Plot
The Borkman family fortunes have been brought low by the imprisonment of John Gabriel who used his position as a bank manager to illegally speculate with his investors' money. The action of the play takes place eight years after Borkman's release when John Gabriel Borkman, Mrs. Borkman, and her twin sister Ella Rentheim battle over the future of young Erhart Borkman. Though John Gabriel Borkman continues the line of naturalism and social commentary that marks Ibsen's middle period, the final act suggests a new phase for the playwright, a phase brought to fruition in his final more symbolic work When We Dead Awaken.
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“Ends in themselves, my letters plot no change;
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—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
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The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
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—John Dryden (1631–1700)
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—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)