An Enemy of the People, by Henrik Ibsen

Perhaps this play is a little too obvious. But it is worth asking: how not to be obvious when dealing with characters such as the people, the politicians, and the press? Figures as predictable as regrettable… The plot holds no surprises: an honest man, a free thinker, is crushed by the abominable tyranny of the masses, that “satanic compact majority”, supported by the opportunistic collusion between the abject powerful and the vassals of public opinion—those fearful of rejection. Dr. Stockmann is, like all higher spirits since the repugnant ideas of the philosopher of Geneva took root in the West, the victim of opponents so numerous that it is convenient to classify him as absolutely alone. There are no neutrals against Dr. Stockmann: there are cowards who connive by their silence and aggressive cowards who stone him, camouflaging themselves “under the cloak of the crowd”. Too obvious… The message of the work, however, is irrefutable: anyone who opposes the prevailing tyranny will be hunted to death! Perhaps the title of the work would sound better, instead of “An enemy of the people”, as just “The enemy”. I change my mind: perhaps the play’s brilliance is precisely its obviousness: for it shows what, as a rule, happens to real-life Stockmanns—with the exception, of course, of the play’s fifth act, which is overly optimistic for someone reading it more than a century after its publication…