Power and Public Opinion Theme Analysis

In An Enemy of the People, Dr. Stockmann, a small-town doctor in Norway, faces the consequences of negative public opinion after discovering water contamination in the town’s newly-constructed public baths. The town prides itself on its democratic principles, but in fact the excessive power of public opinion means that Dr. Stockmann is ostracized and abused simply for making an unpleasant discovery. At the same time, it becomes increasingly clear that the town’s wealthy leaders, like Dr. Stockmann’s brother Peter and Mr. Aslaksen, are exploiting majoritarian rule to keep the townspeople happy while furthering their own interests, frequently using the democratic processes to maintain their own power. Although the town is purportedly a just democracy, it’s actually governed by the tyrannical impulses of both the majority and the elite. With this, Ibsen suggests that people should remain skeptical of government, even if the system claims to be entirely democratic and fair.

For much of the play, it seems that public opinion has a stranglehold on the town. Dr. Stockmann’s ideas are evaluated not on their merit, but on their popularity with the public. Acknowledging water contamination would require the town to close the health spa and forfeit the income it would bring in, so the townspeople simply decide that he is lying. They vote to disregard his findings and to declare the doctor “an enemy of the people.” Not only have the townspeople opted to continue poisoning visitors to the health spa, but Dr. Stockmann loses his standing in the town as well—not because he did something wrong, but because he failed to appeal to the public’s self-interest.

As public outrage with Dr. Stockmann builds, friends like the newspapermen Hovstad and Billing break away from him and publicly disparage his character. Public opinion also upends professional lives: after voicing his ideas, Dr. Stockmann loses all his patients and his daughter Petra is fired from her job as a schoolteacher, while Captain Horster (who publicly supported the family) loses his place on an upcoming sea voyage. Expressed through formal mechanisms like voting and informal social compulsion, public opinion prevents the resolution of a serious social issue and unjustly robs the Stockmann family of its position within society. It is clear that the public majority has a dangerously powerful influence on the town’s politics and daily life.

This state of affairs is complicated by the town’s wealthy leaders, who exploit majoritarian politics to consolidate power and resources in their own hands. Peter Stockmann, the town’s wily mayor, insists that it’s up to the majority to decide what to do about Dr. Stockmann’s findings. But he also stipulates that the townspeople will be taxed to pay for any repairs to the baths, knowing that this will turn public opinion against Dr. Stockmann. In doing so, he pretends to respect majority rule while also avoiding any personal consequences for the scandal. Peter knows that the townspeople are unable to pressure the bath’s wealthy owners to pay for the repairs, showing that the majority can’t actually use their democratic powers to hold the wealthy to account.

Peter and Mr. Aslaksen use ostensibly democratic processes to increase their own power. When Dr. Stockmann calls a public meeting, they behave with extreme deference to the rowdy townspeople, who then elect them as “chairmen” of the meeting; in this position, they can “legally” forbid Dr. Stockmann from speaking. While it seems they are fulfilling the will of the people, in fact the people are enabling the mayor and other leaders to further their own interests. At the end of the play, the spa’s owners have evaded any responsibility for the safety of the baths, while townspeople and visitors will continue to be poisoned by bacteria-infested water. In this sense, majority rule fails to give the citizens any clout against the elites who control the town.

While Ibsen’s critique of the town leaders’ conservative and self-interested governance is fairly typical, he goes on to question the idea of majority rule on which modern democracies are based. His depiction of a town thrown into chaos by majoritarian politics gone too far suggests disbelief in the idea, emerging in his time and widespread now, that democracy is the most just and effective form of government—at least, not without protections against the tyranny of the majority.