Sophocles, Hegel and Ibsen
A Perspective on A Doll’s House, Ghosts and An Enemy of the People
by Helge Salemonsen
XIV. The Solitary Self and the Outbreak of Caesarean Madness
Doctor Stockmann has no power. He is as far from a Roman Emperor as you can possibly get. His expanding self-image though, is threatening to take on Caesarean dimensions. In Stockmann’s view the society has shown itself to be a democratic madhouse:
Dr. Stockmann:
You saw yourself last night that half the population are raging maniacs,
and if the other half haven’t lost their reason, it’s
because they’re such muttonheads they haven’t any reason
to lose.
The fools have the power. And contained in this society of idiots and
lunatics as alone liberated and distinguished in the flock of plebeians
and wolfs, he crowns himself, if not as a Roman Emperor though at least
– if I may associate to Peer Gynt – as The Emperor of the
Self, the strongest in his solitariness, the true monas monandum,
who, when the time has come will “drive the wolves over to the
Far West.”
Mrs.
Stockmann: Ah, just so those wolves aren’t
hunting you, Thomas.
Dr. Stockmann:
Are you utterly mad, Katherine! Hunt me down! Now, when
I’m the strongest man in the whole world.
Morten:
You mean it?
Dr. Stockmann
(lowering his voice). Shh, don’t talk about it
yet – but I’ve made a great discovery. Mrs. Stockmann:
Yes, why not!
Dr. Stockmann(Gathers
them around him and speaks confidentially.) And the essence of
it, you see, is that the strongest man in the world is the one who
stands most alone.
It is time to call upon Hegel
again:
This lord
and master of the world holds himself in this way to be the absolute
person, at the same time embracing within himself the whole existence,
the person for whom there exists no superior Spirit. He is a person,
but the solitary person who stands over and against all the rest.
(Hegel 1977: 292)
That the Roman concept of a person according to Hegel “is an expression of contempt” is explained by its abstract character. Ibsen has on several occasions expressed his sympathy with Dr. Stockmann, but he does not hesitate to point out his limitations. For a long time, the family had a “simple maiden of the people” working in their household. Probably she lives in the house as well. For Stockmann she remains nevertheless a completely abstract, anonymous figure, whose name he cannot even remember. This characteristic is repeated so often that it is obviously there to be noticed:
Dr. Stockmann:
[Act one]: Good, that’s it. Give it to- to- (stamps his
foot.) – what the hell’s her name? The maid! Well,
give it to her and tell her to take it straight to the mayor. [Act
five]: Hasn’t – what the hell’s her name –
the maid – hasn’t she gone to the glazier yet? [Act five]:
Have her come in with a pail – the girl – whozzis, damn
it – the one with the smudgy nose – [Act five]: Here,
Petra, tell Smudgy-face to run over to the Badger’s [Morten
Kiil] with this, quick as she can. Hurry!
Dr. Stockmann has initially a highly democratic attitude. But when concerning
“the people” he has exactly the same abstract concept as
Hovstad and Aslaksen. When he still considers to have peoples’
consent, before their opinion turns, he speaks with a naïve excitement
of “the solid majority” as a noteworthy mass, a good-natured,
friendly, cuddly pet. The solid majority still has an elating
meaning for him. But the “brotherly union of citizens”that
he imagined them to be is in the end nothing but an overwrought fiction:
Tiny little sunshine-heads in beautiful, synchronised motion, stylised
masks that smile, a notion of faceless, nameless figures in a host,
or a solid mass of unidentifiable atoms:
Dr Stockmann:
They’ll all support me, if things get rough. Katherine –
do you know what I have backing me up?
Mrs.
Stockmann: Backing you up? No, what do you have?
Dr. Stockmann:
The solid majority.
Mrs.
Stockmann: Really. And that’s a good thing for you, is
it, Thomas?
Dr. Stockmann:
Well, I should hope it’s a good thing! (Paces up and down,
rubbing his hands together.) My Lord, how gratifying it is to
stand like this, joined together in brotherhood with your fellow citizens.
Dr. Stockmann is a victim of a corresponding romanticising of “the masses” that we recognize from totalitarian movements – the voice of the nation, the will of the people, the working class heroes – abstractions that have positive values as long as they do not collide with reality. The abstract expectations of these lovers of the masses change nonetheless with astonishing speed into contempt, as soon as reality disappoints their fantasies – a simple mechanism of fury, which naught “mass-atoms” have had to experience both in the East and in the West. – And now “the public, the mob, the mass” has also disappointed Dr. Stockmann:
Dr. Stockmann:
That being the doctrine inherited from your ancestors, which you mindlessly
disseminate far and wide – the doctrine that the public, the
mob, the masses are the vital core of the people – in fact,
that they are the people – and that the common man, the inert,
unformed component of society, has the same right to admonish and
approve, to prescribe and to govern as the few spiritually accomplished
personalities.
Stockmann has kept intact his abstract concept of the masses. But the
image of this once so blessed solid majority has changed. Now,
it no longer contains a “brotherhood of citizens” but a
multitude of rodents and scavengers – abstract persons, atoms
with no identity. Scavengers and rodents can still nonetheless be both
internalised and extinguished, if they violate the expectations of the
self-appointed avant-garde. We know this mechanism. A significant touch
of caesarean madness has struck our hero:
Dr. Stockmann
(with mounting indignation): What’s the difference
if a lying community gets destroyed! It ought to be razed to the ground,
I say! Stamp them out like vermin, everyone who lives by lies! You’ll
contaminate this entire nation in the end, till the land itself deserves
to be destroyed. And if it comes to that even, then I say with all
my heart: let this whole land be destroyed, let its people all be
stamped out!
*
Brian Johnston has pointed out another feature of An Enemy
of the People – all the allusions to the character of Socrates
and to Plato’s philosophy that can be found in the play. This
article is already too long. To go into this would require another equally
long article.
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