Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen - is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was written in 1881 and first staged in 1882 in Chicago, Illinois, in a production by a Danish company on tour. Like many of Ibsen's plays, Ghosts is a scathing commentary on 19th-century morality.Because of its subject matter, which includes religion, venereal disease, incest, and euthanasia, it immediately generated strong controversy and negative criticism. Since then the play has fared better, and is considered a 'great play' that historically holds a position of 'immense importance'. Theater critic Maurice Valency wrote in 1963, "From the standpoint of modern tragedy Ghosts strikes off in a new direction Regular tragedy dealt mainly with the unhappy consequences of breaking the moral code. Ghosts, on the contrary, deals with the consequences of not breaking it."Helen Alving is about to dedicate an orphanage she has built in memory of her late husband. Despite his affairs, Mrs. Alving stayed with him to protect her son Oswald from the taint of scandal and for fear of being shunned by the community.In the course of the play, she discovers that Oswald (whom she had sent away to avoid his being corrupted by his father) is suffering from syphilis that she believes he inherited from his father.[a] She also discovers that Oswald has fallen in love with her maid Regina Engstrand, who is revealed to be the illegitimate daughter of Captain Alving and is therefore Oswald's half-sister.A sub-plot involves a carpenter, Jacob Engstrand, who married Regina's mother when she was already pregnant. He regards Regina as his own daughter. He is unaware, or pretends to be, that Captain Alving was Regina's father. Having recently completed his work building Mrs. Alving's orphanage, Engstrand announces his ambition to open a hostel for seafarers.