Ghosts

The fire that destroys The Orphanage erupts after a prayer meeting, highlighting The Hypocrisy of Organized Religion. While promoting its view of morality, religion destroys through judgment and restriction. Ibsen places the cause of the fire in question. While Jacob convinces Manders that his candle led to the fire, the audience recalls another fire that occurred in Jacob’s workshop in Act I. Ibsen uses this detail to draw into question Jacob’s involvement in the fire. If Jacob did start the fire at the orphanage, convincing Manders that the candle was to blame and offering to take the blame on the pastor’s behalf is a clever ploy, leading Manders to support Jacob’s plans for a sailors’ hostel. Because Manders is so obsessed with maintaining his reputation, he agrees to financially support Jacob’s construction plans. Rather than an unwavering devotion to honesty, Manders displays a hypocritical fixation to protect himself by any means necessary. While Manders castigated Jacob for marrying Johanna earlier, he now embraces Jacob as a willing scapegoat. The savvy Jacob successfully manipulates the hypocritical Manders to his own benefit.

The play’s interest in the effects of nature versus nurture in parenting continues. Although she is not Jacob’s biological daughter, Regina follows in her adoptive father’s footsteps. He taught her to rise above her station, spending money on her education and teaching by example—as evidenced in his clever treatment of Manders. As a result, Regina became a self-interested and ambitious woman. She rejects the notion of serving Oswald as a caregiver. However, her actual paternity plays some part in her personality as well. Echoing the descriptions of Oswald’s father’s desire to escape his stultifying life and be free, Regina chooses to leave the Alvings, live for herself, and “make the best of her young days” (60).

Regina’s departure leaves Oswald and Helen alone in the final scenes of the play. While in the beginning of the play it is raining, the ending of the play takes place during a clear sunrise. No longer clouded by their secrets, Oswald and Helen feel hopeful about the encroaching sun, despite Oswald’s request for his mother to help him die by suicide. The play’s ending undercuts the traditional pattern of realist fiction to end with a resolution. While the revelation of all the secrets seems to imply that Helen and Oswald can now live in peace, Oswald’s debilitating neurological attack instead puts before Helen the ultimate moral dilemma: whether to carry out her son’s final wish to die. Ibsen ends the play before Helen makes her decision to emphasize The Subjective Nature of Morality and to conclude the play at its highest moment of dramatic tension. The audience must consider what resources Helen can turn to for her decision now that she has rejected The Hypocrisy of Organized Religion and appearance-obsessed social convention. The play has revealed the lack of a moral grounding in the world surrounding the Alvings.