The title of an Enemy of the People by Henrick Ibsen can be said in a plain language ,a Man of the People, a title by Chinua
Achebe in his novel Aman of the people.
In the play An Enemy of the people,the author through irony portrays Dr.Thomas Stockman as an Enemy of the people.The Dr being a learned person is out to help is society.He makes a great discoery which is to help the populace but which is opposed by his brother Peter Stocksman,the mayor.Even his closest friends Billing Hovstad and Askssen who at first assure him of solid majority forsake him at he hour of need.
The baths project once hailed as the lifeline of the town turn out to be a death trap as people die slowly of typhoid and gastric fever due to contamination from the baths.
As a doctor of science and the health officer of the town ,it was the duty and responsiblity of the Dr. to inform the authorities of his great discovery.
Unfortunately the whole society save for his family and Captain Hostre turns against him.It is painful that a man out to save his people is branded an enemy of the people.His close friends who dined with him in his own house and who had promised him of solid majority deny him a chance to use the People`s messenger to let the people know the truth.
The evils in in this society are well brought out.The rot in the management of the town is shown when the mayor and others incite the public against the Dr.
Somebody who should and in fact he is a man of the people is left alone and persecuted by the very people he is out to help.At the end of the play he aasserts that the strongest man is he who stands alone
In a Man of the People by Chinua Achebe,the main character,Chief Hon Nanga is not a man of the people after all.This man should be called an enemy of the people as Dr Sockman takes a man of the people.
Through the novel there is no man of the people instead an enemy of the people who has teamed up with others to rape and devour his own motherland`s resources
Unlike Dr. chief Nanga has nothing to offer his society apart from political social and economic malaise
In a nutshell we can say the two writers have employed irony in their titles to expose evils in society.It is within this breath that therefore in a lay man`s language we say that the titles can be used interchangeably.