Ghosts · Characters
Character guide
Key figures in Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen.
Skim names here — open a free preview to see character cards and Character Web beside the page as you read.
Mrs. Alving
major
Also known as Helen Alving, Mrs. Helen Alving, Alving
Mrs. Alving manages the estate, the orphanage endowment, and Pastor Manders' expectations with the same brisk competence — until Oswald walks through the door and the whole architecture of her respectable widowhood starts to buckle. She is a woman of real intelligence and appetite for life who chose duty over desire once and has been paying interest ever since. Her willingness to finally speak plainly about her marriage is what cracks the play open.
Oswald Alving
major
Also known as Oswald, Oswald Alving
Oswald arrives at his mother's house full of talk about the free life abroad and visibly hollowed out by something he keeps circling without naming. He is drawn to Regina with an ease that unsettles the household, and he flinches from every reminder of his father's memory. His need — for honesty, for companionship, for someone to stand between him and what is coming — drives the play's central reckoning.
Pastor Manders
major
Also known as Manders, Mr. Manders, the Reverend Mr. Manders
Pastor Manders arrives to open the orphanage, manage the endowment, and dispense moral counsel with the serene confidence of a man who has never doubted his own judgment. He is genuinely fond of Mrs. Alving and genuinely blind to what his guidance has cost her. His horror at anything resembling scandal — and his willingness to be flattered by the likes of Engstrand — makes him both a comic and a corrosive presence in the early arc.
Regina Engstrand
supporting
Also known as Regina, Miss Engstrand, Regina Pied de mouton
Regina keeps the household running and keeps her supposed father Engstrand at arm's length with equal efficiency, her French phrases and tossed head marking the distance she has put between herself and his world. She is ambitious, unsentimental, and quietly aware that her position in this house rests on something nobody has told her. Her refusal to be claimed — by Engstrand, by anyone — gives her a restless energy that pushes against the play's gathering revelations.
Jacob Engstrand
supporting
Also known as Engstrand, old Jacob Engstrand, poor Engstrand
Engstrand works the Alving estate and Pastor Manders with the same technique: a humble tone, a well-placed confession, and a reminder that he is, after all, a weak vessel. He wants Regina home with him and a Sailors' Home funded by the pastor, and he is not fussy about which lever he pulls to get either. His cheerful scheming and his knowledge of the Alving household's buried history make him a small but persistent engine of the play's unravelling.
Captain Alving
supporting
Also known as Mr. Alving, Chamberlain Alving, Chamberlain
Chamberlain Alving's portrait hangs over the household and his name is on the orphanage being built in his honour, but the man behind the memorial was dissolute long before his son was born. His widow has spent years laundering his memory; his son carries his body and his dread. He never appears on stage, yet every inheritance in the play — money, reputation, illness, and the maid Regina — traces back to him.
Johanna
minor
Also known as poor Johanna
Deceased maid who had an affair with Captain Alving and bore Regina.
