Page:Emma Goldman - Anarchism and Other Essays (2nd Rev. ed.) - 1911.djvu/264

Rh Wedekind to influence radical thought to the extent of forcing the introduction of sex physiology in many schools of Germany.

Scandinavia, like Germany, was advanced through the drama much more than through any other channel. Long before Ibsen appeared on the scene, Bjornson, the great essayist, thundered against the inequalities and injustice prevalent in those countries. But his was a voice in the wilderness, reaching but the few. Not so with Ibsen. His Brand, Doll's House, Pillars of Society, Ghosts, and An Enemy of the People have considerably undermined the old conceptions, and replaced them by a modern and real view of life. One has but to read BRAND to realize the modern conception, let us say, of religion,—religion, as an ideal to be achieved on earth; religion as a principle of human brotherhood, of solidarity, and kindness.

Ibsen, the supreme hater of all social shams, has torn the veil of hypocrisy from their faces. His greatest onslaught, however, is on the four cardinal points supporting the flimsy network of society. First, the lie upon which rests the life of today; second, the futility of sacrifice as preached by our moral codes; third, petty material consideration, which is the only god the majority worships; and fourth, the deadening influence of provincialism. These four recur as the Leitmotif in Ibsen's plays, but particularly in Pillars of Society, Doll's House, Ghosts, and An Enemy of the People.

Pillars of Society! What a tremendous indictment against the social structure that rests on rotten and decayed pillars,—pillars nicely gilded and apparently