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An Enemy of the People is a play written by Henrik Ibsen (1882).
A small coastal town is expecting a lot of tourism and prosperity because of its baths, said to be of great medicinal value. But Dr. Stockmann, an idealist, discovers that waste products from the town's tannery are contaminating the baths. He expects to be a hero -- surely his townspeople and neighbors won't want to encourage tourists who will then be poisoned!
He finds that it is difficult to get the authorities to listen to his concerns. The mayor warns him that he should learn to "acquiesce in subordinating himself to the community." He doesn't accept this warning, and has a friend of his lease him a hall, and he holds his own town meeting.
The townspeople, eager for the tourism and prosperity, don't want to believe him -- they turn against him en masse at the meeting, even those he had counted on as friends and allies. He is taunted and denounced as a lunatic, as well as an "Enemy of the People." In a scathing rebuke of both the Victorian notion of community and the principles of democracy, Dr. Stockman proclaims that in matters of right and wrong, the individual is right more often than the multitude, who are easily led by self-advancing demagogues.
In the end, with both family and friends pitted against him, Stockman is forced to flee his hometown, which the audience clearly understands will ultimately be destroyed as the tourists begin to sicken.
Arthur Miller rewrote it.
External links
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