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    Ghosts
    Ghosts
    Ghosts
    Ebook91 pages51 minutes

    Ghosts

    By Henrik Ibsen and Mint Editions

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Helen Alving is a widow who’s committed to protecting her son from his father’s unsavory past which was marked by a string of extramarital affairs. She doesn’t want her son to be affected by his scandalous choices.

    After her husband’s death, Helen Alving decides to dedicate an orphanage in his memory. She uses the project to drain his estate, so their son Oswald won’t retain any of his fortune. Instead, she plans to bequeath only her money, free from her husband’s influence. Yet Oswald’s health is failing, having inherited a disease from his father. As the pain progresses, Oswald decides to take matters into his own hands. He asks his mother to inject him with a fatal dose of medication to end his suffering once and for all.

    In Ghosts, Ibsen covers multiple controversial topics. At the time of its production in 1882, it was immediately criticized for its subject matter. The play destroys the façade of the traditional family, speaking freely about infidelity, incest and venereal disease.

    With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Ghosts is both modern and readable.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMint Editions
    Release dateFeb 16, 2021
    ISBN9781513284453
    Author

    Henrik Ibsen

    Born in 1828, Henrik Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright and poet, often associated with the early Modernist movement in theatre. Determined to become a playwright from a young age, Ibsen began writing while working as an apprentice pharmacist to help support his family. Though his early plays were largely unsuccessful, Ibsen was able to take employment at a theatre where he worked as a writer, director, and producer. Ibsen’s first success came with Brand and Peter Gynt, and with later plays like A Doll’s House, Ghosts, and The Master Builder he became one of the most performed playwrights in the world, second only to William Shakespeare. Ibsen died in his home in Norway in 1906 at the age of 78.

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    Reviews for Ghosts

    3.5/5

    172 ratings4 reviews

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    • 3/5
      A powerful, controversial play (like most of his), he conveys a less than sterling relationship between mother and son that disintegrates when the truth comes out and the son's mind deteriorates. The truth will always out.
    • 2/5
      Dilemma’s: -erfelijkheid (Oswald)-hypocrisie en burgerlijke moraal:Manders-vrouwenplicht: mrs Alving-respect voor ouders: Regina (weer erg engelachtig)-euthanasie: Oswaldniet helemaal geslaagd!
    • 3/5
      Excellently written, dark, controversial at time and now drama about all kinds of unpleasantries that affect peoples lives from 'dissipated lives' to euthanasia and using morphine to commit suicide cos of VD. I will explore Ibsens Ouvre.
    • 4/5
      Ibsen's plays really take you to the end of 19th century - and make youfeel the anxiety caused by social pressures and hypocrisy and seek the power to break free from the rules and conventions and reach for something real.

    Book preview

    Ghosts - Henrik Ibsen

    Act First

    (A spacious garden-room, with one door to the left, and two doors to the right. In the middle of the room a round table, with chairs about it. On the table lie books, periodicals, and newspapers. In the foreground to the left a window, and by it a small sofa, with a worktable in front of it. In the background, the room is continued into a somewhat narrower conservatory, the walls of which are formed by large panes of glass. In the right-hand wall of the conservatory is a door leading down into the garden. Through the glass wall a gloomy fjord landscape is faintly visible, veiled by steady rain)

    (ENGSTRAND, the carpenter, stands by the garden door. His left leg is somewhat bent; he has a clump of wood under the sole of his boot. REGINA, with an empty garden syringe in her hand, hinders him from advancing)

    REGINA: (In a low voice) What do you want? Stop where you are. You’re positively dripping.

    ENGSTRAND: It’s the Lord’s own rain, my girl.

    REGINA: It’s the devil’s rain, I say.

    ENGSTRAND: Lord, how you talk, Regina. (Limps a step or two forward into the room) It’s just this as I wanted to say—

    REGINA: Don’t clatter so with that foot of yours, I tell you! The young master’s asleep upstairs.

    ENGSTRAND: Asleep? In the middle of the day?

    REGINA: It’s no business of yours.

    ENGSTRAND: I was out on the loose last night—

    REGINA: I can quite believe that.

    ENGSTRAND: Yes, we’re weak vessels, we poor mortals, my girl—

    REGINA: So it seems.

    ENGSTRAND:—and temptations are manifold in this world, you see. But all the same, I was hard at work, God knows, at half-past five this morning.

    REGINA: Very well; only be off now. I won’t stop here and have rendezvous’s (Note: This and other French words by Regina are in that language in the original) with you.

    ENGSTRAND: What do you say you won’t have?

    REGINA: I won’t have any one find you here; so just you go about your business.

    ENGSTRAND: (Advances a step or two) Blest if I go before I’ve had a talk with you. This afternoon I shall have finished my work at the school house, and then I shall take to-night’s boat and be off home to the town.

    REGINA: (Mutters) Pleasant journey to you!

    ENGSTRAND: Thank you, my child. To-morrow the Orphanage is to be opened, and then there’ll be fine doings, no doubt, and plenty of intoxicating drink going, you know. And nobody shall say of Jacob Engstrand that he can’t keep out of temptation’s way.

    REGINA: Oh!

    ENGSTRAND: You see, there’s to be heaps of grand folks here to-morrow. Pastor Manders is expected from town, too.

    REGINA: He’s coming to-day.

    ENGSTRAND: There, you see! And I should be cursedly sorry if he found out anything against me, don’t you understand?

    REGINA: Oho! is that your game?

    ENGSTRAND: Is what my game?

    REGINA: (Looking hard at him) What are you going to fool Pastor Manders into doing, this time?

    ENGSTRAND: Sh! sh! Are you crazy? Do I want to fool Pastor Manders? Oh no! Pastor Manders has been far too good a friend to me for that. But I just wanted to say, you know—that I mean to be off home again to-night.

    REGINA: The sooner the better, say I.

    ENGSTRAND: Yes, but I want you with me, Regina.

    REGINA: (Open-mouthed) You want me—? What are you talking about?

    ENGSTRAND: I want you to come home with me, I say.

    REGINA: (Scornfully) Never in this world shall you get me home with you.

    ENGSTRAND: Oh, we’ll see about that.

    REGINA: Yes, you may be sure we’ll see about it! Me, that have been brought up by a lady like Mrs. Alving! Me, that am treated almost as a daughter here! Is it me you want to go home with you?—to a house like yours? For shame!

    ENGSTRAND: What the devil do you mean? Do you set yourself up against your father, you hussy?

    REGINA: (Mutters without looking at him) You’ve said often enough I was no concern of yours.

    ENGSTRAND: Pooh! Why should you bother about that—

    REGINA: Haven’t you many a time sworn at me and called me a—? Fi donc!

    ENGSTRAND: Curse me, now, if ever I used such an ugly word.

    REGINA: Oh, I remember very well what word you used.

    ENGSTRAND: Well, but that was only when I was a bit on, don’t you know? Temptations are manifold in this world, Regina.

    REGINA: Ugh!

    ENGSTRAND: And besides, it was when your mother was that aggravating—I had to find something to twit her with, my child. She was always setting up for a fine lady. (Mimics) Let me go, Engstrand; let me be. Remember I was three years in Chamberlain Alving’s family at Rosenvold. (Laughs) Mercy on us! She could never forget that the Captain was made a Chamberlain while she was in service here.

    REGINA: Poor mother! you very soon tormented her into her grave.

    ENGSTRAND: (With a twist of his shoulders) Oh, of course! I’m to have the blame for everything.

    REGINA: (Turns away; half aloud) Ugh—! And that leg too!

    ENGSTRAND: What do you say, my child?

    REGINA: Pied de mouton.

    ENGSTRAND: Is that English, eh?

    REGINA: Yes.

    ENGSTRAND: Ay, ay; you’ve picked up some learning out here; and that may come in useful now, Regina.

    REGINA: (After a short silence) What do you want with me in town?

    ENGSTRAND: Can you ask what a father wants with his only child? A’n’t I a lonely, forlorn widower?

    REGINA: Oh, don’t try on any nonsense like that with me! Why do you want me?

    ENGSTRAND: Well, let me tell you, I’ve been thinking of setting up in a new line of business.

    REGINA: (Contemptuously) You’ve tried that often enough, and much good you’ve done with it.

    ENGSTRAND: Yes, but this time you shall see, Regina! Devil take me—

    REGINA: (Stamps) Stop your swearing!

    ENGSTRAND: Hush, hush; you’re right enough there, my girl. What I wanted to say was just this—I’ve laid by a very tidy pile from this Orphanage job.

    REGINA: Have you? That’s a good thing for you.

    ENGSTRAND: What can a man spend his ha’pence on here in this country hole?

    REGINA: Well, what then?

    ENGSTRAND: Why, you see, I thought of putting the money into some paying speculation. I thought of a sort of a sailor’s tavern—

    REGINA: Pah!

    ENGSTRAND: A regular high-class affair, of course;

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