The idealistic yet ambitious son of a miner, John Gabriel Borkman, dissolves the romantic relationship he had with Ella Rentheim, marries her sister Gunhild, and has a son with her, Erhart. He becomes a bank director, is stigmatized by financial irregularities, and is imprisoned for a few years.

When he returns home, he has to confront the coldness of his wife, the criticism of his daughter-in-law, and the indifference of his son. The play is based on the well-known Ibsenian love triangle. Its dramatic climaxes, underlying humor, and universal truths spoken by the characters have made "John Gabriel Borkman" a favorite work among Europeans in the early twentieth century, remaining modern, subversive, and sensitive to this day.

Borkman is the last bourgeois who wishes to correct the world. He is the man of good intentions and noble motives, suffocated by the technocratic view of the world. It reflects a reality of the twentieth century that expresses the decline of a quality of life and ethos and the emergence of another quality and another ethos.