Ghosts is one of Henrik Ibsen’s best-known dramas. The reason
can also be found in the central theme of the play that caused a
scandal to its appearance: the luetic disease transmitted from father
to son. Ibsen does not explicitly declare the pathological
component but that critics have identified as hereditary
neurosyphilis. Some critics such as Derek R. Davis in the Sixties
and Russel E. Brown in the Nineties, proposed a pathology other
than the luetic one. Starting from the symptoms described by
Ibsen, they proposed that Osvald was suffering from
schizophrenia.
It is difficult to expect a literary character to behave exactly like a
person. It often represents for the author a symbol or an idea to be
developed. Therefore, it is not possible to subject a fictitious
character to a psycho-pathological analysis as if he were a real
person. However, it is possible to use him as a model and offer a
different interpretation of the literary work in which he moves.
That being said, the purpose of this work is to provide further
support to the schizophrenic theory of Osvald’s illness proposed
by Davis and Brown, using Jung’s archetypal theory. A
psychological interpretation can be provided here of what happens
on stage to the characters in Ghosts and highlight the
psychological symbol of the emerging Self.