Characters
What is Petra Stockmann’s job?
A teacher
What is the source of the town’s prosperity and the location Dr. Stockmann finds is contaminated?
What are the Municipal Baths (or Springs)?
Who is man who provides the only location for Dr. Stockmann’s public meeting after he is denied the use of other halls.
Who is Captain Horster?
The central conflict in the play is between Public Health and this primary concern of the town leaders and businessmen.
What is economic prosperity (or financial interest)?
The country Dr. Stockmann considers fleeing to with his family before deciding to stay and fight.
What is America?
Who gets Dr. Stockmann a job as medical officer of the baths?
His Brother, the mayor, Peter Stockman
What is the main evidence Dr. Stockmann receives that confirms his suspicions about the water's safety?
What is a laboratory report (or University analysis)?
The townspeople use this phrase for Dr. Stockmann after he refuses to back down.
What is "An Enemy of the People"?
Dr. Stockmann’s journey highlights the difficult cost of maintaining this personal quality in the face of widespread opposition.
What is individual integrity (or conscience/moral conviction)?
When Billings and Hovstad discuss Dr. Stockmann’s report, who are they careful not to let hear them talking?
Who is Aslaken?
Who is the editor the town's newspaper "The People's Herald"
Hovstad
What is the Mayor’s primary objection to making the contamination public, arguing it will cause this economic disaster?
What is financial ruin (or bankruptcy, high taxes, closing the Baths for two years)?
During the public meeting, Dr. Stockmann shifts his attack from the water pipes to what entity, which he calls "the most dangerous enemies of truth and freedom"?
What is the compact majority?
The political concept Ibsen critiques by showing how a non-thinking mass can be easily manipulated by those in power.
What is majority rule (or democracy)?
Why does Billings claim he is running for town council secretary?
What is "to annoy the establishment"?
This character, who is the newspaper’s printer and head of the Homeowners’ Association, initially supports the doctor but is easily swayed by talk of cost.
Aslaksen
At the opening of the play, which late dinner guest does Mrs. Stockmann welcome to her table?
Who is Billings?
The doctor is fired from the Baths, and Petra is fired from her school. What happens to Captain Horster as a result of his support for the doctor?
What is he is fired from his ship (or loses his post)?
The town's newspaper highlights the theme of how easily this entity can be controlled or influenced by financial and political power.
What is the media (or the press)?
What does Morten Kiil threaten to do with the money he intends to leave to his granddaughter (Dr. Stockmann's daughter) if the doctor does not back down?
What is he will donate it to the town to fix the Baths.
Morten Kiil owns several ___ that are contributing to the town’s pollution problem.
Tanneries
How does Hovstad describe the relationship between the mayor and the People’s Herald?
What is rocky, aka unstable?
The final resolution of the play: Dr. Stockmann decides to stay in town and do this instead of fleeing to America.
What is to open a school (to teach the street urchins to be free-thinking men)?
This virtue, which Aslaksen promotes as being essential for the town, is dismissed by Dr. Stockmann as a hindrance to necessary action.
What is moderation?
Dr. Stockmann's final, defiant quote: "The strongest man in the world is he who stands most..."
What is "...alone"?