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Sophocles, Hegel and Ibsen

A Perspective on A Doll’s House, Ghosts and An Enemy of the People
by Helge Salemonsen

XI. Knowledge and Non-knowledge

      Notice that Alving is addressed in three different ways throughout the play: 1. as Lieutenant Alving, 2. as Captain Alving and 3. as Chamberlain Alving. That the orphanage was to be named The Captain Alving Memorial Orphan’s Home, was something that Pastor Manders had made sure of: “I chose “Captain” for the title, rather than “Court Chamberlain”. “Captain” seems less ostentatious.”

      In Ibsen’s universe the title Chamberlain is associated with decadence. We meet a whole host of them in The Wild Duck – the flabby, the thin-haired, the near-sighted and other specimens of the species. The thin-haired has asserted that the Tokays need sunshine. Mrs. Sørby comments ironically: “But then it’s the same as with the chamberlains; they are also in great need of sunshine, as one says.” The title Lieutenant is on the contrary associated with straightforwardness, vitality, courage, strength and joy, as with the now scandalised, faint-hearted, pitiable old Mr. Ekdahl in The Wild Duck, who in his youth, before the disaster, was known as the tanned, cheeky, outdoorsman and bear hunter Lieutenant Ekdahl.

      Chamberlain Alving, Captain Alving’s Orphanage and Lieutenant Alving represent three aspects of Mrs. Alving’s unconscious-conscious scope of perception. Three levels of knowledge and non-knowledge: 1. Her bitter knowledge, 2: Her consciously falsified knowledge and 3: Her suppressed knowledge.     

      1. The memory of her chamberlain depicts Mrs. Alving’s bitter knowledge: her burden in life, the awareness of all her self-imposed duties and renunciations, which she at the same time was so proud to have endured. The hidden side of this moral heroism, the non-knowledge concealed behind it, is revealed when Oswald declares that he no longer can endure living in his mother’s house. Her bitter self-renunciations have left a stigma upon the house, affecting everything around her. “Mrs. Alving: Afraid? What are you afraid of when you are with me? Osvald: I am afraid that everything that is surfacing within me will manifest itself as ugliness here.” The lack of joy, the absence of “light and sun and holiday scenes” appear as a variety of the light-shunning power that Hegel talks about. This insidious power, hidden in the realm of our non-knowledge, “seizes and ensnares” us when we least expect it, that is, when our intended plans, our conscious deeds are completed.

      2. “Captains Alving’s orphanage” appears as Mrs. Alving’s consciously forged knowledge, or as the public’s non-knowledge. In her attempt to free Osvald from the shame associated with the chamberlain, she has constructed a manipulated image of Alving as the admirable pillar of society. As a part of what she has perceived as a moral project for Osvald’s sake, she has misled both Osvald and the public, inflicting them with this non-knowledge. The purposelessness of this project is illustrated by the fact that Captain Alving’s orphanage burns to the ground before it is even inaugurated. An ironic counter-picture to this forged image is Jacob Engstrand’s planned brothel, that he has lured Pastor Manders into believing will be a rehabilitation facility for sailors. The brothel will carry the very ironic name “Chamberlain Alving’s Home”.

      3. Lieutenant Alving represents Mrs. Alving’s suppressed knowledge, or her fatal non-knowledge. When this suppressed knowledge, this self-produced non-knowledge surfaces, she realises her own contribution to the family’s misery. She finds herself guilty of having sucked out the very zest for life, the undefiled vigour and joy of life – not only in her husband, but also in her: “Everything became an obligation, - my duties and his. I am afraid that I made home an unbearable place for your poor father, Osvald.” Life-denying moralism has two possible consequences: 1 Gloomy, self-righteous heroism (Mrs. Alving) and: 2 Compensation (Mr. Alving’s indulgences).

      It is this guilt that haunts Mrs. Alving as an unexpected fate. With all her efforts she has struggled to escape the destiny that seemed to be prescribed for her son by being born into his depraved father’s house. Through all the deeds invested in the project of avoiding it, she has behind her own knowledge produced a realm of non-knowledge, wherein her own light-shunning power has been nurtured. Now this power has surfaced, seized and ensnared her: She has unconsciously created a home for her son, in which he cannot bear to live. And now he’s dying. As with Oedipus and Jocasta there is no comfort in the fact that she did not know any better:

from the aspect of knowing, the one character like the other is split up into a conscious and an unconscious part; and since each [character] itself calls forth this opposition and since its [the character’s] not-knowing, through the deed, is its own affair, each is responsible for the guilt which destroys it. (Hegel 1977: 285)

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