y, 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 intact, yet merely hiding their true condition.
And what are these pillars?

Consul Bernick, at the very height of his social and financial
career, the benefactor of his town and the strongest pillar of the
community, has reached the summit through the channel of lies,
deception, and fraud. He has robbed his bosom friend, Johann, of his
good name, and has betrayed Lona Hessel, the woman he loved, to marry
her step-sister for the sake of her money. He has enriched himself
by shady transactions, under cover of "the community's good," and
finally even goes to the extent of endangering human life by
preparing the INDIAN GIRL, a rotten and dangerous vessel, to go to
sea.

But the return of Lona brings him the realization of the emptiness
and meanness of his narrow life. He seeks to placate the waking
conscience by the hope that he has cleared the ground for the better
life of his son, of the new generation. But even this last hope soon
falls to the ground, as he realizes that truth cannot be built on a
lie. At the very moment when the whole town is prepared to celebrate
the great benefactor of the community with banquet praise, he
himself, now grown to full spiritual manhood, confesses to the
assembled townspeople:

"I have no right to this homage-- ... My fellow-citizens must know
me to the core. Then let everyone examine himself, and let us
realize the prediction that from this event we begin a new time. The
old, with its tinsel, its hypocrisy, its hollowness, its lying
propriety, and its pitiful cowardice, shall lie behind us like a
museum, open for instruction."

With A DOLL'S HOUSE Ibsen has paved the way for woman's emancipation.
Nora awakens