Summary
Act 3 takes place the following day, just after Gregers has moved in. In doing so, however, Gregers has made a big mess in his room while attempting to light the stove, which irritates both Gina and Hialmar.
Hialmar, for his part, is supposed to retouch photos for his business (for which Gina also coincidentally keeps books and retouches), and Gina keeps pestering him to get work done while Old Ekdal distracts him with the garret. Eventually, eager to avoid his work and do more exciting things, Hialmar allows Hedvig to take the retouching on while he assists his father in the garret with work for the wild duck.
While Gina is preparing a lunchtime meal and Hialmar is in the garret with his father, Gregers comes in and talks with Hedvig. He learns from her that the garret used to belong to a sailor called "The Flying Dutchman," who has since died and left a treasure trove of books and curios in the garret (like a book on London that fascinates Hedvig). She believes that, in the garret, time seems to stand still. Gregers engages Hedvig in conversation, and he seems to take advantage of her curiosity to make her question the reality of things. For example, he tells her that she ought to think of the garret as a kind of "bottom of the sea" (gesturing towards the image of the wild duck plunging to the bottom of the sea after being shot) and he asks her if she is sure that the garret is merely a garret, and nothing else (42).
Shots then ring out in the garret, surprising Gregers. Hialmar emerges with a pistol and tells Gregers that they are able to hunt and shoot in the garret without others hearing, making it a perfect diversion for Old Ekdal. In a private conversation, Hialmar then tells Gregers that his life's mission is to restore Old Ekdal's name and financially support his family. He mentions that the pistol he's holding was once owned by Old Ekdal, who almost used it to commit suicide after his public downfall and shame. Later, Hialmar says, he himself almost used it to commit suicide rather than cope with the public shame of his family's humiliation. What saved him, Hialmar explains, was his family, for whom he also hopes to make an invention that will allow him to execute his life's mission. He tells Gregers that he lives his whole life in tender sympathy towards his father, whose humiliation and pain is so great that he wears his forbidden military clothes around the house but hides as soon as he comes to the door. After hearing Hialmar speak about his family's honor, Gregers strongly believes that Hialmar is a naive but fundamentally good soul. He then tells Hialmar of his plans to uplift him from the "poisonous marsh" he has fallen into (47).
Lunch then takes place, with Molvik and Relling coming up to join as guests. Molvik has a humorous episode displaying his hangover from the previous night, and he leaves. Hialmar then mentions that the following day is Hedvig's birthday, and this gets Relling talking about how devoted a wife Gina is and how nice of a family spread the Ekdals are able to put on.
Relling, who knew Gregers at the Höidal works, then centers their discussion on how destructive of a presence Gregers was in the past, hurting others in his pursuit of something he called the "claim of the ideal" (48). Relling presses Gregers on what he takes to be Gregers' unfounded and irrational idealism, but this only gets Gregers talking in rather dark and desperate terms about the Ekdal family situation, saying that they are subject to poison "marsh vapours" (50; again evoking the image of the duck drowning in the marsh after being shot).
Suddenly, just as the conversation reaches a heated point, Werle himself comes to the door. Here, Gregers explicitly reveals his plan of opening Hialmar's eyes to his father, and he once again rebuffs his propositions. We also learn here that Werle was to gain a sizable dowry from Gregers' mother, though this never actually came to pass.
As Act 3 closes, Gregers takes Ekdal out on a long walk to tell him the truth, and Relling meanwhile tells Gina that Gregers has gone mad with "an acute attack of integrity," which he calls a "national disease" (53).
Analysis
Since it represents the point at which Gregers begins to insinuate himself among the Ekdal family, Act 3 is where things truly begin to sour. As readers or audience members, we know that this is the case from the very beginning of the act, when Gina tells Hialmar that Gregers has made a large mess in their spare room just after moving in as a tenant. While lighting his stove, Gregers screwed the damper down too much and caused his room to fill with smoke, and when he attempted to remedy the situation by throwing water on the stove, he caused a huge puddle to form on his floor. This is clear foreshadowing of the consequences of Gregers' endeavor—he wants to tell Hialmar the truth in order to free him (i.e., lighting the stove), but when this produces undesirable consequences, his attempt to remedy things (i.e., throwing water) will in fact make things much worse. Gregers' mess also shows, to a degree, his incompetence or distance from ordinary life, which casts doubt on the righteousness of his truth-telling mission. This, however, is a matter for the later acts.
In Act 3, then, what is at the forefront is the past history and tragedies of the Ekdal family, as well as how these elements push Gregers even further on his quest to expose the truths of the Ekdal family. In Gregers' conversations with Hedvig at the act's beginning, for example, we see the way in which "The Flying Dutchman" is a clear precursor for the figure of Old Ekdal, an old and hardy lover of nature who was sealed away in an apartment room where only hollow substitutions could be picked out as replacements for the majesty of the natural life lost. In the Dutchman's case, this is through his collection of curios and books on foreign lands (i.e., the book on London), and in Ekdal's case, this is accomplished through the artificial hunting grounds of the garret, shown in full force just afterwards. Additionally, in Gregers' conversation with Hedvig, it becomes clear to both Gregers and audience members that Hedvig, too, has something of the wild duck in her: she, like the wild duck, is isolated from her friends (she gave up her schooling because of her eyesight), and—though we do not know it yet—she is of unknown parentage, just like the duck. This is what drives Gregers to manipulate Hedvig's young sense of wonder in later acts—just as is he willing to have the duck killed in later acts—and it is also what he is driving at when he suggests that the garret, where Hedvig feels at home, may be a kind of "bottom of the sea" (42). A more minor point is that Gregers is only able to talk to Hedvig alone because she is doing the retouching work meant for her father, who is instead dawdling in the garret with his father.
Gregers' subsequent conversation with Hialmar is immensely revealing regarding the emotional weight of the Ekdal family's past. Though the pistol Hialmar uses to hunt in the garret is used now for more jovial purposes, it was once the weapon that both Old Ekdal and Hialmlar considered using to take their own lives with. Such was the utter shame and cost of being ostracized from society, entering financial hardships, and losing everything.
Hialmar's subsequent assertion that it was hope for his own family that saved him is also revealing in two ways. First, it undermines Gregers' mission of revealing the truth by showing that Hialmar truly loves his family and is content in his current state of ignorance. Second, it confirms what we will later learn from Relling in Act 5—that is, that maintaining a "life-illusion" (in Hialmar's case, restoring his family's name and wealth with an invention that never comes to fruition) is essential if one is to be kept from falling into existential dread and despondency. Here, too, Hialmar paints a tender, regretful, and conciliatory portrait of his father, which both endears Hialmar to Gregers even more and reveals the true depth of Werle's past injuries to the Ekdal family.
Lunch then sees the first sparks of the conflict that will ultimately lead to the Ekdal family's total ruination. When Relling brings up Gregers' own past, he sheds light on the fact that Gregers was a nuisance at the Höidal works, spreading discord and sadness with his ludicrous "claims of the ideal." This pushes Gregers to the breaking point, and he starts talking like a madman about the desperate conditions in which the Ekdals unknowingly live. Here, then when Werle comes to the door, it is fitting that Gregers reveals his plan explicitly for the first time, and ironic that he does so to the very person who has set Hialmar up happily, though perhaps disingenuously, with a wife and career. It is also fitting that we see once again the centrality of economic concerns to the play's characters in the form of Werle's non-existent dowry. Finally, it is important in this conversation between Werle and his son that Werle mentions his son's sickly mind, another clue that perhaps Gregers' quest is not a righteous one. Together then, these elements in the third act all serve to both ratchet up the dramatic tension and also cast Gregers in a less flattering light, just in time for him to disappear with Hialmar and tell him everything.
