Summary
At the start of Act 5, Gina and Hedvig are wondering where Hialmar went the previous night, and they suspect that he went out with Relling and Molvik. Relling then arrives, confirming that Hialmar was with them the previous night.
While Gina and Hedvig go into the sitting room, Relling and Gregers then discuss why Hialmar has been so troubled by this series of revelations. Gregers says that Hialmar should be liberated with the revelation of truth, having a simple mind, but Relling says that Hialmar is a far more complex man than this, having excelled at university. He also tells Gregers that everyone must have a "life-illusion" of purpose, regardless of how false it is, to avoid falling into desperation (75). This is why Relling pushed Hialmar to start work on an invention—in order to blissfully occupy him and to solidify the illusion of his stable family life after the earlier catastrophe involving Old Ekdal. Similarly, Relling tells Gregers that he has labeled Molvik as a "dæmonic" figure so as to "keep up a spark of life in him," when in reality no such condition exists and he is merely an abject drunk (75).
Gregers reminds Hedvig of what she has to do in order to win Hialmar back, and Hedvig then attempts to have Old Ekdal shoot the wild duck for her. However, he refuses. She then takes the pistol earlier used by her father and goes into the garret to kill the duck herself.
Hialmar then returns from his night out, preparing to pack his things and leave Gina forever. She gently coaxes him down from this extreme, though he is still mad and intends to leave her and Hedvig in a slower fashion. He also states his intent to repair the deed of gift so that their family can be provided for more easily. After all, the gift is for his father first and foremost, and his respect for his father will not allow him to destroy such an opportunity without consulting him first. Gina then leaves to start packing Hialmar's things.
Gregers comes in again, and he speaks with Hialmar about whether or not Hedvig has ever truly loved Hialmar. Hialmar wonders if Hedvig was even surprised to receive the gift from Mrs. Sörby. Finally, Gregers tells Hialmar that he need not leave, since Hedvig has resolved to have the wild duck, the living symbol of Werle's original treachery, killed in order to show her love for her father (she treasures the duck, so her willingness to sacrifice it shows that she really does value Hialmar above everything). Suddenly, a shot is heard in the garret. Gregers rejoices, thinking that Old Ekdal has ended the family's misery. Old Ekdal, however, enters the room from the other side, now dressed in his full military uniform.
When they go to investigate the garret, then they find that Hedvig has accidentally shot herself. Tragedy abounds, and Gina and Hialmar are reconciled at last over Hedvig's death, taking her away. Dr. Relling, however, does not believe that Hedvig died by accident: since her dress is scorched from the gun's powder, he believes that she deliberately shot herself. Relling blames Gregers for her death because of his manipulation and imposition of his extreme idealism on the family. Relling again spurns Gregers for misunderstanding Hialmar, saying that Hialmar will not move on from Hedvig's death and that he will become a drunk within no time. This shakes Gregers, who then leaves, only saying that he is going towards his destiny, which is to be "the thirteenth at table" (implying either Jesus or Judas at the Last Supper).
Relling then closes the play by calling him a devil.
Analysis
While the play's final act sees its tragic climax (i.e., the death/suicide of Hedvig), it also notably contains the strongest distillation of the play's central tension—framed in the argument between Gregers and Relling—between truth and falsehood. At the same time, it lays bare the total desolation of Hialmar's mindset, as well as sees the total dissolution of Gregers' plan as his final attempt to reconcile the Ekdals (i.e., by having the duck killed) fails miserably.
With regard to the first point, the discussion between Relling and Gregers at the beginning of the act sees the most pointed and clear exploration of the truth/lies dichotomy that lies at the center of the play. When Gregers asks Relling what his explanation is for the "spiritual tumult" that plagues Hialmar, Relling replies in a way that makes Gregers immediately indignant (73). Gregers, after all, believes that Hialmar is a naive and child-like person, easily swayed towards his ideals like his daughter Hedvig. Accordingly, Gregers fails to see why the truth troubles Hialmar and prevents him from reconciling with his wife and family. Relling, on the other hand, totally undermines Gregers' assumptions by informing him that, while he was away, Hialmar was a handsome and smart rascal at the local university, passing for a local hope for a better future. This is immensely dismaying to Gregers, but what Relling says afterwards is even more disquieting. He tells Gregers that the reason Hialmar is so upset is because his "life-illusion" has been shattered (75). Relling claims that the life-illusion, a fictive yet coherent vision of one's self solidified by outside perception and reinforced by those around him, is what keeps everybody from falling into despondency and existential dread. In Molvik's case, Relling tells Gregers that the idea of him being "dæmonic" is a mere invention to prevent him from confronting the miserable truth of his own drunkenness (75). Similarly, in Hialmar's case, Relling has done his best to keep Hialmar focused on uplifting his family from their tragic past, something he was able to do by suggesting the invention as a goal for Hialmar.
Importantly, at the tail end of this debate, Relling accuses Gregers of being totally indifferent to local and real concerns: "While I think of it, Mr. Werle, junior—don't use that foreign word: ideals. We have the excellent native word: lies" (75). This very dramatic and sharp quote serves two important purposes. First, it strikingly reframes the debate between truth and lies in the play: while until this point, Relling and others have been arguing that lies are ordinary and necessary to preserve one's daily life, here Relling flips the script by totally recasting Gregers' ideals as lies themselves. Truly, in the context of the Ekdal family, one does well to question whether Gregers' hollow ideals serve the family any better than the lies with which they have surrounded themselves. Second, it frames the question of truth and falsehood as one of national importance and scope. Earlier in Act 3, Relling suggested that integrity was a national disease that periodically plagued Norwegians, so to see the argument here reiterated in a different way is no accident. This is also underscored by Gregers' status as a literal outsider from the community in which The Wild Duck is set, having been away at the Höidal works for the past 15 years.
Also significant in this act is the insight readers and audience members get into Hialmar's mindset during his conversation with Gina. As mentioned, over the course of the fourth and fifth acts, Hialmar becomes far more practical in his distrust of Werle and Gina, desiring to have the deed repaired to help his father and reconciling himself to move out more slowly than he originally planned. At the same time, however, one cannot possibly ignore the fact that here, more than ever, Hialmar is troubled by the question of Hedvig's love for him. This is a deep irony, of course, because of the lengths she is willing to go for her father, not just by killing the wild duck, but also in killing herself (whether intentionally or not) using the very pistol that he once used to contemplate the same action. It seems that this question of Hedvig's love is the only major thing keeping Hialmar from reconciling with Gina, so it is fitting that at this moment, Gregers enters the scene and tells them of his plan for Hedvig. The fact that the plan derails so severely, however, is another indictment of Gregers' character, intelligence, and philosophies.
Perhaps the final stain on Gregers' reputation is the fact that Relling chooses to confide the facts of Hedvig's death with him only. After Gina and Hialmar have left the room with her body, Relling reveals to Gregers alone that he believes Hedvig's death to be a suicide. This is done out of courtesy towards Gina and Hialmar and is commensurate with keeping up a bit of life-illusion in them. At the same time, however, Relling knows that no life-illusion will be able to keep Hialmar from the fate that now awaits him—drunkenness and sadness. He argues with Gregers over this topic, once again asserting that Hialmar will not be ennobled by Hedvig's death, despite Gregers' assumptions. It is this contention that perhaps finally reveals to Gregers his own complicity in ruining the family, all in service of a hollow ideal that bears no relation to real life: "If you are right and I am wrong, then life is not worth living" (87). As the play ends, then, one of the first images is reversed, taking the idea of being 13th at a table and forcing it on Gregers, whose outsider status is now fully realized and actualized. Here, also, it carries an air of the Last Supper, with Gregers standing in as a kind of Judas figure or martyred Jesus figure (depending on how much self-pity one feels Gregers still has at this point). Relling, however, is under no illusions and will give Gregers no such grandeur: he closes simply by letting Gregers know that he is a "devil" through and through (87).
