The symbols of light and darkness in Hendrik Ibsen's Ghost

Studying literature would enable thye readers to develop a perspective on the events that occur around them and in the world at large, and thereby it enables the readers to gain understanding and control. It is one of the shaping influences of life. Literature helkps to make the readers human. Besides that, literature also trains the readers’ emotion through interest, concern, tension, excitement, hope, fear, regret, laughter, and sympathy. The readers’ vocabulary and grammar will be improved. On the basis of above facts, the writer is interested in studying literary work, especially drama. Drama, as one of the major genres focuses on a single character or a small number of characters, and it presents fictional events as if they were happening in the present, witnessed by people as an audience. Studying symbolism in a literary work is always useful and important because it enables the readers to see the literal meaning. In this research, the writer studies the symbolism in one of Henrik Ibsen’s plays entitled Ghost. Here, she deals with the symbolism, which becomes her focus in analyzing this study. The statements of the problems are: (1) What is symbolized by light? And (2) What is symbolized by darkness?. The writer analyzed the data by identifying and writing the symbol of Ghost for some characters in the play. She also quoted the dialogues that support the sub-topics. They were Ghosts as the symbol of Pastor Manders’ principles, Ghost as Mrs. Alving deceits, Ghost as the actual and symbolic disease of heredity, the symbols of light and the symbols of darkness. Finally from the analysis, the writer can make a conclusion to answer the problem. The writer found that as a child, student could not blame his/ her parent misbehavior. The writer also suggests the students to receive their parents as the way there are. One thing that is sure, we could not choose our parents. Moreover we could not deny them as our parents, whoever they are