a life of lies and subterfuges. The moral rottenness of Oswald Alving, his degenerate relationship with Regina, the serving maid, who proves to be in the end his half-sister, are the direct product of the moral unsavoriness of Captain Alving, whose past life has been covered through the suffrance of his wife, acting under the advice of the conventional minister, Pastor Manders. If Dr. Rank, in A Doll's House, was suffering from the sins of his fathers, Oswald Alving is the product of the moral degeneracy of his father and the moral weakness of his mother. Thus, Ibsen's Ghosts becomes an answer to the question whether Nora had a right to leave her children when she did.