# Pastor Manders — Ghosts character guide

> Pastor Manders in Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen.

**Role:** major

**Also known as:** Manders, Mr. Manders, the Reverend Mr. Manders

**First appearance:** 0001-dramatis-personae

## Snapshot

The Alving family's trusted clergyman, a man of tidy doctrine and tidier reputation, whose advice has shaped this household in ways he has never had to answer for.

## Who they are

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.

## Relationships

### [Mrs. Alving](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ghosts_se/characters/mrs_alving)

_psychological_

Mrs. Alving is trapped in a web of guilt and manipulation by Pastor Manders, who enforces oppressive social and religious norms over her life.

### [Regina Engstrand](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ghosts_se/characters/regina_engstrand)

_professional_

Pastor Manders acts as a moral overseer and would-be employer to Regina, attempting to place her in a respectable household.

### [Johanna](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ghosts_se/characters/johanna)

_professional_

Johanna was a maid in the Alving household who had a brief affair with Pastor Manders, leading to her dismissal and later marriage to Jacob Engstrand.

### [Jacob Engstrand](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ghosts_se/characters/jacob_engstrand)

_psychological_

Jacob Engstrand manipulates Pastor Manders through feigned piety and guilt, eventually tricking him into funding a 'Sailors' Home' that is actually a brothel.

### [Captain Alving](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ghosts_se/characters/captain_alving)

_social_

Captain Alving and Pastor Manders were acquaintances in the same social circle, but Manders disapproved of Alving's immoral lifestyle.

### [Oswald Alving](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ghosts_se/characters/oswald_alving)

_social_

Oswald and Pastor Manders have a distant, formal relationship, with Manders disapproving of Oswald's bohemian Parisian lifestyle.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ghosts_se/characters/pastor_manders
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ghosts_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ghosts_se/characters