Ans:- The female characters in Ibsen’s Ghosts depart from existing gender norms to a considerable extent. The most important character in this regard would be the protagonist, Helen Alving. At an early stage in her marriage, Helen makes the decision to leave her unfaithful husband, Captain Alving. This doesn’t sound particularly radical in this day and age, but in nineteenth-century Norway, it was considered nothing short of scandalous.
At that time and in that place, women were expected to be submissive to their menfolk and do as they were told. The prevailing double standard held that male infidelity was to be tolerated so long as it was kept firmly under wraps and that wives had no choice but to put up with it.
But Helen’s not prepared to accept this, at least not up to a certain point. For although Helen does indeed leave her cheating husband, she goes back to him on the advice of Pastor Manders, who’s every bit as committed to the norms and values of patriarchal society as Captain Alving.
Yet when she returns home, Helen is considerably more powerful than she was when she left. As she tells Pastor Manders later on, she now has control over the house, as she has a weapon that can be used against her husband—that is, his illegitimate daughter. Once firmly established as the head of the house, Helen is able to effect a complete reversal of traditional gender roles. Before long, she becomes a hands-on businesswoman and farmer, ordering equipment, improving the estate, and developing the land to a considerable extent.
In taking on such an extensive range of traditional male roles, Helen is meeting society’s existing gender norms halfway. Although she’s effected, as we’ve seen, quite a remarkable role reversal in her marriage, she’s doing this to protect her reputation and that of her son. She knows that if she leaves her husband permanently, then it will be she and her son, not Captain Alving, who will end up being destroyed by the ensuing scandal.
So, she has no choice but to return home. But once she does, Helen is determined to make sure that the whole dynamic of her marriage is changed for good; from now on, she will be the one wearing the pants. From the outside, the Alvings’ marriage will seem perfectly conventional, but on the inside, things will be very different indeed.