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

Mohammed Hussein  Abbas; Muntadher Aqeel Abdulhamza; Salam Hamzh Kadhum

doi:10.17605/cajlpc.v6i3.1249

Mohammed Hussein Abbas Jabir Ibn Hayyan University for Medical and Pharmaceutical Sciences
Muntadher Aqeel Abdulhamza Jabir Ibn Hayyan University for Medical and Pharmaceutical Sciences
Salam Hamzh Kadhum University of Kufa- Faculty of Education

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17605/cajlpc.v6i3.1249

Keywords: Marxist Social Realism, Ghosts, Bourgeois Ideology, Class Struggle, False Consciousness, Capitalist Oppression, Ideological State Appar

Abstract

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.

References

Althusser, L. (2014). On the Reproduction of Capitalism: Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. Presses Universitaires de France.

Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. In Inequality (pp. 287–318). Routledge.

Eagleton, T. (2011). Why Marx Was Right. Yale University Press.

Engels, F. (1884). The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State. Wellred Books.

Eriksen, A. (2014). From Antiquities to Heritage: Transformations of Cultural Memory (Vol. 1). Berghahn Books.

Fryer, P. D. (1980). Marx, Weber and the Methodology of Social Science (Doctoral dissertation, University of Warwick).

Gramsci, A. (2020). Selections from the Prison Notebooks. In The Applied Theatre Reader (pp. 141–142). Routledge.

Haugen, E. I. (1979). Ibsen's Drama: Author to Audience. U of Minnesota Press.

Ibsen, H. (2011). Ghosts. Retrieved from http://www.freeebooks.net/ebook/Ghosts.

Marx, K. (1978). Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction. The Marx-Engels Reader, 63.

Marx, K. (2016). Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. In Social Theory Re-wired (pp. 152–158). Routledge.

Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1848). The Communist Manifesto. Selected Works by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. New York: International Publishers, 1363.

Moi, T. (2006). Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism: Art, Theater, Philosophy. Oxford University Press.

Mouzelis, N. (1980). Reductionism in Marxist theory. Telos, 1980(45), 173-185.

Suleiman, A. (2011). Henrik Ibsen: The Father of Modern Drama [PDF Version]. Retrieved from www.pdffactory.com.