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A Look at Ghosts
We are all ghosts. So we are told. Ibsen’s Ghosts can be analyzed through two different aspects that are particularly prominent. The first aspect is the naturalistic idea of heredity which can be divided into “intellectual” and “spiritual” inheritances. The second in Marxist terms can be referred to as “ideology”, which to some extent equals the “intellectual inheritance” in Ghosts. However, the definition of the word human is not entirely encompassed by these two approaches. The first, the naturalistic approach, by considering human life as some sort of determinism deprives man of free will. The second, the Marxist ideology, which to some degrees regards human as some passive being, again, downgrades him. There are some subtle implications in Ghosts which hint at what is taken from the characters. As a result of this lack, lack of free will, human turns into ghost.
Ghosts is in great integration with the naturalistic idea of heredity. In fact its too obvious approaches suggest the play being in service of the idea of heredity. The ghosts “without and within” according to Robert Brustein’s The Theatre Of Revolt are signified as “spiritual” and “intellectual” inheritances. The former, the “spiritual inheritance”, is the repetition of the deeds of the dead in the living or as Robert Brustein explains “the spirits of the dead which inhabit the bodies of the living, controlling their lives and destinies.” For example Oswald’s sexual relation with Regina is the continuation of Captain Alving’s sexual relation with Regina’s mother. Besides, Oswald’s hereditary disease is the continuation of his father’s disease and is followed by the same destiny, that is death. The second, the “intellectual inheritance” is the inheritance of “all sort of old dead beliefs and ideas” as Mrs. Alving puts it. It is the Victorian mindset she has been brought up in and on which is very dependent.
In addition to the “intellectual inheritance”, the ghosts within stand for ideology as well. Ideology as the eternal structure which can be filled with anything and is capable of imposing its contents on human mind. By means of this structure, ideology, beliefs are put into circulation in the world. Ideology in Ghosts is referred to by Manders as duty and law while Oswald and Mrs. Alving call it superstition or ghosts of beliefs; ghosts of beliefs that characters have inherited and internalized toward every possible subject such as family, religion and the society. These beliefs however are not chosen freely by the characters. They are imposed on their minds and have illusioned them as if they were their owns. The ghosts without are based on the ghosts within us; to get rid of them one has to get rid of the inherited beliefs. It is in that very first step that Mrs Alving fails. Mrs. Alving gradually becomes aware of them. She comes out with describing what Manders calls duty and law as something that “my whole soul revolted against.” By discarding this soul she becomes a ghost or in other words makes of herself a ghost. Mrs. Alving comes to see the fakeness of what has dominated her whole life: “I only wanted to unravel one point in them; but as soon as I had got that unravelled, the whole fabric came to pieces. And then I realised that it was only machine-made.” In spite of her awareness, Mrs. Alving starts discussing to find a way to get Regina settled by means of some suitable marriage – which in fact is in accordance to the rules of ideology – right after she has gained her deepest insight. Mrs. Alving contradicts what she has claimed: ” I don’t attach importance to those obligations and considerations any longer” and that “law and order are at the bottom of all the misery in the world”. In the deepest layers of her character, Mrs. Alving is too dependent on the content of the ideologies she has internalized to get rid of them.
Yet, what transforms characters into ghosts is not only ideology or inheritance, but rather it is lack of action. Mrs. Alving is inactive. In so many points in the play she feels it enough only to say : ”if I were the woman I ought to be” or “if I were not such a miserable coward”. Mrs. Alving points out that by reading books she was told about the ideas she has always thought about and believed but never dared to act in accordance to them or at least speak about them. And in fact she did not speak about them until Oswald started the debate. Mrs. Alving has always put her desires for freedom, joy and truth on Oswald’s shoulders. Her awareness is never enough. When she gets shocked by the fact that Oswald feels no affection for his father as a child, Oswald has a right to accuse her of clinging to antiquated superstition as a broad-minded woman. Oswald also points out that “you can see that for yourself quite well.” Thereafter, lack of action and Mrs. Alving’s passivity rule her and make of her a ghost. Although the system has converted her to a ghost, after she becomes aware of the fact, this is her passivity rather than the system which keeps her the same. Mrs Alving's deepest insight is only scratching the surface of reality. Mrs. Alving does not know herself as a human, as one who has the power to decide and who is able to fulfil what she desires. This lack puts her out of the definition of human being and transforms her into a ghost. This passivity of the characters however is not to be used as an objection to Ibsen because Ibsen as a realistic playwright has only depicted the characters exactly the same as the modern man is. Mrs Alving whether Oswald survives or not, will not survive unless she directly attacks the base of all her misery, that is her passivity in the shadow of which Mrs. Alving becomes a ghost. She has put all her desires on someone else's shoulders. She has no authentic idea of her own, nor any decision or perception. She does not actually live. Mrs Alving represents the very naturalistic image of human as the product of the environment and heredity. The same goes for other characters. Mrs Alving as the representative of the modern naturalistic man, being displayed on the ghostish stuffy scene of modern life only succeeds in finding out that there is no real human being inside her, that she is only a ghost. This lack as Ibsen suggests but fails to extend vaster is what rules us all. We are all ghosts and we are so miserably afraid of the light, all of us.
The Marxist and the naturalistic approaches assert that human mind gets filled with whatever you feed it with no regard to the soul’s revolution against it. Although Marx believed not only in determinism but also in human potential and that these two together construct the history, his concept of human potential is disregarded while analyzing Ghosts. Ghosts gives us no hint whether it confirms free will or not. Ibsen believed that everyone has to decide for himself. Therefore the reader is not told if Oswald is going to survive or not, Oswald as one who if not free from the ghosts within is free from the Victorian mindset and less afraid of reality. We are not told if the dying hopes for non-naturalistic human, for one who will decide for his own will survive or not. One has to decide for himself.
Date Posted: 6/1/2009
Number of Views: 251
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