The key idea that unlocks the haunting theme of Henrik Ibsen’s undying drama, Ghosts, is succinctly stated by Mrs. Alving when she exclaims:

Ghosts! When I heard Regina and Oswald in there, I seemed to see ghosts before me. I almost think we’re all of us ghosts, Pastor Manders. It’s not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that "walks" in us. It’s all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us just the same, and we can’t get rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper I seem to see ghosts gliding between the lines. There must be ghosts all the country over, as thick as the sands of the sea. And then we are, one and all so pitifully afraid of the light.

It is with ghosts as with men; some are good and some are, ba…