The Wild Duck Essay Questions

What does The Wild Duck have to say about the value of truth in society?

If asked without context, most people would probably say that telling the truth is better than deceiving others. The Wild Duck, conversely, posits the notion that such an idealistic vision of truth cannot be universally applied on an individual level. Gregers, the main character in the play who embodies the pursuit of truth as a virtue, genuinely has good intentions in trying to unmask the deceit of his father, but it is important to note two specific things about his pursuit. First, the play provides us with a great deal of evidence that Gregers is perhaps not completely competent (e.g., the "sickly" mind inherited from his mother [52] and the mess made by Gregers upon arriving in the Ekdal home [35], to name a few). This casts an initial shade of doubt on Gregers before we ever see the consequences of his actions. Later, of course, we see the second notable thing about his pursuit—that is, the completely unanticipated (again, emphasizing Gregers' lack of foresight) and negative consequences of his actions that culminate in the ruination of the Ekdal family. This is only reinforced at the play's end when Relling suggests that people need to have illusion and deceit in their lives in order to maintain coherent and stable visions of themselves. As a whole, then, the play suggests quite vehemently that individual happiness and societal cohesion are often precariously dependent upon the rejection of truth and the acceptance—often willful—of the illusion provided by lies. Even so, however, the play invite us to openly question how content or satisfied one can truly be when their lives are built upon falsehoods.

How is the nature of truth explored through the symbolism of the wild duck itself?

The role played by the symbol of the wild duck in the drama is particularly dynamic, representing different truths to each character—and, in turn, the malleable and contingent nature of truth writ large when these alternate interpretations are placed in dialogue. To Gregers, for example, the wild duck is a living symbol of the deceit of his father, tangible evidence of the way that, like a hunter with a duck, he has injured the Ekdal family and kept them alive in a kind of artificial captivity. To Ekdal, the duck is emblematic of the wild and untamed nature that he is necessarily excluded from as a social and political pariah. To Hialmar, the wild duck represents the promise of getting his life back on track after taking a serious hit from the reputation of his father. Finally, to Hedvig, the duck is a close and treasured companion, familiar and similar to herself in that it is isolated from the world (and also because it is of unknown paternity, though Hedvig does not initially realize this quality in herself). What each of these idiosyncratic readings of the duck's symbolism suggests then, is the fact that a coherent or uniform truth is usually unable to be pieced together in a satisfactory manner.

On a larger note, this also applies to the way in which the wild duck could be used to describe the Ekdal's larger family dynamic. On the one hand, you have the interpretation, taken by Gregers, that the Ekdals are like an injured duck in need of saving from the depths (hence Gregers' desire to be like a hunting dog [33]). On the other hand, one can see the interpretation taken by figures like Werle (and ostensibly, like early Hialmar)—that is, that the Ekdals were injured by a shot but then happily rescued to live in domesticity by Werle (who represents the dog). Ultimately, it is up to the audience to appropriate the symbol of the wild duck and apply it in the context they see most apt, since Ibsen left many key points in the play's plot open to interpretation.

Both Ibsen and critics have acknowledged that The Wild Duck is a tragicomedy, but the tragic death at the play's end seems to lack any sense of comedy. What, then, is specifically meant when speaking of tragicomedy in The Wild Duck?

While it is true that the play moves inexorably toward a senseless and profoundly sad death—an ending that can only be described accurately as tragic—the overall arc of the story’s narrative is far more heavily dependent upon irony, metaphysical symbolism, and psychological investigation of the quotidian than a traditional tragedy or melodrama. To speak to the first point, the character of Hialmar would be a thoroughly tragic protagonist if not for the complete and humorous ignorance that he is submersed in. Further, the irony—and the realism, to boot—of Hialmar's reaction to Gregers' revelation of the truth reinforces the play as mingling comic or humorous aspects with some of the darker aspects of the drama. To speak to the symbolism in the play, consider the way in which the entire framing of the Ekdal home as within the parameters of the wild duck conceit makes the drama take a turn away from realism towards the metaphysical. This turn, as discussed, forces us as readers to treat the characters both with greater ambivalence (since their plight is abstracted away from reality) and greater sympathy (since we see the tragedy of their plights not just played out but also magnified on a symbolic level). Finally, by showing us the comic and dramatic ways in which characters respond to everyday events and occurrences (e.g., the quiet tragedy of the Ekdals ignoring Old Ekdal's drunkenness, the humor of Molvik's drunkenness and nausea at the Ekdal's lunch), we become both more invested in the characters' lives while also noticing the ways in which traditional dramatic realism is comedically subverted.

Describe the character of Relling. How do his ideas and role in the play subvert traditional dramatic structure in The Wild Duck?

Relling is an incredibly complex character who, though he appears rather insignificant, actually plays a rather important part in the drama as a whole. Relling is a doctor who used to work at the Höidal works with Gregers, and as such he serves as reminder of Gregers' own past. Since Gregers is intent on dredging up the truth that lies in the Ekdals' pasts, Relling thus is able to stand in as in important counterpoint to Gregers in this way, reminding him of his own past failures regarding the claims of the ideal. Beyond this, too, Relling serves as an important counterpoint to Gregers' radical idealism, advocating for the necessity of the "life-illusion" to keep people afloat and out of the clutches of existential dread. Since this moral philosophy is also closest to that of Ibsen in the play, Relling thus takes on a type of raisonneur role in the play. At the same time, however, Relling is depicted as a scoundrel of a man, a drunk who often gets caught up in Molvik's shenanigans (or else enables him), and is very aggressive. In placing the voice of the raisonneur in the mouth of a character with questionable morals, then, Ibsen subverts dramatic convention and also adds to the overall air of the tragicomic in the play.

Provide some examples of foreshadowing in The Wild Duck. Why might Ibsen have chosen to use this device so extensively in the drama?

Foreshadowing is used extensively in The Wild Duck, so many different specific examples could used in response to this prompt. Some good examples are the introduction of the hunting pistol and its lore (i.e., the fact that both Hialmar and Old Ekdal almost committed suicide with it), the fact that Gregers makes a mess in the Ekdals' home as soon as he arrives (foreshadowing his eventual ruination of the family), and the fact that when we first meet Hedvig, she is covering her eyes and ears (foreshadowing both her encroaching blindness and her relative isolation/ignorance of the world around her). While Ibsen could have simply wanted to use foreshadowing to raise the dramatic stakes of the play—especially in light of how much subversion Ibsen employs in The Wild Duck—it is also possible that Ibsen so prominently uses foreshadowing here in order to convey a sense that the events of the play are fated to begin with, all set into motion the instant that Werle conspired to have Hialmar married and cover up his affair with Gina. This lends some credence to Gregers' idea about the power of truth and the past, and it also adds to the overall tragicomic effect of the play.