Critical analysis of ‘an enemy of the people’ to study the relevance of Henrik Ibsen’s Ideas in Socio-political Context

Pages:1-4
Vijaya Khatri (Department of English, JJT University, Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan)

Social realism has much relevance in today’s world when we all are living a hasty, superficial life, lacking spirit and vivaciousness. We are all allured towards materialism and are fascinated by falsehood and ostentation. We dream of a fanciful conceptual life making a determined refusal to face reality. At this stage, we need to be disillusioned and take ourselves out of our self-created virtual world so that we can boldly face the realities of the actual world and can efficiently solve the day-to-day problems and contribute to social reformation. Realism is conceived as a laboratory in which the ills of society, flaws of the political system, familial problems, and the nature of relationships could be objectively presented for judgment by impartial observers. Social Realism deals with the actual facts and conditions of contemporary life, instead of making excursions into the realms of the fancy and romance. It debates the real modern problems, and induces discussions on the contentious social and political issues to bring about positive social change rather than to merely charm the reader.