The Weather
In the opening stage directions, Ibsen establishes a big wall of glass through which a "gloomy fjord landscape" is visible. The rain never stops. It particularly oppresses Oswald, who complains tha...
The Table
The round table in the living room becomes a field of slaughter littered with evidence of all the battles in the play. It holds the books that symbolize Mrs. Alving's new ideas, the Orphanage paper...
Syphilis
When Oswald confesses to his mom that he has syphilis, he echoes the doctor's biblical diagnosis that "The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children" (2.270). While you can't get syphilis f...