Ghosts

Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts surprises modern audiences with some of the issues that it discusses, including out-of-wedlock children, venereal disease, incest, infidelity, and euthanasia. It is the story of a woman, Mrs. Alving, who is preparing for the opening of an orphanage in memory of her husband, Captain Alving, on the tenth anniversary of his death. The captain was an important and respected man in his community, and Mrs. Alving plans to raise this one great memorial to him so that she will not have to ever again speak of him. She wants to avoid the awful truth: that he was a cheating, immoral philanderer whose public reputation was a sham. Their son Oswald has come home from Paris with the news that he is dying of syphilis, which he contracted in the womb, and planning to marry the family’s maid. He hopes that she can nurse him as his illness progresses, and Mrs. Alving has to tell him that the maid is actually Captain Alving’s illegitimate daughter. (From eNotes)

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Hedda Gabler
by Henrik Ibsen
a drama in 4 acts

Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler introduces a woman who is bored with her new author husband and to life itself. Hedda reunites with a friend who overcame alcoholism to write his own book. Jealous that Eilert’s book tops her husband’s, Hedda tempts Eilert into taking a drink and into realizing that his own life lacks meaning. Henrik Ibsen’s play demonstrates that, when confined to life in the home, a Victorian woman’s hunger for independence could, like Hedda’s, turn destructive. (From Cliff’s Notes)