Spectres of Duty Silence in Ibsen’s Ghosts Dimitris Vardoulakis, University of Western Sydney The article considers Ibsen’s Ghosts through the figure of duty. The two main characters embody different notions of duty. Pastor Manders’s position is a religious one and Mrs Alving’s a political one, but neither can stand on its own. They both infringe upon, and contaminate, each other. This process of self-contamination, which silence sets in motion, leads to an alternative understanding of duty as well as of the political. Keywords: Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts, duty, political theology, auto-immunity, silence. But the auto-immunitary haunts the community and its system of immunitary survival like the hyperbole of its own possibility. Nothing in common, nothing immune, safe and sound, heilig and holy, nothing unscathed in the most autonomous living present without a risk of auto-immunity. Jacques Derrida, ‘Faith and knowledge’, chap. 37 I. Duties The action of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts (1881) spans less than twenty-four hours. 1 Mrs Alving is preparing to inaugurate an orphanage in memory of her dead husband. Her son, Oswald, has returned from abroad for the occasion. This is only the second time Oswald is back in Norway since he was sent away as a young boy. The opening as well as the running of the orphanage is entrusted to Pastor Manders, an old friend who also arrives for the occasion. Much of the first act is taken up by a conversation between Mrs Alving and Pastor Manders about marital duty and maternal responsibilities. She recounts how she remained with Captain Alving, a debauched husband she did not love, only in order to protect Oswald. This ‘family drama’ – the play’s subtitle – is set in relief against the mercurial relation between the housemaid, Regina, and Engstrand, who is presented initially as her father, only to be proved otherwise. Orbis Litterarum 64:1 50–74, 2009 Printed in Singapore. All rights reserved