An Enemy of the People

An Enemy of the People’s scope increases drastically in Act IV. In all other acts, the action is confined to a single room with a small group of characters, but in this act, Thomas is finally able to address the majority of the town’s population. When the meeting starts, some members of the crowd offer tentative support for Thomas, although they are clearly in the dark about the meeting’s true purpose. When a citizen asks what the meeting is for, another responds that “Dr. Stockmann is going to deliver an address attacking the mayor” (51). This exchange suggests that Peter has been spreading his own version of events in order to obscure what Thomas really wants to talk about: the pollution at the baths. Seeing that the crowd is tentatively supportive of Thomas and interested in what he has to say, Peter, Aslaksen, and, to a lesser extent, Hovstad assert their authority early in the meeting to ensure that Thomas will not be able to discuss his desired topic.

It remains unclear whether Peter, Aslaksen, and Hovstad believe Stockmann’s claims about the pollution. What is clear is that, in The Tension Between Public Health and Economic Growth, they have chosen economic growth. What matters to them is that the Baths continue to operate and to generate profit, regardless of the public health consequences. By this point, a central irony in the Baths discussion has become clear. Although the money that will come from the Baths is consistently important throughout the play, in earlier acts the major players tend to highlight the health benefits of the facility and the general benefit to the town. By Act IV, it becomes clear that, for everyone except Thomas, all the proud talk about the health benefits of the Baths was merely a pretext for the profit motive. To Peter, Aslaksen, and their supporters, immediate income is the first priority regardless of any damage that the Baths may cause in the future.

Ibsen’s choice of a medicinal bath as the source of conflict in the play is an intentional one, enabling him to blatantly lay out how greed has caused the town’s population (or at least, its leaders) to become completely hypocritical. Originally, they hoped to use the promise of healthy, fresh water to attract visitors to a bathing facility complete with an in-house doctor. Such facilities were popular during the Victorian era and were thought to help treat a huge number of illnesses. They could be a boon to rural and small-town economies, and—like wellness trends of the present day—they sometimes relied on gaps in medical knowledge to sell dubious benefits. After Thomas’s discovery reveals the curative Baths as a dangerous threat, many of the town’s most powerful people maintain their support of the project. This shines a light directly on the sole true motivation for the Baths: money.

Although money is revealed to be the true motivation behind most characters’ actions by this point, no one is willing to openly admit it, especially in front of a large crowd of townspeople. Instead, Peter, Aslaksen, and their supporters begin to attack Thomas’s sanity and question his motivations. The ease with which they are able to manipulate public sentiment against Thomas shows the problems with Majority Rule in Democratic Society. They begin by drawing attention to Katherine, who sits uncomfortably on the stage, pleading with Thomas that their family’s future is in peril if he becomes a pariah. By doing this, they are able to paint Thomas as someone who cares about being right more than he cares for his family. Next, they call the veracity of his pollution claims into question, declaring that he cannot talk about the Baths since any “false” claims of danger will drive away paying customers. Throughout the play Ibsen has shown Thomas to be a passionate man, and his detractors know that banning his planned topic will stir his anger, especially if they can draw the crowd to their side. Their plan works perfectly, and Thomas launches into a speech attacking the town’s entire population, damaging his reputation further.