An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen

I picked up the play thinking it’s about a good man standing up for the truth—standing alone—and getting ostracised and punished for pointing out that the public baths were polluted. That isn’t wrong, but Ibsen’s play is a lot more complex and discomforting than that.

In the first two Acts, Ibsen introduces the characters and the conflict: Dr Thomas Stockman discovers that the public baths—the pride and a source of income for the town—are contaminated and have been making people ill; he has to expose the truth, and the two journalists, Hovstad and Billing, agree to publish his exposé in their paper, the Herald; the Mayor, Peter Stockman, who is also Thomas’s brother, opposes such a disclosure as it would ruin the town and damage his reputation. Dr Stockman doesn’t care about damage; he has the truth with him, he has the press, he has the Ratepayers Association (Aslaksen, the printer of the Herald, is also the chairman of the association). 

Tension rises in Act 3 as the Mayor walks around doing what politicians do—once people realise how much it would cost to replace the pipes and that would be paid for by taxpayers and that the public baths would be closed for at least two years, Hovstad and Billing and Aslaksen all switch to the Mayor’s side—the truth cannot come out, the article cannot be published. Even Katherine Stockman thinks her husband is foolish for not thinking about their family, not prioritising their children. Angry, betrayed, Dr Stockman now stands alone (though his wife, when she realises the hypocrisy and cowardice of others, decides to support him). If the article cannot be published, he would hold a public meeting himself. He would not be silenced. He would tell everyone the truth! 

As the Herald publishes the lies by the Mayor, reassuring the public that there’s nothing at all wrong with the public baths, one expects that at the public meeting in Act 4, Dr Stockman would tell his side of the story, that he would explain his investigation and discovery, that he would persuade the public to close down those baths of poison. But no. Instead, he says that “all our spiritual sources are polluted” and “our whole civic community is built over a cesspool of lies” (translated by James MacFarlane). 

Before Dr Stockman even speaks, the public are against him, but he already knows that most people are ignoramuses and fools—distinguished men such as himself are the minority. He goes on a rant against the mass, against the common man: 

“DR STOCKMAN […] Look at the difference between pedigree and cross-bred animals. […] Or I might mention dogs, which are so like humans in many ways. Think first of an ordinary mongrel—I mean one of those filthy, shaggy rough dogs that do nothing but run about the streets and cock their legs against all the walls. Compare a mongrel like that with a poodle whose pedigree goes back many generations, who has been properly fed and has grown up among quiet voices and soft music. Don’t you think the poodle’s brain will have developed quite differently from the mongrel’s? You bet it will!...” 

I’m not saying that I see Shakespeare everywhere I go, but that makes me think of a passage in Macbeth: 

“FIRST MURDERER We are men, my liege.

MACBETH Ay, in the catalogue you go for men,

As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,

Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves are clept

All by the name of dogs. The valued file

Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,

The housekeeper, the hunter, every one

According to the gift which bounteous nature

Hath in him closed; whereby he does receive

Particular addition, from the bill

That writes them all alike. And so of men…” 

(Act 3 scene 1) 

To go back to Ibsen’s play, it is a disturbing scene. Dr Stockman goes from being a man of integrity, a man of courage to speaking like a fascist. That passage is pure eugenics. 

“DR STOCKMAN [with rising temper] When a place has become riddled with lies, who cares if it’s destroyed? I say it should simply be razed to the ground! And all the people living by these lies should be wiped out, like vermin!...” 

He speaks of love for the town, but he’s full of contempt for people. He must be denounced as an enemy of the people. He must be banished. 

What does that sound like? 

“BRUTUS There’s no more to be said, but he is banished

As enemy to the people and his country.

It shall be so.

ALL PLEBEIANS It shall be so, it shall be so!

CORIOLANUS You common cry of curs, whose breath I hate

As reek o’ th’ rotten fens, whose loves I prize

As the dead carcasses of unburied men

That do corrupt my air, I banish you!...” 

(Coriolanus, Act 3 scene 3)  

Dr Stockman shares with Coriolanus the pride and the inflexibility and the contempt for the mass.   

An Enemy of the People is a disquieting play. It’s a play that makes you feel uncomfortable: all the men who close their eyes and take part in the cover-up are despicable and Dr Stockman is in the right about the baths, but he’s so uncompromising, so contemptuous, so unwilling to understand the concerns of people in the town. Even the character Aslaksen makes moderate people uncomfortable: he continually speaks of moderation, but what moderation can there be when the choice is between, on the one hand, an exposé of an endangerment to public health and, on the other hand, its cover-up? 

Thought-provoking play. 

PS: The original title is En folkefiende, which I think sounds better than An Enemy of the People.