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Oswald The Iconoclast / Character Analysis: Oswald Alving

Oswald Alving is the son of Mrs. Alving and the late Captain Alving. He rejects the small-minded views of his home country of Norway, similarly to the playwright Ibsen. Oswald is an iconoclast who freely expresses rejection of accepted ideas. He is also painfully honest in his communication, forcing Mrs. Alving to confront the truth about her past and late husband. Oswald represents unruly life and passion, in contrast to Pastor Manders who represents law and order. Oswald has syphilis, which will cause his decline, forcing Mrs. Alving to let go of her final attachment from the past.

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1K views2 pages

Oswald The Iconoclast / Character Analysis: Oswald Alving

Oswald Alving is the son of Mrs. Alving and the late Captain Alving. He rejects the small-minded views of his home country of Norway, similarly to the playwright Ibsen. Oswald is an iconoclast who freely expresses rejection of accepted ideas. He is also painfully honest in his communication, forcing Mrs. Alving to confront the truth about her past and late husband. Oswald represents unruly life and passion, in contrast to Pastor Manders who represents law and order. Oswald has syphilis, which will cause his decline, forcing Mrs. Alving to let go of her final attachment from the past.

Uploaded by

Sabyasachi Mukherjee
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Oswald the Iconoclast / Character Analysis : Oswald Alving

Oswald has a lot in common with Henrik Ibsen, the author of Ghosts. Oswald is from Norway but lives in
the South (Paris). Ibsen lived in Rome for most of his life, though he continued to write about his
homeland. He loathed what he considered the small-minded and puritanical outlook of his countrymen
– and they loathed him back, especially when it came to Ghosts. Ibsen himself was an iconoclast,
meaning he freely expressed his rejection of accepted ideas and institutions. His spokesperson here is
Oswald, a non-conformist and an artist struggling to defend his identity in the hostile, judgmental
environment of his home.

Oswald is a straight shooter. While Pastor Manders and Mrs. Alving often beat politely around the bush,
Oswald says what he means. In his first appearance, he chats with Manders for only a couple minutes
before he's speaking his mind in defense of unconventional romantic relationships. He gets worked up
as he recalls the hypocrite husbands who treat artists' quarters like they are brothels. Then he
remembers where he is and apologizes: "Excuse me, Pastor: I know you can't take my point of view; but
I couldn't help speaking out".

Oswald is also merciless with his mother. He rejects her maternal sentimentality. In Act 3, he's just told
her that a) he doesn't love his father, and b) he doesn't love her. Oswald doesn't accept the idea that
just because he came from Mrs. Alving's womb he owes her something. There's that rejecting-accepted-
ideas thing again. He asks why should love her? He didn't grow up living with his parents, he doesn't
know them, and coming home is just depressing. He'd rather be in Paris. When Mrs. Alving redoubles
her efforts to win his heart, he asks her to stop talking about it, since he has other things on his mind.

Oswald's painfully honest communication style is appropriate to his function in the play. His return to
home forces Mrs. Alving to confront the truth of her life. She wants to bury her past – and by her past
we mean the memory of her alcoholic, philandering husband – but she just can't. The past lives in the
present. If she didn't have her rose-colored maternal glasses on, she would recognize that fact when
Oswald comes down smoking the pipe in Act 1. He's Captain Alving all over again, as Manders
recognizes: "there is an expression about the corners of the mouth – something about the lips – that
reminds one exactly of Alving: at any rate, now that he is smoking".

If Pastor Manders is the representative of law, order, and society, Oswald is the representative of unruly
life and passion. Joie de Vivre. The Joy of Life, or Livsglede in Dano-Norwegian. Personal freedom.
Choosing your destiny. When Oswald paints a picture of this free, happy life, Mrs. Alving suddenly
understands what her husband lacked, why he went so far downhill in the gloomy, duty-bound life of
the North. He was suffocated and paralyzed – and under her control.

No one ever says the word "syphilis" in this play, but that's what Oswald's got. It's a sexually transmitted
disease that can also pass from a mother to a baby. It doesn't make sound medical sense that Oswald
got it from his father – but Ibsen is most interested in the metaphor: "The sins of the fathers are visited
upon the children". The kind of syphilis Oswald seems to have is "tertiary" or "latent" syphilis. It's been
dormant in his body and is just emerging, causing the headaches and fatigue he complains about.
Untreated (or treated too late), it can result in serious organ and nerve damage, paralysis, muscle
deterioration, blindness, and dementia. Oswald is more colorful in his description of the illness; his
doctor calls it "a sort of softening of the brain – or something like that. [Smiles sadly.] I think that
expression sounds so nice. It always sets me thinking of cherry-coloured velvet – something soft and
delicate to stroke". Oswald's decline means that Mrs. Alving has to let go of the final "ghost" in her life –
her attachment to her son.

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