The Wild Duck
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The Wild Duck (original Norwegian title: Vildanden) is a 1884 play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.
The Wild Duck is considered by many to be Ibsen's finest work, and it is certainly the most complex. It tells the story of Gregers Werle, a young man who returns to his hometown after an extended exile and is reunited with his boyhood friend Hjalmar Ekdal. Over the course of the play the many secrets that lie behind the Ekdals' apparently happy home are revealed to Gregers, who insists on pursuing the absolute truth, or the "Summons of the Ideal". Among these truths: Gregers' father impregnated his servant Gina, then married her off to Hjalmar to legitimize the child. Another man has been disgraced and imprisoned for a crime the elder Werle committed. And while Hjalmar spends his days working on a wholly imaginary "invention", his wife is earning the household income.
However, in this play the revelation of the truth is not a happy event because it rips up the foundation of the Ekdal family. One of the famous quotes from the doctor Relling who built up and maintained the lies the family is founded on is "If you take away the lie of life from an average human, you take away his happiness at the same time."
In 1963 the play was made into a motion picture by Tancred Ibsen, Henrik Ibsen's grandson.
List of characters
- Merchant Werle
- Gregers Werle
- Old Ekdal
- Hjalmar Ekdal
- Gina Ekdal
- Hedvig
- Mrs. Sørby
- Relling
- Molvik
- Book-keeper Gråberg
- A flabby gentleman
- A balding gentleman
- A short sighted gentleman
See also
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