If Ibsen viewed his characters as bacteria, he certainly had some interesting comments to make on small town society and the role of development and science.
It is difficult to imagine that Ibsen remained completely objective in his study of human interaction as he wrote his plays. First, there is never a dull moment in the progression of events; never a lull that would reveal the everyday activities of the family. Real life is rarely as exciting as Ibsen portrays it, even in the midst of a scandal such as occured when the doctor tried to publish his discovery of the contamination of the local baths. He also does not show all the activities that occur in the house, as an anthropologist or social scientist would in order to give a full account of the progression of events that led to the town's reaction. We do not see the rocks being thrown into the window on the night that the town rejects the doctor's publication, nor the dismissal of Petra and her reaction as well as that of the woman who dismissed her. There are large pieces missing in this examination of the interaction between the citizens of the town.
Second, Ibsen's characters seem exaggerated to make them fit the situation or stereotypical. The doctor, Thomas Stockman is pompous and arrogant to the point of near insanity. For a man who has only recently been able to return to his home and just now has a stable income, it seems unlikely that a normal man would give up the comforts of a hot meal and a home in order to pursue a stubborn plan that could have been more easily handled if he had discussed his findings with the council first to try and find a reasonable and cost effective way to sole the contamination issue without creating a mass panic. He even is amazed at his current wealth, showing off the new comforts in his living room and the large amounts of good food on the table. It seems that a man who had known exile and harsher times would, at least at the end when he is faced with the loss of his position and later with the loss of an income from his father-in-law, would back off in order to provide for his family. Katherine Stockman, too seems to bee the stereotypical housewife of the time period, she goes along with her husband and while the men of the town portray her as the voice of reason, she still bends quite easily when her husband's honor is attacked rather than try to defend the future of her three children. Petra is the loving, doting daughter who follows in her father's footsteps and teaches radical ideas that he approves of throughout the town. The journalists seem to be trying to look out for the interest of informing the community, but they like the politicians look only at the monetary costs of the project and ignore the health hazards. The mayor of the town is portrayed as the stereotypical gentleman who must bow to the will of the people, even in the face of causing sickness and harm to others. He must, after all take care of the tax payers first.
Ibsen seems to have a clear agenda. If he views the world as bacteria to be studied and analyzed, he analyses with a deep-set hatred for these bacteria. He is not the objective scientist who studies his subjects for the purpose of discovering their nature and seeing how they react to one another and in certain situations. He seems to have had the objective in mind before he set out. He does not show the good in men, which most theorists agree exists on the individual level, he only shows those situations where man acts in a despicable manner in a bad situation. The play is simply a demonstration of Ibsen's views on humanity rather than a study of the real thing. This subjectivity, would lose him all credibility in the scientific community, therefore I find it hard to view him as a scientist such as Linneaus or Galton.
No comments:
Post a Comment