Henrik Ibsen was born in Skien, Norway on March 20, 1828. His father, Knud Ibsen, was a prosperous merchant who

Although it seems widely acknowledged that Ghosts was one of Ibsen's better works, and if not that, his most controversial (which does add to the quality of the piece), it has received negative criticism. For example, in one scathing paragraph, Eric Bentley writes:

Fergusson says that on the surface, Ghosts is simply a thesis play combined with some of the aspects of a thriller. All it does is prove the "hollowness of the conventional bourgeois marriage," (Fergusson 308). However, there is a more meaningful level to the play, a level so deep that Fergusson says Ibsen himself did not immediately recognize its presence. The connection of the events to morality and their rationalization by the characters is the form that lies beneath the simple thesis drama, and it is also the "soul" of the tragedy (308). For what it is worth, Fergusson does concede that as a thesis drama, Ghosts is very successful. He says that the play is a series of moral debates, each one leading into the next, that conclude with a final decision. The suspense of the play, as seen in its structure and performance, builds until the end, when it is proven that conventional marriage is an "evil tyranny," (309).

When the play was published, Ibsen felt sure that it would be widely understood outside of Norway. As it turns out, he was mistaken (Meyer 601). One critic wrote, "The play is not free from riddles and problems...Ellida's story is from first to last a story of sickness...which taxes the action of the play...There is no real drama in this," (qtd. in Meyer 601). Another critic doubted if the play would last long on the stage, and enemies of Ibsen used it to attack him (602). There was some support of the play, most notably from J.A. Runstrom, the writer of the drama column for a Stockholm weekly. He praised Ibsen for his use of the psychological, which he felt had always been one of his strengths, and applauded the fact that this was not another social problem drama. Runstrom commended Ibsen's characterization and even enjoyed the progression of the plot (603). Whatever their opinions, critics all over the world commented on The Lady and the Sea, which only highlights the influence Henrik Ibsen's writing had.

In 1882, in a letter referring to Nora from A Doll's House, Ibsen himself wrote, "After Nora, Mrs. Alving had to come," (qtd. in Brunsdale 982). This line implies that Mrs. Alving is only Nora at an older age, but critic Mitzi Brunsdale believes that there is more than just aging at work (982). She says that Nora evolved into Mrs. Alving, and, in the process, became a much more tragic figure. Brunsdale points out that Nora simply left her home, while Mrs. Alving stayed in her home, where her life was, and suffered because of it (982). Despite the opposition, the play found an audience in the young and radical members of society. It taught them that despite the consequences, despite what could come back and haunt them, the choices they make must always be final and unwavering (983). Mrs. Alving is also compared to the hero in a Greek tragedy, with some minor differences (983). Intsead of Fate controlling the lives of the characters, it is psychology and heredity that does so (Trudeau 268). With the past thus controlling life (Brunsdale 983), there is a conflict between the truth and what religious and moral institutions portray as the truth. The truth and the inability or reluctance to admit it then becomes a recurring theme in the rest of Ibsen's work (Trudeau 268). Finally, Brunsdale also points out the mechanical importance of Ghosts. She quotes Ibsen biographer Michael Meyer in saying that the play was "the first great tragedy written about middle-class people in plain, everyday prose," (qtd. in Brunsdale 983). This type of catering to the people may have been popular with the common reader, but its lack of depth offends another critic, Francis Fergusson, who at the same time condemns Ghosts and praises it fo

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