An Enemy of the People

Dr Stockmann finds that the baths his small Norwegian town has staked its economy on are fed by contaminated water, and expects to be thanked. Instead the newspaper, the businessmen’s association, his brother the mayor and finally a public meeting all turn on him, and he ends the play declaring that the majority is never right.

Ibsen wrote it in anger after the reception of Ghosts, and it cuts both ways on purpose: it is the standard text on the cost of telling an inconvenient truth, and also an uncomfortable study of how fast a truth-teller can curdle into a man who despises his neighbours. That double edge is why it keeps getting restaged by people who disagree with each other.

Context: Listed under Drama; the only Ibsen entry in the adult band.

Connections

• A Library to Build Great Americans — the list this came from.
• Henrik Ibsen — the playwright.
• Free Speech — the play’s subject, examined from both ends.
• Democracy — and the play’s hardest question about majorities.