The action takes place in the modern Ibsen of Norway in the estate of fr Alving on the west coast of the country. Thundering with wooden soles, the carpenter Engstrand enters the house. The servant Regina orders him not to make noise: upstairs is the son of Fr Alving Oswald, who has just arrived from Paris. The carpenter reports: the shelter that he built is ready for tomorrow's opening. At the same time, a monument will also be unveiled to chamberlain Alving, the late husband of the mistress, in whose honor the orphanage is named. Engstrand decently earned money on construction and is going to open his own institution in the city - a hotel for sailors. A woman would have come in handy. Does the daughter want to move to him? In response, Engstrand hears a snort: what kind of "daughter" is she? No, Regina is not going to leave the house where she is so welcomed and everything is so noble - she even learned a little French.

The joiner leaves. Pastor Manders appears in the living room; he discourages fr Alving from insurance of the built shelter - there is no need to openly doubt the strength of a charitable deed. By the way, why does Fru Alving not want Regina to move to her father in the city?

Oswald joins mother and pastor. He argues with Manders, exposing the moral character of Bohemia. Morality among artists and artists is neither better nor worse than in any other class. If the pastor had heard what high-ranking officials who were going there to “tangle” tell them in Paris! Fru Alving supports her son: the pastor in vain condemns her for reading free-thinking books - with his obviously unconvincing defense of church dogmas, he only arouses interest in them.

Oswald goes for a walk. The pastor is annoyed. Has life Alving taught nothing to you? Does she remember how just a year after the wedding she ran from her husband to Manders' house and refused to return? Then the pastor nevertheless managed to get her out of her “exalted state” and return her home, on the path of duty, to her home and her legal spouse. Didn't chamberlain Alving behave like a real man? He multiplied the marital status and worked very fruitfully for the benefit of society. And didn’t he make her, his wife, his worthy business assistant? And further. Oswald’s current vicious views are a direct result of his lack of home education - it was Fru Alfing who insisted that his son study away from home!

Fru Alving is hurt by the words of the pastor for the living. Good! They can talk seriously! The pastor knows that she did not love her deceased husband: chamberlain Alving just bought her from relatives. Beautiful and charming, he did not stop drinking and debauchery after the wedding. No wonder she escaped from him. She loved Manders then, and he seemed to like him. And Manders is mistaken if he thinks Alving has recovered - he died as crazy as he always was. Moreover, he brought a vice into his own house: she once found him on a balcony with a maid Johanna. Alving did the same. Does Manders know that their maid Regina is the illegitimate daughter of a chamberlain? For a round sum, the carpenter Engstrand agreed to cover up Johanna's sin, although he does not know the whole truth about it - Johanna specially invented a visiting American for him.

As for her son, she was forced to send him out of the house. When he was seven years old, he began to ask too many questions. After the story of the maid of the reins of the house, Fru Alving took control of her, and she, and not her husband, was engaged in the household! And she made tremendous efforts to hide external decency, hiding her husband’s behavior from society.

Having finished his confession (or confession to the pastor), Fru Alving escorts him to the door. And they both hear, passing by the dining room, an exclamation escaping from the arms of Oswald Regina. "Ghosts!" - breaks out at fr Alving. It seems to her that she is again transported into the past and sees a couple on the balcony - the chamberlain and the maid Johanna.

Alving calls ghosts fra not only “immigrants from the other world” (this concept is more correctly translated from Norwegian). Ghosts, in her words, are generally "all sorts of old obsolete concepts, beliefs, and the like." It is they, Fru Alving believes, who determined her fate, the character and views of Pastor Manders and, finally, the mysterious Oswald’s disease. According to the diagnosis of the Parisian doctor, Oswald’s disease is hereditary, but Oswald, who practically didn’t know his father and always idealized him, did not believe the doctor, he considers his frivolous adventures in Paris at the beginning of his studies to be the cause of the disease. In addition, he is tormented by constant inexplicable fear. She and her mother are sitting in the drawing room in the gathering twilight. A lamp is brought into the room, and Fru Alving, wanting to remove guilt from her son, is going to tell him the whole truth about his father and Regina, to whom he has frivolously promised a trip to Paris. Suddenly, the conversation is interrupted by the appearance in the living room of the pastor and Regina's cry. A fire is near the house! The newly built "Shelter named Chamberlain Alving" is on fire.

Time is approaching in the morning. All the same living room. The lamp is still on the table. The crafty woodworker Engstrand in a veiled form blackmails Manders, claiming that it was he, the pastor, who awkwardly removed the soot from the candle, and caused a fire. However, he should not worry, Engstrand will not tell anyone about this. But let the pastor help him in a good endeavor - equipping the city with a hotel for sailors. The pastor agrees.

The carpenter and the pastor leave, they are replaced in the living room by Fr Alving and Oswald, who has just returned from the fire, which was not repaid. The interrupted conversation resumes. Over the short night past, Oswald's mother had time to think about a lot. She was particularly struck by one of her son’s phrases: “In their land, people are taught to look at work as a curse, as a punishment for sins, and life, as a vale of sorrow, which the sooner the better to get rid of.” Now, telling her son the truth about his father, she does not judge her husband so strictly - his gifted and strong nature simply could not find use for themselves in the wilderness and was wasted on sensual pleasures. Oswald understands which ones. Let him know that Regina, present at their conversation, is his sister. Hearing this, Regina hurriedly says goodbye and leaves them. She was about to leave when she found out that Oswald was sick. Only now, Oswald tells his mother why he had previously asked her if she was ready to do anything for him. And why did he, among other things, need Regina so much. He did not fully tell his mother about the disease - he is doomed to madness, a second seizure will turn him into a meaningless animal. Regina would easily give him a drink of morphine cooked in a bottle in order to get rid of the patient. Now he passes the bottle to his mother.

Mother comforts Oswald. His seizure has already passed, he is at home, he will recover. It is nice here. Yesterday it rained all day yesterday, but today he will see his homeland in all its real splendor, Fru Alving comes to the window and puts out the lamp. Let Oswald look at the rising sun and the mountain glaciers sparkling beneath it!

Oswald looks out the window, silently repeating "sun, sun," but he does not see the sun.

Mother looks at her son, clutching a bottle of morphine in her hands.