Summary
As Act 1 begins, festive tables are laid in the office of the wealthy Norwegian businessman Håkon Werle. Two servants, Pettersen and Jensen, are standing in a back room of the party and gossiping about their host. Specifically, they bring up the rumor that Werle and his housekeeper, Mrs. Sörby, are in a relationship. Afterwards, the two discuss the fact that the party is being thrown in honor of Werle's son, Gregers. Gregers has been away for over a decade, working in his father's lumber business up in Höidal, and many forgot that Werle even had a son.
Just then, Old Ekdal, a dejected and decrepit man, appears before Pettersen and Jensen at the door; seemingly, he has business with Werle but does not want to be seen at the party. They let him in, and he enters the office to speak with Werle's bookeeper, Gråberg. Meanwhile, Pettersen and Jensen go on to gossip about Ekdal, saying that he used to be a business partner of Werle's before being arrested of bad business practices, stripped of his military honors, and thrown in jail.
Suddenly, Mrs. Sörby throws open the door and has Jensen and Pettersen escort the house's guests to the music room. Here, we see the party's attendants in full force. Old Ekdal's son, Hialmar Ekdal, is in attendance as a guest of Werle's son Gregers, and several chamberlains are also in attendance. We then turn to the conversation between Gregers and Hialmar, who are discussing the fact that there were 13 guests at the dinner table (one more than the usual 12 guests). Hialmar feels that he ought not to have come, and one senses from his other inputs that he feels out of place or outclassed among the other guests at Werle's party.
Gregers and Hialmar get to talking about recent developments in their lives, since the two have not seen each other for fifteen years. Hialmar married a woman named Gina, had a daughter, Hedvig (she is now fourteen), and started his own business—a photographer’s studio (with which Gina is able to help, on account of her skill at retouching). Within this time, Hialmar was unable to finish his studies at the university due to the public shaming of his father and lack of funds. Even so, Werle decided to be charitable towards Hialmar: he gave Hialmar the money for his studio equipment, as well as the money to learn the craft of photography.
This all seems suspicious to Gregers, who knows his father very well and suspects that Werle had an ulterior motive in doing so. Gregers' suspicions are only confirmed then, when he learns that the maiden name of Hialmar's wife is Hansen and realizes that she used to work in Werle's home while Gregers' mother was sick. The party guests then discuss wine all together, with Hialmar clearly being out of his element.
Suddenly, after being locked in Werle's office, Old Ekdal and Gråberg exit right through the middle of the party, much to everyone's shock and to Hialmar's embarrassment. Hialmar does not even acknowledge or recognize his own father. The party settles, Hialmar leaves, and Gregers has a word with his father in private while Mrs. Sörby, the housekeeper, entertains the guests. Mrs. Sörby also has the house gift Old Ekdal a bottle of cognac, showing further evidence of Werle's pity towards Ekdal.
In his conversation with his father, Gregers uncovers and reveals some shocking facts: first, rumor is that Gina Hansen used to be a former mistress of Werle's while Gregers' mother was on her deathbed; second, it seems that Werle was really the one who betrayed Ekdal by illegally felling government timber (and not the other way around); third, it seems that Werle has been helping the Ekdals in order to tie up loose ends and avoid feelings of guilt. Werle also tells his son that he intends to marry Mrs. Sörby and move to the Höidal works, where Gergers had been working, but Gregers refuses to play the part of the filial son. Then, firmly rejecting the elder Werle’s proposal to become his companion in business and in supporting his marriage, Gregers announces that he is severing ties with him. He claims that he now has a special mission in life, and he leaves.
Analysis
More than anything else, the first act of The Wild Duck establishes the centrality of rumor, social obligation, and public opinion in the play. As soon as the play begins, we are situated in the middle of a gossip session between two servants in a wealthy home. Moreover, not even their master himself is above their prying eyes and ears: Pettersen and Jensen's conversation more or less exclusively focuses on Werle and his acquaintances, be they Mrs. Sörby (and his relationship with her), Old Ekdal (and his former partnership with Werle), or even his estranged son Gregers.
When the party's attendants enter the room, then, we see the more subtle aspects of social life and social conventions take shape. Hialmar, for example, is notably out of his depth in talking about wine, and seems to resent when he is asked to declaim poetry and entertain the guests. The initial comment he makes about being 13th at the table is also significant. Later, we will see how the image of being 13th at a table shifts throughout the play, but here it signals Hialmar's status as an outsider—both in terms of his father's reputation and in terms of his social class. The chamberlains, too, are not free in socializing and are not spared the scrutiny of public opinion—Mrs. Sörby's joke about them depending on sunshine is certainly playful, but it is also undeniably sharp. Even Werle himself is not immune to public opinion, wanting to marry Mrs. Sörby and have Gregers's support primarily to stay the tongues of others in polite society. In the first act, then, a picture is painted of a Norwegian society obsessed with outward appearances, capable of holding grudges, and rather segregated by class.
In addition to revealing the play's interest in the dynamics of late 19th-century social intercourse, the first act of The Wild Duck also sets the stage for the important conflicts that will come to define the rest of the drama. In Werle's gifts to Old Ekdal, his support of Hialmar's career, and in his employment of Old Ekdal for copy work, what we initially read as minor conversation points become major foci of Gregers' fixation on the Ekdal family, since Gregers reads each additional piece of charity as evidence of further and further deceit on Werle's part. Similarly, Gregers' conversation with Hialmar only serves to enrage Gregers more, since the information that Hialmar provides Gregers deepens his suspicions towards Werle. Werle's own conversation with his son exacerbates Gregers's suspicions, and the rumors that Gregers brings up are accepted as more or less true by the audience, since we have at this point no evidence to the contrary. Finally, as mentioned, the idea of being the 13th at a table will recur later in the play, but instead of focusing on Hialmar as the outsider among a group, the referent of the idea will later shift to Gregers, whose actions in service of truth wind up severely injuring the Ekdal family. Together then, when one looks at the elements of the first act and sees how they lay the bases for the majority of the drama's narrative arc, one sees that Ibsen has accomplished a striking amount in just several short pages of dialogue.
This is not, however, to say that Act 1 serves as an unbiased overture to the play. The act is the only one in the entire play set outside of the apartments of the Ekdal family and, moreover, is situated directly in the home of Werle. Accordingly, the act is a bit more intimate with the Werle family than other acts and the scrutiny given to Werle in Act 1—especially the negative attention and suspicion directed at him from Gregers—is heightened. This, in turn, produces the effect for readers that Gregers is a righteous figure, whose pursuit of the truth leads him to both spurn his own father and reject his business proposal (which, no doubt, would have made Gregers wealthy). What we as readers do not know yet, however, is that Gregers is too committed to the ideals of truth, willing to pursue truth and force it upon others at any cost.
What we see in Act 1 appears to be Gregers rightfully calling out his father for his past and present misdeeds, but what we do not know is that Gregers is merely dragging up old information that no one wants to know or needs to speak about. Because the act is so focused on the Werle household, we are unable to take the revelations given to us in Act 1 and place them in the context of the Ekdal family. Doing so, as is done in the remaining acts, shows how truly devastating the consequences of both Werle's and Gregers' actions are. Thus, while Act 1 does establish a great deal about the play's context and the bases of drama that is to follow, it crucially centers around Werle and Gregers—a stylistic choice Ibsen likely made in order to throw us off of Gregers, letting the horrors of his actions slowly unfold in the coming acts.
