The Wild Duck
By Henrik Ibsen
The
father of
modern
drama
Henrik Ibsen was born in Skien (Norway) in 1828 and grew up as the oldest of
five siblings. His parents were the merchant Knud Ibsen and Marichen Ibsen.
Henrik Ibsen (1828 - 1906) is one of the very greatest names in world literature.
He was a central figure in the modern break-through in the intellectual life of
Europe, and is considered the father of modern drama. His plays are still highly
topical, and continue to be staged in all parts of the world. It is said that Ibsen is
the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare.
He is called "the father of modern drama" because his extremely influential plays
dealing with domestic life dealt with some of the most shocking issues of the day venereal disease, a wife abandoning her husband and children to discover her own
worth as a human being, suicide, etc. He also wrote a few verse dramas, among
them "Peer Gynt“
Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) published his last drama, "When We Dead Awaken", in
1899, and he called it a dramatic epilogue. It was also destined to be the epilogue of his
life's work, because illness prevented him from writing more. For half of a century he
had devoted his life and his energies to the art of drama, and he had won international
acclaim as the greatest and most influential dramatist of his time. He knew that he had
gone further than anyone in putting Norway on the map
 Henrik Ibsen was also a major poet, and he published a collection of poems in
1871. However, drama was the focus of his real lyrical spirit. For a period of
many hard years, he faced harsh conflict. But he finally triumphed over the
conservatism and aesthetic prejudices of the contemporary critics and
audiences. More than anyone, he gave theatrical art a new vitality by bringing
into European bourgeois drama an ethical gravity, a psychological depth, and a
social significance which the theater had lacked since the days of Shakespeare.
In this manner, Ibsen strongly contributed to giving European drama a vitality
and artistic quality comparable to the ancient Greek tragedies.
 Norwegian playwright, one of "the four great ones" with Alexander Kielland,
Jonas Lie and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson of the 19th-century Norwegian literature.
Ibsen is generally acknowledged as the founder of modern prose drama. He
moved away from the Romantic style, and brought the problems and ideas of
the day onto the stage of his time. Ibsen's famous plays, Brand (1866 ) and Peer
Gynt (1867), were originally not intended for the stage; they were "reading
dramas
 His plays:_ When we dead awaken , Ghosts, The Wild Duck, Little Eyolf, Peer
Gynt, A doll’s house ….
 The Wild Duck is a tragedy with comic episodes. Henrik Ibsen himself
characterized the play as a tragicomedy. It depicts ordinary life realistically
instead of romantically and sentimentally, a revolutionary concept in Ibsen's
time.
 In this manner, Ibsen strongly contributed to giving European drama a vitality
and artistic quality comparable to the ancient Greek tragedies."
 Ibsen wrote the play in Dano-Norwegian, a mixture of the Danish language and
Norwegian dialects.
Setting
 The time is the early 1880s. The action takes place over three days in an
unidentified town in Norway. Act I takes place in the home of Hkon
Werle, a wealthy businessman. The rest of the play takes place in the
apartment of photographer Hjalmar Ekdal and his family.
Hkon Werle.
2.
Mrs. Werle
3.
Gregers Werle
4.
Old Ekdal
5.
Hjalmar Ekdal
6.
Gina Hansen Ekdal
7.
Hedvig
8.
Mrs. Bertha Srby
9.
Doctor Relling
10. Others (Molvik, Pettersen, Jensen, Grberg, Chamberlain Balle,
Chamberlain Flor, Chamberlain Kaspersen, Porter, Two
Sweethearts, Ship Captain, Madam Eriksen, Porter's Wife).
1.
 Protagonists: Gregers Werle, Hjalmar Ekdal.
 Hkon Werle: Wealthy businessman whose affair with a young woman in
the distant past sets in motion the action of the play.
 Mrs. Werle: Late wife of Hkon Werle. The memory of her plays a role in
the rancorous relationship between Hkon and his son, Gregers Werle.

Gregers Werle: Son of Hkon Werle. Young Werle is little, meanspirited(un fair), and vengeful. Rather than right wrongs, he creates
them. In his pursuit(chaste) of truth and idealism, he alienates himself
from his father, precipitates turmoil in the Ekdal household, and
indirectly causes the death of Hedvig Ekdal. Although he has laid bare a
shocking truth about his father namely, his dalliance with Gina Ekdal in
the distant past his vision of reality blots out the good that his father has
done to redeem himself. It also fails to acknowledge the damage his
meddlesome fact-finding could and did do to the Ekdal family. His only
motivation is to expose he truth, whatever the cost. Ironically, he
remains blind to the truth about himself to the very end of the play.
 Old Ekdal: Disgraced(shamed) former business associate of Hkon
Werle.

Hjalmar Ekdal: Son of Old Ekdal. Hjalmar is self-centered,
lazy, and laughably mediocre. As a family man and provider, he
relies on the benefactions of Werle, the hard work of Gina, and
the quixotic dream of a revolutionary invention to get from one
day to the next. His character begins to reveal itself early on, in
Act 1, when he is too ashamed to acknowledge the presence of his
father at the Werle dinner party. Although he feels awkward and
tongue-tied at the gathering and keeps to himself except for his
conversation with Gregers, he tells his family after he arrives
home that the guests coaxed him to recite something but that he
denied them the pleasure.
 Gina Hansen Ekdal: Wife of Hjalmar Ekdal. She is practical, hardworking, down-to-earth, and forgiving. Although homespun and
unsophisticated, she has common sense and a firm grasp on reality. She is
several years older than Hjalmar.

Hedvig: Daughter of Hjalmar and Gina Ekdal. Hedvig is about to turn fourteen.
 Mrs. Bertha Srby: Hkon Werle's housekeeper and wife-to-be.
Doctor Relling: Physician who lives in an apartment on the floor below
Hjalmar Ekdal's apartment.

Molvik: strong and failed theology student who lives with Relling.
Pettersen: Servant in Hkon Werle's house.

Jensen: Hired waiter in Hkon Werle's house.
Grberg: Hkon Werle's bookkeeper.

Chamberlain Balle: Guest at Hkon Werle's dinner party.
 Chamberlain Flor: Guest at Hkon Werle's dinner party.

Chamberlain Kaspersen: Guest at Hkon Werle's dinner party.

Gentlemen: Guests at Hkon Werle's dinner party.
Porter: Doorkeeper at the apartment building where Hjalmar and Gina Ekdal
live.
Porter's Wife: Woman who cleans the apartment of Gregers Werle after he
throws water on a stove fire.
 Madam Eriksen: Keeper of a tavern frequented by Old
Ekdal.
Ship Captain: Seaman called "the Flying Dutchman,"
although he was not Dutch. He once lived in the Ekdal
apartment. Hedvig plays with curios he left behind
after he drowned at sea.
Two Sweethearts: Couple whose photograph Gina
Ekdal takes while her husband is out (referred to in
Act III and at the beginning of Act IV).
Aunts Who Reared Hjalmar Ekdal
Mrs. Srby's Former Husband, a Veterinarian Who
Beat Her
 Hjalmar Ekdal
Gina
 Gregers now considers it his duty to get Hjalmar to see the truth
behind his marriage so that he and Gina can live together in a
marriage based on truth. Hjalmar confronts Gina with her
background and asks her whether he is Hedvig's father. Gina
replies that she does not know, and in distraction Hjalmar
rejects Hedvig as his daughter. Meanwhile Gregers has
convinced Hedvig that she can win back her father's love by
sacrificing the wild duck that lives in the loft and to which she is
deeply attached. But Hedvig shoots herself instead of the wild
duck, and the play ends with general despair at the death of the
child.
 The climax of a play or another literary work,
such as a short story or a novel, can be defined as
(1) the turning point at which the conflict begins to
resolve itself for better or worse, or as (2) the final and
most exciting event in a series of events.
 The climax of
The Wild Duck occurs in Act IV, according to the
first definition, when Gina admits that she had a sexual
encounter with Hkon Werle before her marriage to Hjalmar
and that she does not know whether Hjalmar or Werle is the
father of Hedvig. According to the second definition, the
climax occurs when Hedvig commits suicide.
Conflict
•
Hkon Werle is the main source of conflict in the play. Consider
that, preceding the action of the play, he:
 Fathered Gregers Werle, who dedicates himself as a young
adult to revealing ugly truths that cause domestic turmoil.
 Had an antagonistic relationship with his wife, which helped
motivate Gregers to turn against his father.
 Took part in a business deal that disgraced and sent to jail
Hjalmar Ekdal's father.

Had an concern with a housekeeper, Gina Hansen, then arranged
her marriage to Hjalmar Ekdal. During her first year of marriage,
Gina Hansen Ekdal bore a child, Hedvig. Whether Hkon Werle or
Gina's husband, Hjalmar, fathered it is unknown. When Hjalmar
learns of his wife's past and his daughter's dubious parentage, he
rejects Gina and Hedvig.
 Provided money for Hjalmar Ekdal's photography training and
began employing Hjalmar's father after his release from prison,
gestures that Gregers Werle believes were intended to buy the
silence of the Ekdals regarding Hkon Werle's past behavior.
 Shot and wounded the wild duck that his servant gave to the
Ekdals. Hedvig and Old Ekdal nurse the duck back to health and
prize it as a pet. Hjalmar curses the animal after he learns about
his wife's past. Gregers attempts to persuade Hedvig to shoot the
duck as a way to win back the affection of her father.
1. Realism vs. Idealism
The major theme of the play is realism vs. idealism. From the very
first act, the antagonism between the two concepts is established.
Hakon Werle, the father, is a realist about life, love, and business.
He has allowed Old Ekdal to take all the blame and go to prison for
their plan to cut down lumber from public lands. He has
encouraged Hialmar to marry Gina, Werle's mistress, so that he
can extricate himself from the relationship. He is also able to see
the worth in Ms. Sorby, his housekeeper, who is equally as realistic
and truthful about life as he is.
In contrast to his father, Gregers is a total idealist. He has romantic, pre-
conceived notions about how life, love, and business should be, and he
believes that his father has broken all the rules. He is horrified that
Hialmar, his friend, is married to Gina without knowing the truth.
Wanting him to have a more ideal marriage, Gregers decides to tell
Hialmar the truth about Gina; but Hialmar did not want to know the
truth. He is not noble enough to forgive Gina for her past and even
turns against Hedvig, convinced that she is Werle's daughter.
2.
Self-Delusion(illusion):
Gregers Werle sees himself as a man of character, noble and
incorruptible, whose mission is to right wrongs and champion
the cause of truth. Hjalmar Ekdal sees himself as a good
husband, father, and son, as well as a brilliant inventor. In
short, these two men are heroes to themselves. But neither
recognizes his own shortcomings; neither sees himself as he
truly is.
Both men's visions of reality are no less faulty than demented
Lieutenant Ekdal, who goes on hunting expeditions amid old
Christmas trees in the garret.
Rather than face the reality of his business scandal, he escapes it
entirely to live in an illusory world. And then there is Molvik. He
repeatedly deludes himself into believing that alcohol will cure
his ills, whatever they are.
3.
Concealing vs Revealing the Truth:
In his extreme idealism, Gregers Werle believes in revealing the truth
whatever the cost. In his extreme pragmatism, Doctor Relling
believes in hiding the truth whenever it has the potential to cause
harm. Ironically, while laying bare the truth about his father and the
Ekdal family, Gregers fails to recognize the truth about himself that
he is a meddlesome, vengeful snot. And, just as ironically, in
recommending the concealment of truth, Relling presents the truth
to Werle round, unvarnished, and naked.
4.
Revenge:
Revenge taints the actions of Gregers Werle. Although
he declares that his conscience and his idealism drive
his mission to expose the truth about his father,
clearly his overriding goal is to punish his father.
Gregers' animosity is a legacy of his childhood days,
when he and his mother sided against Mr. Werle in a
bitter rivalry. As the elder Werle tells Gregers in Act I,
"You and she always held together. It was she who
turned you against me, from the first."
5.
Shame
Shame motivates Hjalmar Werle on several occasions. In Act I, for
example, he avoids acknowledging the presence of his disgraced
father when the old man passes through Hkon Werle's study
while Hjalmar is there after the dinner.
On the same occasion, when he speaks with Gregers Werle for the
first time in at least sixteen years, he depicts his wife as "by no
means without culture," in as much as she has learned from him
as well as from the "remarkable men" the Ekdals know.
The fact is that Gina is common and unsophisticated and
frequently mispronounces even simple words. When Hjalmar
returns home from the dinner, he is ashamed to admit to his
family that a dinner guest embarrassed him in front of others by
exposing Hjalmar's lack of knowledge of wines. Instead, Hjalmar
pretends that he enlightened the guests about wine vintages.
 Many events in the play foreshadow what follows them. For
example, the mess Gregers makes of his room while building
a stove fire foreshadows the mess he makes of the Ekdals' life.
Perhaps the most obvious foreshadowing in the play occurs
when Hjalmar emerges from the garret with a doubledbarreled pistol and warns Hedvig not to touch it because it
still has a bullet in one of its barrels.
Examples of Symbols
 Gregers Werle's Smoky Room:
After renting a room from Hjalmar Ekdal, Werle builds a fire in the
stove and smokes up the room. Then he throws water on the fire,
leaving a puddle on the floor. The mess he has made of the room
appears to symbolize and foreshadow the mess he will make of the
Ekdal family's life.
 Garret (upper floor) :
In this dark room behind sliding doors, Old Ekdal spends time
hunting in a "forest" made of old Christmas trees. He and his son
have stocked the room with rabbits to serve as bears that Old Ekdal
shoots on his hunting expeditions. Hjalmar helps his father maintain
the patch of "wilderness," which also contains pigeons, hens, and
the wild duck. The garret symbolizes Old Ekdal's illusion of himself as
a great hunter.
 The Wild Duck:
While hunting, Hkon Werle shoots a wild duck but only wounds it. Werle's servant,
Pettersen, later gives the duck to Old Ekdal, who takes it home and, with the
help of his son and granddaughter, Hedvig, cares for it in the garret. Hedvig is
especially fond of it. The duck symbolizes Hedvig, an innocent victim of the strife
in her home, as well as others in the play would like the duck have been
wounded by the circumstances of their lives. Hkon Werle alludes to the duck
when he tells his son, Gregers, "There are people in the world who dive to
the bottom the moment they get a couple of slugs in their body, and
never come to the surface again" (Act I). An observation of Hedvig in Act III
indicates that the duck also symbolizes Hedvig's parentageu0097that is, whether
she is the daughter of Hkon Werle or Hjalmar. Hedvig tells Gregers Werle:
"[T]here is so much that is strange about the wild duck. Nobody knows
her, and nobody knows where she came from either."
 The Invention: Hjalmar's unfinished invention symbolizes his
illusion of himself as a great man. Working on it enables him to
entertain his heroic vision of himself; finishing it would force him to
expose to the world the mediocre quality of his ideas.
He uses the theme of light to contrast
Old Werle, a stingy rich man, with Old Ekdal, a poor
helpless man. Ibsen connects the color green with the loss
of eyesight of Old Werle.
 Lights and Colors:
A possible affair between Old Werle and Gina, Hedvig's
mother, may suggest the cause of Hedvig's loss of sight.
By using sun and moon, Ibsen establishes the atmosphere
of the scene.
 Ibsen
employs the image of light to portray certain
characteristics in order to construct the plot and to adjust the
mood of the scene.
 Are you sure that he alone waste blame?
This was said by Gregersto his father Werle when Gregers asked his
father how the Ekdals have come to ruin, accusing his father of
passing the forestry scandal onto Old Ekdal. According to
Gregers, Werle should have been blame for the scandal as well.
 ."You ought not to have invited me.“
This was said by Hialmar to his Gregers when Hialmar overheard the
conversation between Gregers and his father. Hialmar remarks that
Gregers should not have invited him because he does not belong to
this circle of the society
 Werle: Some people in this world only need to get a couple of slugs in
them and they go plunging right down to the depths, and they never
come up again.
 Gina: Is Gregers still as awful as ever.
 Hjalmar: She’s the only one, yes. She’s our greatest joy in life,
and … she’s also our deepest sorrow, Gregers.
 Ekdal: Felling, eh? …….. That’s a dangerous business, that. That
brings trouble. The forests avenge themselves.
 Ekdal: She did that. Always do that, wild ducks do. Go plunging
right to the bottom … as deep as they can get, my dear sir … hold
on with their beaks to the weeds and stuff … all other mess you find
down there. Then they never come up again.
 Relling: Personality? Him! If he ever showed any signs of anything as abnormal as a
personality, it was all thoroughly cleared out of him, root and branch, when he was
still a lad – that I can assure you.

Relling: While I remember, Mr. Werle junior – don’t use this fancy word
‘ideals’; we’ve got a plain word that’s good enough: ‘lies’.
 Gregers: Dr. Relling, I shall not rest until I have rescued Hjalmar Ekdal from
your clutches!
 Relling: So much the worse for him. Take the life-lie away from the average
man and straight away you take away his happiness.
 Gregers: Ah, if only you’d had your eyes opened to what really makes life
worth while! If you had the genuine, joyous, courageous spirit of selfsacrifice, then you would see how quickly he would come back to you. But I
still have faith in you, Hedvig.
Title
 The wild Duck” as a title is most apt for this play because it gives us a definite
clue to the major theme of the play – the value of illusions in the average man’s
life. The wild duck is a precise and an all-important symbol. The wild duck
symbolizes the life of Hjalmar and his father, the life of Hedvig and also Ibsen’s
own life at the time he wrote this play. Gregers too becomes a symbol by wishing
to play the role of the clever dog and to bring the wounded duck back to the
surface. As all this symbolism is the hub and the heart of the play, the title “The
Wild Duck” is most suitable for it.
 Mr. Werle was sailing a boat and seeing a wild duck, had shot
at, and wounded, it. The wounded duck dived down to the
bottom of the sea and tangle there to never come up again. But
Mr. Werle’s clever dog dived after the wounded duck and
brought it up again. The wounded wild duck was taken to Mr.
Werle’s house but it did not thrive there. It was passed on to
Old Ekdal where it became used to its present abode, and had
forgotten its natural, wild life.
 The wild duck as a symbol appears first in Mr. Werle’s
speech with reference to the sad fate which had overtaken
Old Ekdal. He says:
 “By the time Ekdal was released, he was a broken-
down man, past help from anyone. There are
people
in this world who dive to the bottom the moment
they are wounded, and never come up again.”
 This speech when Old Ekdal, speaking to Gregers, describes how a wild duck
behaves when it gets wounded. If the particular wild duck had not been rescued
by dog, it would have remained at the bottom and would have died there. In Mr.
Werle’s opinion, Old Ekdal, after his release from the prison, was in no position
to lead a worth-while life because his spirit had completely been broken by his
stay in the prison.
 Hedvig says on two occasions that the wild duck belongs to
her though she would not mind her father and grandfather
borrowing it from her. Hedvig also says that her father
and grandfather look after the wild duck well and try to
make it comfortable. Gregers thereupon says that the wild
duck is the most important person in his house. Hedvig says
that the duck is a real “wild” bird and the wild duck must
be feeling sad and alien here because no one knows it and it
knows no one. Gregers finds that the wild duck has a
damaged wing and that it is a little lame in one foot which
the dog had held between its teeth when dragging the duck
back to the surface of the water.
 The wild duck symbolizes Hedvig too. Hedvig too
is an alien in this house like a wild duck. Hedvig is a
product of Mr. Werle’s sport of making love to Gina.
Hjalmar has been thinking her to be his own
daughter. Thus there is much in common
between the wild duck and Hedvig: both are a
product of Mr. Werle’s sporting nature. The wild duck
is lame, has a damaged wing, and is leading an
incomplete and unsatisfactory life, shut within the
four walls of a dark garret. Hedvig too is leading a
narrow, limited kind of life, partly because she has
weak eyesight and would soon become blind. Just as
the wild duck has got used to its new abode, so,
Hedvig is perfectly contented with her inadequate
life in this house. And yet she is leading a frustrated
life like that of the wild duck.
 The wild duck symbolizes Old Ekdal’s life also. He used to
hunt into the forest when young. Overtaken by a disaster
he was jailed for some years. After his release he finds life
wretched. When in garret, he imagines himself in a forest
with wild animals. The same applies to Ekdal's putting on
his lieutenant’s uniform at times. He is not entitled any
more to wear it but he puts it on to recall the days when he
was a lieutenant. These illusions are sustaining him in life
which would otherwise appear to him to be not worth
living. He too has become averse to reality, like the wild
duck.
The wild duck also reflects Ibsen’s personality when he
wrote the play. Ibsen wants us to know that he has now
forgotten to live a wild life; he has, like the wild duck,
grown plump and tame and contented with his limited life.
Ibsen must have asked himself at the time of writing this
play how far the artist shuts himself off from life. Both
Hjalmar and Gregers represent different aspects of Ibsen:
on the one hand, the evader of reality, and on the other, the
impractical idealist who
The Wild Duck is a perfectly suitable title for this play. The
wild duck is the most important person in the story; it is
Hedvig’s dearest possession; it is looked after by Old Ekdal
with great care. Old Ekdal has provided a water-trough for
the wild duck to splash about. Hjalmar too is deeply
attached to the bird till he learns that the man to whom it
had originally belonged had seduced Gina. Hedvig’s
sacrifice would have been great if she had shot the wild
duck, but Hedvig makes an even greater sacrifice of her
own life. In any case the wild duck is the central symbol in
the play, and round the wild duck the plot hinges.