GREGERS: Yes, you do; your outer man is in first-rate condition.
HIALMAR (in a tone of gloom): Ah, but the inner man! That is a very different matter, I can tell you!
In these lines exchanged between Gregers and Hialmar, Gregers seems merely to be commenting on how Hialmar looks good and has put on weight (4). What lies just below this surface meaning, however, is a distinction between inner and outer life that will come to define the play. After all, a great deal of the play focuses on public opinion and the rumor mill, as well as how one's interior life either coheres or disintegrates in the face of these external influences. Together, the focus on the outer/inner dichotomy introduced here both implies that people may put on airs to defend themselves (in the case of Hialmar) or else fail to see a situation for all that it really is based on a surface-level reading (as is the case with Hialmar's family). Thus, here we see how, in Ibsen, even a small exchange between old friends lends itself to a larger discussion of themes discussed within the play.
HIALMAR: I don't see why I should bother myself to entertain people on the rare occasions when I go into society. Let the others exert themselves. These fellows go from one great dinner-table to the next and gorge and guzzle day out and day in. It's for them to bestir themselves and do something in return for all the good feeding they get.
In this quote, Hialmar tells his family of his discontent at being asked to declaim poetry for the guests at Werle's dinner party (21). Here, what seems like a fairly context-specific grievance in reality lends itself to a deeper commentary on class within the play. What Hialmar seems to actually resent about being asked to entertain company is that he is being painted as part of a lower caste or a lower status than the other guests at parties. In a larger sense, what Hialmar is actually rejecting here is the attitude of condescension that others display towards him when he engages in social interactions. This is deeply ironic given the following actions in the play: after all, the misfortune that Gregers brings to the Ekdal household is largely due to the fact that Gregers patronizes Hialmar and assumes him to be a kind of naive and simple person, not the star of his university class that Relling describes him as. As much as The Wild Duck is a play about the shortcomings of idealism, we must also see it as a play about the stranglehold that the wealthy have on the less fortunate in society.
OLD EKDAL (sleepily, in a thick voice): Of course. Always do that, wild ducks do. They shoot to the bottom as deep as they can get, sir—and bite themselves fast in the tangle and seaweed—and all the devil's own mess that grows down there. And they never come up again.
The origins of the wild duck are revealed in the second act, and this line from Old Ekdal comes just after it is revealed that the duck was a gift from Håkon Werle (31). The wild duck that now lives inside the family’s garret was shot by Werle, but it was eventually saved from certain death by Werle's dog. The duck, injured but not dead, was then gifted to the Ekdal family. The people living in the Ekdal household see the wild duck as being miraculous and, as such, representative for their own situation. They see themselves as wronged by fate but ultimately supported and returned to normal life through their own diligence and the charity of Werle. When Gregers hears of the duck, however, he sees it as emblematic of the Ekdals in a different way—also injured by Werle and then saved by Werle to live in a kind of captive, false limbo. Ekdal's explanation of the habits and patterns of wild ducks here is thus very important because it begins to lay the groundwork for the play's central series of symbolic correspondences—that is, between the duck and Old Ekdal, between the duck and Hialmar, and between the duck and Hedvig.
HEDVIG: And there's an old bureau with drawers and flaps, and a big clock with figures that go out and in. But the clock isn't going now.
GREGERS: So time has come to a standstill in there—in the wild duck's domain.
In this quote from Act 3, Hedvig and Gregers are discussing the storied history of the garret, including its contents and its former inhabitant (40). On a deeper level, however, note that the garret is becoming intensely symbolic as a timeless space where the wild duck lives. In other words, the attic is almost a mythic place, a place where time stands still and reality has lost the strength of its appearance. In the attic, Hedvig and her grandfather are able to dream and live inside an illusion, with the former dreaming of companionship and the latter dreaming of his bygone days as a true hunter and sportsman. In this way, Gregers sees Hedvig and Old Ekdal as akin to the wild duck trapped inside the attic: they are prisoners forced to adapt to a place that is not really suitable for them. Hedvig, for her part, however, does not feel like a captive and is content to hang around in the attic. At least there, after all, she can relate to the friendless, fatherless, and unusual duck in a manner that she cannot with another person.
RELLING: Well, I'll tell you, Mrs. Ekdal. He is suffering from an acute attack of integrity.
GINA: Integrity?
HEDVIG: Is that a kind of disease?
RELLING: Yes, a kind of national disease; but it only appears sporadically.
Here, just after Gregers has taken Hialmar on a walk to tell him the truth about his family history, Relling tells Gina and Hedvig that he believes Gregers to be a kind of madman, driven to dysfunction by his irrational pursuit of truth and rationality at all costs (53). The play in general is about the consequences of telling the truth, even when it is unsolicited and perhaps damaging to others, so the fact that Relling calls integrity a "kind of national disease" here is particularly interesting as an indictment of the Norwegian national character. Especially in light of the fact that works like Ibsen's Ghosts are more about the universal nature of secrecy and deceit than truth-telling, Relling's utterance of this line is particularly puzzling. One does well to remember, however, that though Relling is used in the play as a kind of stand-in for Ibsen, he is also treated with great scrutiny and discredited thoroughly in the play as a drunkard and degenerate. Ibsen here thus undoes a great deal of the dramatic work he had previously done in his career, but in doing so pursues a new kind of autobiographical and cynical honesty. Is Relling, after all, not telling the truth about integrity and its ultimate effect on the Ekdal family?
HIALMAR: A man's whole moral basis may give away beneath his feet; that is the terrible part of it.
In Act 4, after finding out the truth about Gina, Hialmar speaks this quote in the middle of an argument between Gregers and Relling (60). Gregers thought that, as soon as he told Hialmar the truth about his family's history and background, Hialmar would be enlightened, thankful, and pick himself up in service of the greater ideals of truth and honesty. What is unexpected about Hialmar uttering this line (and about his general response to the truth), then, is that Hialmar does not follow along with Gregers' vision; rather, he falls into despondency and totally allows his life to be uprooted beneath him. In turn, Hialmar's response puts more of readers' faith in Relling's ideals, and it also showcases the general emptiness of idealism when there is real pain, real money, and real people's family security at stake.
HIALMAR: It is profitable, now and then, to plunge deep into the night side of existence.
Much like the above quote, here Hialmar rebuffs the fantasies spun for him by both Gina and Gregers, instead allowing himself to fall into a depression based on the immediate reality (65). Particularly interesting here, however, is the way in which, despite his ultimate failure to accord with or agree with Gregers, Hialmar seems to be advocating for a similar life approach to Gregers. Rather than stay afloat in a mire of lies and deceit, Hialmar would rather be like the wild duck, plunging deep into the "night side" depths of one's life to avoid a false and oppressive captivity. Note, however, that he recants this stance by the play's end, once he reconsiders the real value the grant of deed can offer his family, and also once he is confronted with the very tangible loss of Hedvig. Ideals are a great thing to work towards and even perhaps to espouse, but they should not come at the cost of one's grip on one's life.
GREGERS: Oh, indeed! Hialmar Ekdal is sick, too, isn't he!
RELLING: Most people are, worse luck.
GREGERS: And what remedy are you applying in Hialmar's case?
RELLING: My usual one. I am cultivating the life-illusion in him.
GREGERS: Life-illusion? I didn't catch what you said.
RELLING: Yes, I said illusion. For illusion, you know, is the stimulating principle.
In these words exchanged between Gregers and Relling, Relling unveils his contrary position to Greger's claims of the ideal, his idea of the "life-illusion" (75). We must, says Relling, allow ourselves to buy into the fictive visions of the complete lives that we seek; otherwise, we risk allowing ourselves to fall into complete and utter existential despair. This is not an uncontroversial point, either: Relling's claim that "illusion [...] is the stimulating principle" of life is deeply cynical and comes off as deeply offensive to Gregers' idealist sensibilities. Though Ibsen sided more with Relling in the writing of the play, it is ultimately up to readers to decide whether they agree with this rather extreme claim of Relling's.
GREGERS: Poor unfortunate old man! Yes; he has indeed had to narrow the ideals of his youth.
RELLING: While I think of it, Mr. Werle, junior—don't use that foreign word: ideals. We have the excellent native word: lies.
In a companion to the above quote, here Relling tells Gregers that ideals are foreign to the Norwegian conscience, with lies being something far more relatable and acceptable to the mind (75). This surface level is already quite deep, but taking it a bit further, one does well to think about its implications, since this exchange is really what sits at the heart of The Wild Duck. Is it better and easier (i.e., more accessible and familiar) to live a lie, if the lie is something worth living? Or, rather, is it impossible for such a lie to be worth living by virtue of the fact that it contradicts a perhaps distant ideal?
RELLING: May I inquire,—what is your destiny?
GREGERS (going): To be the thirteenth at table.
RELLING: The devil it is.
This particular quote appears at the end of the play, after Hedvig has died, and it makes reference to the first scene in the play when Hialmar went to a party hosted by Werle only to realize that he was the thirteenth at the table (87). This number symbolizes bad luck and things being out of order, not least of all because of the relationship between the number 13 and the last supper, where either Jesus (fated to die) or Judas (fated to betray Christ) may be considered to have been the thirteenth person in attendance. On one level, this quote thus shows how the first scene foreshadowed the ultimate tragedy of the play and how Hedvig's death was perhaps unavoidable and fated. On another, however, note how these final words of the play invite us to consider Werle as a type of Christ/Judas duo. Who is really the one who betrays another, and who is the one whose principles shine light on the truths of life and the world? Relling seems to believe that Gregers is a type of antichrist or devilish figure, but it is unclear from Gregers' own words whether he sees himself more as a betrayer or as a martyr.
