Summary
Act Two
After dinner, Osvald goes out for a bit and Mrs. Alving sends Regina down to the laundry room to help with decorations. She and Manders discuss Osvald and Regina. She doesn’t think anything has happened yet, but Regina must leave the house now. Manders suggests she go to her father’s, but realizes the truth: Engstrand isn’t Regina’s father.
Mrs. Alving sighs and explains that Regina’s mother, Johanna, came to her, told her the truth, and Mrs. Alving took care to cover it up. She gave Johanna $300; Johanna revived a relationship with Engstrand and lied to him that it was some foreigner who got her pregnant. Manders is full of contempt for this sham marriage and for Engstrand agreeing to marry a “fallen woman” for money.
Mrs. Alving asks him, vexed, if he thinks the same of her because she was only doing her duty and did not want to be married, and says that he can’t think Alving was pure when they married. He doesn’t think it is the same. She is a bit melancholy when she thinks of where her heart actually was and how she didn’t pay attention to what she wanted. Manders maintains that her marriage was based on law and order and was, therefore, right.
She muses that she should have never covered up Alving’s behavior, that she was cowardly, and that she should have told Osvald about his father. Manders is horrified and says that Osvald must honor his father and that she was doing her duty.
The two disagree with each other. She scoffs that Osvald should know the truth, while he says there is something to be said for not shattering ideals. Mrs. Alving wishes she hadn’t built his father up so much to Osvald, but then she states that, right now, she has to think about how Osvald simply cannot fool around with Regina.
She does muse, though, that it would be easy if the young people could just marry and be honest about it. This shocks Manders, but Mrs. Alving says that she knows many people who are that closely related. Manders acknowledges that family isn’t as pure as it should be.
Mrs. Alving admits she is terrified; the dead among them haunt her. When Manders asks what she means, she says that when she heard Osvald and Regina, she heard “ghosts.” Ghosts are their parents and things like old ideas and beliefs—things that didn’t exactly live inside them but are sitting around all the same. She sees ghosts everywhere she turns.
Pastor Manders is exasperated by her comments and blames her progressive readings. He is stunned, though, when she accuses him of being the one who was responsible for her doing her own thinking. When he sent her back to her husband with numerous reasons, she looked into them and found them specious. She tugged on the proverbial knot and the whole thing came undone.
He is saddened to hear this, and both realize they never understood each other. He makes her feel worse when he says he never thought of her as anything but another man’s wife.
She sadly changes the subject to Regina. They decide she must go, and Manders reiterates that it must be to Engstrand.
At that moment, Engstrand himself arrives, asking for a word with the Pastor. He begins by saying that, now that work is finishing up at the orphanage, he thinks the Pastor should come by for a prayer tonight. He humbly says that he’s an ordinary man, or else he’d do it himself.
Manders sharply asks about Engstrand’s conscience, which Engstrand waves off. Manders then pushes Engstrand to admit the truth about Regina, which Engstrand does—with numerous protestations that he was doing the right thing. He argues that it is a Christian’s job to lift the fallen, which was what he did for Johanna. It broke his heart to hear her story, so he righteously married her. He never cared about the money, and it all went to the child. He is sure that he has been a good father. He never said anything because he didn’t want to get any credit for the good deed.
Pastor Manders is touched and humbled; he asks Engstrand for forgiveness for misjudging him. Engstrand uses this opportunity to tell him about his plan for the seamen’s place in town, a place he claims will be free from vice. Manders says he would love to hear more, but now is the time to light the candles for the prayer. Engstrand thanks him, fakes a tear for Regina growing up so well thanks to Mrs. Alving, and leaves.
Manders is pleased with Engstrand and remarks that one must be careful judging another. Mrs. Alving replies wryly that Manders is, and always has been, a child, and she wishes she could hug him.
A bit confused, Manders gathers his things to go. He says he will return later.
Alone now, Mrs. Alving turns and, to her surprise, sees Osvald with a cigar and drink at the table. She stammers that she thought he was going out. He shrugs that the weather is bad.
She invites him into the garden room, saying he can bring his cigar even if he doesn’t think he can. He is restless, complaining about the weather and how he can’t work. He suddenly asks his mother if his being home really makes her happy, saying she got along just fine without him. She assures him that she loves having him.
To her surprise and growing anxiousness, he tells her he must tell her something. He has been keeping it for some time now, but now it must come out. His tiredness is not ordinary tiredness. He isn’t sick in the traditional way: rather, his mind is sick and broken, and he will not work again. His eyes fill with pain as he says this. Mrs. Alving intuits that he means he has syphilis; she asks how he got it, and he says he does not know. He has not led too wild of a life, so he is surprised that this terrible thing has happened to him. She tries to comfort him, and she urges him to tell her everything.
He explains that it started the last time he got to Paris. He had a piercing pain in his head and he thought it was a normal headache, but he realized it was different. He couldn’t work anymore: his strength was paralyzed, and he couldn’t concentrate. He saw the doctor and learned the truth. The doctor asked many questions that didn’t seem pertinent and finally told him that he’d been “worm-eaten since birth” (104). When Osvald asked him to explain it, the doctor said, “the sins of the father are visited on the children” (104). At this, Mrs. Alving slowly rises.
Osvald continues that he almost hit the man for impugning his father, then showed him all the letters where his mother bragged of his father. Osvald felt better about that, but he rued that he had lived his own life as he did. The truth was that he should have been more careful and less irresponsible. He wrecked himself; he is the only one to blame.
Osvald throws himself down mournfully, crying out that he wished his curse had been something he had inherited instead of something he did to himself.
After a minute, he adds that he is so sorry to be upsetting his mother, and he can see that she loves him a great deal. He begs her for a drink so he can drown out his thoughts. She acquiesces and pulls the bell-rope.
In the meantime, he complains about the incessant rain and how he never sees the sunshine.
Regina comes down and Mrs. Alving tells her to bring them a half-bottle of champagne. Osvald weakly thanks his mother. She says she can never deny him anything. His eyes light up and he asks if she really means that. His tone disconcerts her.
They drink a bit. Osvald asks his mother what she thinks of Regina, adding that he finds her magnificent. Mrs. Alving hesitantly suggests that Regina has problems, but she is fond of her. Suddenly, Osvald jumps up and says Regina is his only hope. He has to live a different way; he has to leave his mother. He cannot live with this dread all the time.
Mrs. Alving is worried and confused. Osvald barrels on, saying how beautiful and healthy Regina is. Mrs. Alving tries to calm him and rings for Regina to bring them a whole bottle.
Osvald admires Regina’s retreating figure but then sadly recalls a wrong he did to her: once, they were talking about Paris, and he said they could go there together; it seems she took that to heart. When he realized she had been hoping for this, he actually saw her magnificence for the first time and decided she was his salvation—she was life.
Regina returns, and Osvald tells her to get a glass for herself as well. She is surprised, especially when Mrs. Alving reluctantly says that this is okay.
In her brief absence, Mrs. Alving tells Osvald he can’t do this, but he firmly says it is decided.
Regina returns and sits. Mrs. Alving asks Osvald what he was saying about the joy of life, and he admits that he’s never felt that at home. He felt it when he painted, and he believes that every one of his works springs from that. In his works are “light and sunshine, and a holiday spirit” (109). He is afraid to remain here at home for fear of losing that. When asked what he means, he explains it as “afraid of everything that’s best in me degenerating into ugliness” (109).
Mrs. Alving is dismayed to hear this and rises to announce the truth. Before she can say anything, Pastor Manders enters. He states that Regina must go with Engstrand. Osvald cuts in and says she is going with him. Mrs. Alving begins to say that neither of these things will happen, but she does not get far.
Suddenly, shouts are heard, and, looking out the windows, Regina screams that something is burning in the asylum. Everyone runs out. Pastor Manders claims this is a “fiery judgment on this wayward house” (111) and adds that it is a shame there is no insurance.
Analysis
The big revelation in this act is, of course, that Osvald also has syphilis but, because he thinks his father was perfect, he wrongly assumes he contracted it from one of his own sexual dalliances. He is full of self-reproach and guilt, wishing (ironically) that he had some inherited disease, ruing that he cannot work anymore, and wondering if he shouldn’t have lived his life full of “joy.”
The importance of Osvald having this disease handed down from his father is that, as Evert Sprinchorn writes, “Heredity and environment were seen as the two principal forces affecting the lives of individuals…In coming to grips with this deterministic view of life Ibsen had to take his heroes out of the poetic realm in which they could exercise their wills freely or capriciously and place them in a prosaic world in which their wills are crippled by circumstance.” It isn’t just Osvald, though, for both Mrs. Alving and her son seem to be plagued by the ghosts of their past. She cannot escape the way she was raised and neither can he. Interestingly, her situation seems to be the more tragic of the two because she could have potentially halted the conveyance of disease to her son and she is going to have to destroy him to atone for not having been able to do that.
The text is ambiguous as to how Osvald actually contracted the disease. Most critics accept the idea that Captain Alving was sick when Osvald was conceived—but then, wouldn’t that make Helene sick as well, even if she was disgusted by sex, at least with him? It's worth noting, though, that syphilis can sometimes be largely asymptomatic. Another idea put forth is that Osvald contracted the disease through his father’s pipe, which is a symbol of the older man and the subject of the cruel and very detailed memory Osvald shares of him.
The dramatic irony in the situation of the audience knowing that Mrs. Alving knows exactly what happened to her son is fantastically taut and nearly unbearable. It is very clear that while she wishes to think her son is different from his father—while she wishes to excise the dead man’s memory through the opening of the orphanage—she will not be able to get rid of him so easily. He is one of the “ghosts” that she memorably speaks of: the past, old beliefs. old ideas, memories, and people long gone. Captain Alving’s ghosts live on in his son, and Mrs. Alving cannot expunge them, just as she cannot expunge her own ghosts of religion, tradition, and modesty.
The fire that breaks out at the end of this scene is climactic and heavily symbolic. It represents the end of Mrs. Alving’s neat plot to forget her husband and move beyond her ghosts; as Errol Durbach explains, “The fire, for Mrs. Alving, is an epiphany—the end of concealment and falsehood, the end of her multiple hypocrisies.” Its light—indeed, the fire is actually described as light instead of flames—is going to illuminate her missteps and “ghosts," burning away and destroying her corruption. The fire is also part of the general fire/light imagery that Osvald so often evokes: sunshine, the joy of life, his burning brain, and even the lit pipe he smokes. The sun that Osvald so often talks about and yearns for at the end of the play is, Sprinchorn notes, “is only part of the form of the fire symbolism in the play,” so when “this fire [in the orphanage], representing the sensual life that Osvald, the son of his father in more ways than one, erupts, it overexcites his brain and brings about his final collapse. Thus the fire simultaneously condemns Mrs. Alving for having denied joie de vivre and Osvald for having espoused it.”
