Dr. Thomas Stockmann discovers that his town’s celebrated baths — the economic lifeblood of the community — are contaminated. His attempts to publish the findings bring him into direct conflict with his brother the mayor, the local press, and the ‘compact majority’ who prefer comfortable lies to costly truth. Written in 1882, An Enemy of the People is Ibsen’s most direct engagement with the politics of truth-telling.
The play’s argument — that the individual who stands against the crowd is not necessarily wrong — feels as urgent today as it did then. This free EPUB is formatted for any e-reader.