Marxist Social Realism in Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts: A Critical Exploration

This study explores Marxist social realism and its application to Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts (1881), highlighting how the play criticizes the bourgeois oppressive ideologies, class struggle, and social mobility illusion. Through the Marxist perspective, the play shows the corruption and hypocrisy of the capital system and the manipulation of moral and religious institutions to achieve personal corrupt goals. The study examines how the main characters, like Mrs. Alving, Oswald, Engstrand, Regina, and Pastor Manders, represent the ideological conflicts in a society based on class hierarchy. Relying on the theories of Karl Marx, Louis Althusser, and Antonio Gramsci, the current study shows how Ibsen criticizes the bourgeois system and its manipulating moralities and the oppression of the working class through tools like economic determination. The play's tragic end demonstrates the limitations of people’s actions under the ideologically repressive system, aligned with the Marxist argument that individual revolt is insufficient for total social reform. Finally, the study demonstrates how the play is a pivotal criticism of capitalist ideology and its impact on human existence by examining Ibsen’s play within the Marxist social realism approach.