Enemy of the People

Enemy of the People is a play that I found intriguing. For myself, personally, there was an overwhelming sense of an inability to succeed. Dr. Thomas Stockmann is trying to unveil a truth about the town's water supply for a large bathing area. The water has been tainted by a bacteria that will hurt the people of the town. Normally this would come under shock and awe and people should pick up and come together to fix the issue. However, this is not the case for Dr. Stockmann.

The story evolves as Stockmann fights his brother, the mayor, on the issue of publishing the find. The mayor is trying hard to undermine what the doctor is trying to accomplish. Why? The reconstruction of the water supply would take years and the town would lose valuable income, effectively crippling it financially. The mayor goes to the papers who have agreed to publish an article written by the doctor and he coerces them into no printing it. Meanwhile the doctor is fighting hard to bring the truth of the matter to the people.

Over and over again it seems that the doctor is outnumbered. Often times this is the case. The truth can be outnumbered by the lies, by those things that don't want the truth to be known because the truth can cause problems. Those people don't want to take the small problems now even though it will require that they deal with the larger ones later when eveyone is poisoned from tainted water. Near the end the Doctor expresses the issue to the people. However it is not taken well and the people become angry at him. He is labeled an Enemy of the People.

People don't know what is good for them. A quote I remember from Men in Black is this, "The person is smart, people are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." Was Christ not considered an enemy by his people? They hung him like a criminal. The mob spat on him and cursed him. Sometimes being the one that speaks truth and the one that must stand out for good is the one that is labeled as an enemy and is outcast.