LITERARY PAPERS 
368 
Ibsen in 44 An Enemy of the People,” a play eminently adapted 
for study and representation in any community. From the 
beginning to the end, the action of the play is a crusade in 
the cause of truth. 
The situation is drawn with an unsparing hand. The in¬ 
difference of the many and the cowardliness of others in not 
openly living up to their convictions are equally delineated. 
Refreshingly contrasting is the picture of Dr. Stockmann and 
his daughter Petra, who would willingly sacrifice all self-in¬ 
terests to stand on the rock of truth and freedom. Pathetic 
is the utterance of the doctor, when, in answer to his wife’s 
solicitude for the materialities of life, he replies, “That ’s my 
least concern. Now, what does trouble me is, that I don’t see 
any man with enough independence and nobility of character 
to dare to take up my work after me.” To this Petra hope¬ 
fully suggests that others will come, and tells her father he is 
not to 44 bother about that.” 
In “The Doll’s House” is shown that woman has duties to 
herself as well as to others. In fact, duty to self is first. Only 
by a knowledge of self and by developing her own character 
may she hope with a stronger personality to live for some per¬ 
manent good. The obligation that evolution imposes on her 
to think out for herself her own problems is a text Ibsen often 
reads from. In the last scene between Nora and Helmer, where 
she tells him she has other duties equally sacred with those 
of wife and mother, the duties to herself, Helmer reiterates, 
“Before all else you are a wife and a mother.” She replies, 
“That I no longer believe. I think that before all else I am 
a human being just as much as you are — or, at least, I will 
try to become one. I know that most people agree with you, 
Torvald, and that they say so in books, but henceforth I can’t 
be satisfied with what most people say, and what is in books. 
I must think them out for myself and try to get clear about 
them.” 
Many critics, as well as a not deep-thinking public, have 
cavilled and reviled Ibsen’s plays, and this because he dares 
to raise the curtain on true situations not uncommonly met 
with in life. Truly these situations may be unpleasant ones 
