An Enemy of the People

About

Ibsen wrote An Enemy of the People in 1882 partly in response to the hostile reception of Ghosts — he was furious, and the fury shows. Dr. Thomas Stockmann discovers that the town's tourist spa, its economic lifeblood, is contaminated by his brother the mayor's tannery. The townspeople's refusal to believe him, the press's capitulation, and the liberal establishment's cowardice progressively radicalize Stockmann until he is prepared to stand entirely alone. Arthur Miller adapted the play in 1950 in explicit parallel with McCarthyism, and it has been produced in every era of political persecution since. The speech Stockmann delivers to his neighbors — 'the minority is always right' — is one of drama's great declarations of individualist principle.