The dramatic art to go beyond the sheer aim of art for art’s sake in the realm of literature has been concerned with the revelation of the condition of the time and the era of the playwright. In this article, Henrik Ibsen’s work An Enemy of the People has been closely analyzed from the perspective of theme and character development to show his tact in pinpointing the social dilemmas and problems of his time. It tries to show how the protagonist’s status as the realistic hero turns out to be a mere villain of the society and the time. At a macro level, Ibsen’s overwhelming characterization can be taken as a good indicator of the different demanding social domination of pre-modern age idiosyncrasies.
