Scientific Determinism in Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts

Abstract

The present research tries to explore the influence of science in Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts. It analyzes the inevitability of science in the life of the characters who are the victim of contaminated heredity and environment. The play deals with the power of ingrained moral contamination to undermine the most determined idealism. Even after lecherous Captain Alving is in his grave, his ghost will not be laid to rest. In the play, the lying memory that the conventional minded widow has erected to his memory burns down, his son goes insane from inherited syphilis and the illegitimate daughter advances inexorably toward her destiny in a brothel. The play, therefore is a grim study of contamination spreading through a family under the cover of the widowed Mrs. Alving's timidly respectable views.