Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts recap

Widow Helen Alving plans an orphanage honoring her supposedly virtuous husband, while privately revealing to Pastor Manders that Captain Alving was persistently unfaithful and destructive. She sent their son Oswald abroad and maintained the public lie to protect him. Oswald returns ill and attracted to the maid Regina, whose true father is Captain Alving. Mrs Alving hopes truth and freedom can prevent the past from repeating, but the uninsured orphanage burns after Manders rejected insurance for fear of public criticism. Engstrand exploits the fire to draw Manders into financing a sailors' home. Mrs Alving finally tells Oswald and Regina that they are half-siblings; Regina leaves. Oswald then reveals that his inherited illness may reduce him to permanent helplessness and has obtained morphine for his mother to end his life if that happens. At dawn the attack comes. He loses awareness and asks for sunlight while Mrs Alving, holding the morphine, faces the promised choice. Her action is not shown.

On the day before an orphanage honoring the late Captain Alving is to open, carpenter Jacob Engstrand asks Regina, the Alvings' maid and supposedly his daughter, to join the sailors' establishment he plans to run. She distrusts him and prefers the possibility of a more cultured future. Pastor Manders arrives to settle the orphanage business. Concerned that insurance might suggest a lack of faith, he and Mrs Alving agree to leave the new building uninsured. Mrs Alving then challenges the moral advice Manders gave her years ago, when he sent her back to the husband she had fled. She explains that Captain Alving's respectable reputation was false: he drank, pursued other women, and fathered Regina with the former maid Johanna. Mrs Alving created order around him, sent Oswald abroad, and built the orphanage so none of the captain's wealth would pass to their son. Oswald, now an artist returned from Europe, is drawn to Regina. When Mrs Alving and Manders overhear the pair together, the resemblance to Captain Alving's affair with Johanna makes the supposedly buried past seem to repeat itself.

Mrs Alving wants to tell Oswald and Regina that they share a father, but Manders urges silence and continues to defend conventional duty. Engstrand gives Manders a carefully revised account of his marriage to Johanna, claiming that he accepted both her and another man's child to save her reputation. Manders accepts the story and praises his sacrifice. Oswald privately tells his mother that a doctor in Paris diagnosed a grave illness affecting his mind. The doctor attributed it to his father, although Oswald still believes Captain Alving was exemplary and therefore assumes his own life abroad must be to blame. He describes a first attack and the terror of becoming mentally helpless. He hopes Regina will care for him and asks his mother to approve their marriage. Mrs Alving resolves to disclose the family history, but before she can finish, the orphanage catches fire. The institution meant to dispose of Captain Alving's legacy burns on the eve of its dedication, with no insurance to replace it.

The orphanage is destroyed. Engstrand persuades Pastor Manders that the pastor's own mishandling of a candle may have started the fire, then offers to silence damaging rumors. In return, Manders agrees to back Engstrand's planned sailors' home. Mrs Alving does not resist the loss; the memorial and the money attached to her husband's false reputation are gone. She finally tells Oswald and Regina that Captain Alving was Regina's biological father. Regina abandons the idea of caring for Oswald once she knows he is her half-brother and, disillusioned by the family's secrets, leaves to make her own way. Oswald then tells his mother the full purpose of the morphine he carries. Knowing another attack may permanently destroy his awareness, he made her promise to administer a fatal dose rather than leave him in that condition. Morning comes, and Oswald suffers the feared collapse. He no longer recognizes his mother and can only ask for the sun. Mrs Alving, confronted with his tablets and her promise, wavers in anguish. The play closes without showing whether she gives him the morphine.

After the orphanage burns, Engstrand lets Pastor Manders believe that careless handling of a candle caused the fire and offers to protect his reputation. Manders agrees to support Engstrand's proposed sailors' home, leaving Mrs Alving free of the memorial project she had created with her husband's fortune. Mrs Alving then tells Oswald and Regina that Captain Alving was Regina's father. Regina, realizing that Oswald is her half-brother and that the household offers her no future, leaves. Oswald explains that his illness will eventually destroy his mind and reminds his mother that she promised to give him a fatal dose of morphine rather than let him remain helpless. At sunrise he suffers the feared final attack and becomes unresponsive, asking only for the sun. Mrs Alving stands over him with the morphine, torn between her promise and her horror. The play ends before she acts, leaving Oswald's life and her decision unresolved.