An Enemy of the People

An Enemy of the People
Original manuscript cover page, 1882
Original title	En folkefiende
Written by	Henrik Ibsen
Date premiered	1883
Original language	Norwegian

An Enemy of the People (original Norwegian title: En folkefiende), an 1882 play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, followed his previous play, Ghosts, which criticized the hypocrisy of his society's moral code. That response included accusations of both Ghosts and its author being "scandalous," "degenerate," and "immoral."^[1] In An Enemy of the People, a man dares to expose an unpalatable truth publicly and is punished for it.

However, Ibsen took a somewhat skeptical view of his protagonist, suggesting that he may have gone too far in his zeal to tell the truth. Ibsen wrote to his publisher: "I am still uncertain as to whether I should call [An Enemy of the People] a comedy or a straight drama. It may [have] many traits of comedy, but it also is based on a serious idea."