Alexis De Tocqueville's An Enemy Of The People

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One of the main characters in An Enemy of the People is Doctor Thomas Stockmann. As the protagonist of the play, he is a man of principle who is willing to fight for what he believes in, making it unreasonable for him to take part in any dishonest or unethical act. One of his main traits is individualism because throughout the play he supports his own situation by arguing that the strongest man is the one who stands alone. When he finds out about the sanitary conditions of the baths and decides to improve them, he refuses to listen to the public’s demand. By dissociating himself from society, Dr. Stockmann is a great example of what an individualistic person would be like. When analyzing his political role through the ideas of different thinkers,…show more content…
Tocqueville underlines that civic virtue and the association of the people, is the most sustainable form of running a society. He also argues that individualism is the support for private amusement and the control of one’s personal environment by neglecting public involvement. As explained by Tocqueville, both left and right political systems and religious and nonreligious perspectives criticize this type of ideology. On another hand, Dr. Stockmann is seen to be an extreme idealist by strongly advocating individual freedom and the right of every individual to express himself freely. Idealism is a way of constructing reality where its main aim is to achieve perfect conditions. Hence, Dr. Stockmann is a great example of an idealistic person because he has a perfect outlook on the standards that he should meet. For example, when authorities made alterations to the plans he instituted for baths, Dr. Stockmann found these ideas to be below his standards. Conclusively, Dr. Stockmann’s political role is heavily focused on individualistic and idealistic

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