Journal #2: How does Ibsen use the motif of decay, disease, illness,
etc and to what effect?
Ibsen uses the motif of illness to show that Greggers himself affects people with the truth and that the truth is sometimes better left unsaid and covered up. Greggers starts out with this "illness" from the very beginning. He gets it from his mother. I say this because in the beginning it is known that his mother did suspect that something was going on with Gina and her husband and she never got over it. I think she let Greggers know it as well because Werle tells him, "Your conscience has been sickly from childhood. It's an inheritance from your mother..." I think she started the disease and as time passes he gets worse and is described as having "a case of moralistic fever". When Greggers tells Hjalmar the truth, he infects him as well.
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