# Ghosts — Character guide

> Key figures in Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen.

- [Mrs. Alving](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ghosts_se/characters/mrs_alving.md): 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 start
- [Oswald Alving](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ghosts_se/characters/oswald_alving.md): 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
- [Pastor Manders](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ghosts_se/characters/pastor_manders.md): 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
- [Regina Engstrand](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ghosts_se/characters/regina_engstrand.md): 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 
- [Jacob Engstrand](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ghosts_se/characters/jacob_engstrand.md): 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' Hom
- [Captain Alving](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ghosts_se/characters/captain_alving.md): 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 lau
- [Johanna](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ghosts_se/characters/johanna.md): Deceased maid who had an affair with Captain Alving and bore Regina.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ghosts_se/characters