stage - from his father - and demands the sun from his mother. Since she cannot get close to the so-called star of the day, she gives him the morphine powder, which he saved because a doctor had told him that he would perish from softening of the brain, that would be his father's inheritance. We were relieved when it was over, so the play had frightened and tormented us without our understanding why? To teach the audience that children can never be too careful when selecting their parents? - "What kind of cardboard head would Oswald have become if he had the pastor for his father?" Asked Uncle Fritz, but there was no detailed answer, since the memory did not want to linger on the piece, which we often do, especially after Wilhelm Tell in the playhouse, indulging in repetition and repetition until past midnight. And the Maid of Orleans with Lindner. Oh how beautiful. And how well one became afterwards.
[...]
Then my husband asked, "Doctor Zehner, is it really the same with the inheritance of brain softening, as in the piece?" if it weren't for that, it's miserable as a drama. Do you think Oswald's father would have been a dutiful forester who eagerly pursued game and wood thieves and acquired lung disease on the nightly forays to which he finally succumbed, Oswald inherits the tendency to lung disease, as a landscape painter increases the disposition to it by sitting in the open air, catches a cold when the fire is put out and dies of pneumonia on the stage. That would be the same piece, only with a small shift in the cause of the disease, but the undramatic, the petty of the motif, the poor artistic content becomes clear even for those who let themselves be dazzled by skillful scenic detail painting and the characters imagined on the stage half of which belong in an idiot institution. The pastor and the mother as well as the paralytic son. ""

- Julius Stinde :

Note2

Others

The social drama Before Sunrise , written by Gerhart Hauptmann in 1889 (also published and premiered in 1889) is evidently the successor to Ibsen's drama 'Ghosts'. Hauptmann also addresses the naturalistic doctrine of determination : Man is not self-determined and free in his decisions and possibilities, but decisively shaped and limited by the factors inheritance , milieu and upbringing . Hauptmann (1862–1946) was largely unknown until then; his work suddenly made him famous. The topic apparently hit a nerve at the time.

literature

  • Marc Boettcher: Henrik Ibsen. On the stage history of his "ghosts". Frankfurt am Main among others: Lang. 1989. (= European university publications; series 30; 34) ISBN 3-631-42166-4
  • Walter Baumgartner: The spirit of truth and freedom - hm , in: Ibsen's dramas . Stuttgart: Reclam, 2005. pp. 41-68 [Reclam Interpretations, RUB 17530]. ISBN 3-15-017530-5
  • Hemmer, Bjørn: Ibsen Handbuch , Munich 2009.
  • Hoerfert, Sigfrid: Das Drama des Naturalismus , 4th revised and supplemented editions. Stuttgart 1993. (Metzler Collection. Realien zur Literatur. Vol. 75)
  • Moe, Vera Ingunn: German Naturalism and Foreign Literature. On the reception of the works of Zola, Ibsen and Dostojewski by the German naturalistic movement (1880-1895) , Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1983, European University Theses; Row 1; Vol. 729

Web links

  • Text by Gespenster in German translation at Project Gutenberg
  • Ibsen.net Additional information about Henrik Ibsen and his pieces (here: Ghosts ) dead link

Footnotes

  • Note1Literally translated, the Norwegian Gengangere corresponds to the German revenant in the plural.
  • Note2Ibsen does, however, insinuate that Osvald did not inherit his illness from his father, but that it is the result of incestuous acts. In the first act, Osvald enters the stage smoking a pipe and remembers: “Yes; I still remember very well that he [the father] let me sit on his knee and smoke me out of a pipe. "Smoke, boy," he said - "Smoke a lot, boy!" And I smoked what I could until I noticed how pale I was and how the sweat came in big drops on my forehead. And then he laughed with all his might - "These memories are very unpleasant for my mother, so she says to Manders:" Dear friend, Osvald only dreamed that. "In the Norwegian original version, Ibsen uses the term" suckle my pipe (norw . patte ) let ”. This is also emphasized in some modern productions.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ (Wilhelms, Hans: Ibsen's self-portrait in his dramas, Munich 1911, p. 117)
  2. ^ Ghosts at The Ibsen Stage Performance Company
  3. ↑ Sins of the Father ( English ) Nasjonalbiblioteket . Retrieved February 7, 2016.
  4. ↑ Sins of the Father in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  5. ^ Julius Stinde: Wilhelmine Buchholz 'Memoirs. Berlin: Freund & Jeckel 1895, pages 217-218.
  6. ^ Richard Eyre: In the spirit of Ibsen ( English ) In: The Guardian . September 20, 2013. Retrieved February 7, 2016.