An Enemy Of The People – Arthur Miller (1)

But I’ve been wondering if you realize that it ties in with a lot of other things. DR. STOCKMANN: How do you mean? Sit down. They sit at the right. What are you driving at? HOVSTAD: You said last night that the pollution comes from impurities in the ground— It comes from the poisonous dump up in Windmill Valley. Doctor, I think it comes from an entirely different dump. DR. STOCKMANN: What do you mean?

HOVSTAD, with growing zeal: The same dump that is poison- ing and polluting our whole social life in this town. DR. STOCKMANN: For God’s sake, Hovstad, what are you babbling about? HOVSTAD: Everything that matters in this town has fallen into the hands of a few bureaucrats. Well, they’re not all bureaucrats— HOVSTAD: They’re all rich, all with old reputable names, and they’ve got everything in the palm of their hands.

DR. STOCKMANN: Yes, but they happen to have ability and knowledge. HOVSTAD: Did they show ability and knowledge when they built the water system where they did? DR. STOCKMANN: No, of course not, but that happened to be a blunder, and we’ll clear it up now. HOVSTAD: You really imagine it’s going to be as easy as all that? DR. STOCKMANN: Easy or not easy, it’s got to be done. HOVSTAD: Doctor, I’ve made up my mind to give this whole scandal very special treatment. Now wait. You can’t call it a scandal yet.

HOVSTAD: Doctor, when J took over the People’s Messenger I swore I’d blow that smug cabal of old, stubborn, self-satisfied fogies to bits. This is the story that can do it. DR. STOCKMANN: But I still think we owe them a deep debt of gratitude for building the springs.

HOVSTAD: The Mayor being your brother, I wouldn’t ordi- narily want to touch it, but I know you’d never let that kind of thing obstruct the truth. DR. STOCKMANN: Of course not, but… HOVSTAD: I want you to understand me. I don’t have to tell you I come from a simple family. I know in my bones what the underdog needs—he’s got to have a say in the govern- ment of society.

That’s what brings out ability, intelligence, and self-respect in people. DR. STOCKMANN: | understand that, but . HOVSTAD: I think a newspaperman whe turns down any chance to give the underdog a lift is faking on a responsibility that I don’t want.

HENRIK IBSEN was born in 1828 in Skien, Telemark, Norway. When he was eight years old his father’s business became bank- rupt, and the rest of his youth was spent in poverty. At fifteen he was apprenticed to an apothecary in Grimstad and began to pre- pare for medical school. He was thus required to learn Latin, an undertaking that led to his interest in the character of the Roman traitor Catiline. His first play, Catiline, published in 1850, was a failure; but in the same year he moved to Christi- ania, where a second play was performed with success.

In 1851 he became stage manager of a theater in Bergen, with a contract obliging him to write a new play every year. In 1857 he was ap- pointed director of the Norwegian Theatre in Christiania, and in 1863 he won a scholarship for travel to Italy, where he wrote Brand and Peer Gynt. His standing in the theater was now estab- lished, and in the years that followed he wrote first a group of social-problem plays (including A Doll’s House and An Enemy of the People), then psychological dramas (among them, The Wild Duck and Rosmersholm), and finally the transcendent sym- bolist pieces (The Master Builder, Little Eyolf, John Gabriel Borkman, and When We Dead Awaken).

He died in Christiania in 1906. ARTHUR MILLER (1915-2005) was born in New York City and studied at the University of Michigan. His plays include All My Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953), A View from the Bridge and A Memory of Two Mondays (1955), After the Fall (1964), Incident at Vichy (1965), The Price (1968), The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972), and The American Clock (1980).

He also wrote two novels, Focus (1945) and The Misfits (1957), which was filmed in 1960, and the text for three books of photographs by Inge Morath: In Russia (1969), In the Country (1977), and Chinese Encounters (1979). He twice won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, and in 1949 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: b78bc5b15c594b95
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 5,457,822 bytes (5.205 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9780143105589
• Pages: 133
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 169.59 minutes
• Total Words: 33,919
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