While we were talking about Ibsen’s Ghosts today, I mentioned that the play resonated with the 1980s AIDS crisis. I poked around the New York Times archives after class and found a 1982 review that mentions how ubiquitous the play had recently become but doesn’t yet mention AIDS (though it describes Mrs. Alving’s truth-telling as […]
Read More →Archive for October, 2021
Ghosts of the Past
Ibsen’s Ghosts deals heavily with the idea of personal agency and the impact of inherited traits. Last week, I finished watching the new Netflix documentary on the Burari deaths, a case that presents several of the same themes. (SPOILERS AHEAD) Back in 2018, 10 members from 3 generations of the Bhatia family were found hanging […]
Read More →The Code Breaker
Since I wasn’t in class on Monday, I am not sure whether you have discussed that or not, but Ghosts immediately reminded me about the debates over gene editing. One of the most prominent examples is the CRISPR technology, which is considered to be a panacea in some circles. However, the ethics of use are […]
Read More →Passive and Active Ghosts
Henrik Iben’s play, Ghosts, alludes to the inevitable inheritance of family mistakes, social expectations, amongst other things that live as sort of passive ghosts within each of us. Building on our discussion from class, I immediately thought back to a show I had watched called Big Little Lies (spoiler alert below), in which a single mother’s […]
Read More →The Warrior (and the Ghost) in our Genes
In our previous discussion on Ibsen’s Ghosts, we interpreted what Mrs. Alving means by her use of ghosts in the following passage: “Ghosts. When I heard Regine and Oswald in there, it was just like seeing ghosts. But then I’m inclined to think that we are all ghosts, Pastor Manders, every one of us. It’s […]
Read More →Inheritance & Morality in Ghosts
The play Ghosts by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, written in 1881 and first staged in 1882, sparked a lot of scrutiny from critics and the public. As it openly talked about venereal diseases, incest, religion and more. Thus, it brought in a new perspective on tragedy as a genre, since instead of discussing consequences of […]
Read More →Defiant Drunks Fearlessly Feasting
When discussing A Feast During the Plague in class, we briefly went over some reasons why the group might be throwing a feast in the middle of the street during a plague. We talked about how it was a way for them to mourn their loved ones that they lost and to forget about their sorrows through hedonistic indulgence. […]
Read More →“Hopelessly Passé” Songs
How can music help us process grief during an epidemic? In A Feast During the Plague, Pushkin’s characters turn to song as a way of enhancing their celebrations. After they drink to the death of one of their friends, Walsingham requests that Mary sing “…something sad and haunting, / To make us turn again to […]
Read More →Cholera morbus
UPD: As I am writing this, the first malaria vaccine was approved by WHO. Sincere congratulations! I want to add the context in which the play was written – it was the First Cholera Pandemic, and cholera at that time was almost unknown to Europeans. The disease is said to originate in the Bengal region, […]
Read More →Escapism In Times of A Plague
“Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see …” Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen And see there is a deadly plague in town. Feasts, songs, staycations at Italian villas, stories, Netflix, and even pornography*. These are all […]
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