The Wild Duck (Norton Critical Edition) [Paperback]

Henrik Ibsen (Author), Dounia B. Christiani (Editor, Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1985

The only play in which Ibsen denies the validity of revolt, The Wild Duck suggests that under certain conditions, domestic falsehoods are entirely necessary to survival. Plays for Performance Series.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Drama in five acts by Henrik Ibsen, published in 1884 as Vildanden and produced the following year. In the play, an idealistic outsider's gratuitous truth-telling destroys a family. Gregers Werle, who has a compulsion to tell the truth at all costs, reveals to the Ekdal family certain unasked-for information about each family member's past. The knowledge destroys their illusions and their family life. As the final destructive act Hedvig, the Ekdals' adolescent daughter, kills herself after Werle informs the family that she may be the illegitimate daughter of a man other than her beloved father. --erriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Language Notes

Text: English, Norwegian (translation) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 226 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (December 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393098257
• ISBN-13: 978-0393098259
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,582,361 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Wild Duck We Know, September 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Wild Duck (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

Many find Ibsen difficult to understand. I certainly did. However, by reading The Wild Duck, I was introduced to an entire new world of symbolism and creative writing. Like the master he was, Ibsen paints a portrait of a family, representing all of us, living on a lie. Cruelty in our midst, innocent victimes and pragmatists losing to the vindictive, it's all there. The touches of comedy and tragedy just increase the impression that it does concern us, that really, he's looked into our lives and seen our lies, although hopefully in a less extreme version. And don't we all know a Hedvig, a Gina, a Hjalmar and a Gregers? Maybe there's something of the all in all of us... The book sucks you in, creeps under your skin and stays there, along with the horror, the anger and the sympathy you feel while reading. In my opinion, one of the best examples of Ibsen's less romantic period of writing.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars is there a hialmar ekdal fan club?, December 5, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Wild Duck (Norton Critical Edition) (Paperback)

Ibsen's philosophical "message" in this play disturbs me. I don't think I agree with Dr. Relling that each of us needs his own brand of self-deception to cope with life. Certainly Hialmar Ekdal is content enough, and hilariously funny as an lazy fool who thinks he's a creative genius in photograhy, a breadwinner to his wife and daughter, and a martyr to his father's scandalous past. Alas, his friend Gregers Werl points the way to the truth, that Hialmar is deceived about everything in his life. It would all be comical but for the fact that Hialmar's daugher Hedvig, who is probably not his daugther at all, shoots herself as proof of her love for Hialmar. So, Ibsen seems to say, here the truth has cost a young girl's life, an unbearable tragedy but for the fact that she was going blind. Well, no doubt there is cost in knowing the truth about oneself and about others, no doubt there are things we prefer not to know, and no doubt there are people like Hialmar who are impervious to truth. But there are also people like Hialmar's wife Gina, and Dr. Relling himself, who know the truth and who hold up nobly and well. For at least these, I think Ibsen should recommend truth in large doses, and perhaps he does.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Do people need a "life illusion" to live happily?, July 6, 2010

By 

Israel Drazin (Boca Raton, Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Wild Duck: A Play in Five Acts (Paperback)

Werle is a successful merchant. His previous partner Ekdal was found guilty of a crime, although it becomes clear in Ibsen's play that Werle committed it. Ekdal served time in prison for Werle's crime and is now, after his release, a broken man. Werle eases his conscience by giving him some copying work to do, so that he has pocket money.

When Ekdal went to prison, Werle also gave Ekdal's son, Hialmar, money to start a photography business on a small scale, a business that Hialmar does not like very much. And he gave him his mistress as a wife without telling him of his relationship with her.

Hialmar's wife has a daughter with an eye disease. She is now fourteen years old. Hialmar has been married for under fifteen years. Ekdal lives with his son and his family and raises some animals in the garret, including a wild duck that Werle shot but did not kill because he has an eye disease. The duck was snatched and bitten by one of Werle's dogs and is slightly lame. It tried to hide in water and is hurt for being there too long. Werle told one of his men to kill the duck, but Ekdal rescued it.

Werle has a son, Gregers, who considers himself a friend of Hialmar. Gregers is bothered by his involvement in the nefarious deeds of his father. He believes in the ennobling value of truth, sincerity, and the ideal. He feels that he must reveal all the things that Hialmar does not know about his wife. He is misguidedly convinced that that the revelation of the truth will make Hialmar's marriage ideal.

The wounded wild duck is obviously a symbol. Gregers thinks that Ekdal and his son have "something of the wild duck" in them. Are they the only ones? Is everyone in the play a wounded wild duck? How can a wounded duck be cured?

After Gregers reveals Hialmar's wife's past to Hialmar and Hialmar is distraught, Hialmar's doctor tells Gregers that he will heal Hialmar by "cultivating the life-illusion in him." The Norwegian word literally means "the life-lie." The doctor says, "Rob the average man of his life-illusion, and you rob him of his happiness at the same stroke." The doctor is clearly saying that the average person needs "the life-lie" in order to live, and cannot survive happily with the truth or the ideal.