An Enemy of the People (Miller)
by Arthur Miller, Henrik Ibsen

A small Norwegian town has just begun to win fame and wealth through its medicinal spring waters.

Dr. Stockmann, resident physician in charge, discovers that the waters are anything but healing.

The waters are poisoned.

On receiving proof of this, he immediately reports to his associates, but is shocked to find that instead of being thanked, he is considered to be spreading dangerous rhetoric and lies in an effort to ruin the town.

As the people who run the local paper do their utmost to urge secrecy and compromise, the determined doctor realizes that the honesty and idealism he has counted upon to make the truth prevail do not exist in the face of selfish “practical” interests.

The press will not report his findings; the officials refuse to give him a hearing; he loses his position and the townspeople boycott him; and every weapon of blackmail, slander and eviction are brought against his family.

In the end, the townspeople, gathered around the doctor’s home, throw stones through the windows, but Stockmann defends the truth till the very last moment of the play.