Reading Order
The Wild Duck Reading Order
The Wild Duck (1884) by Henrik Ibsen is his most complex and most self-interrogating play — a direct questioning of the idealism that had animated A Doll's House and Ghosts. Gregers Werle arrives at the Ekdal household convinced that the truth must be told and that its consequences will be liberating; what actually happens is that his truth-telling destroys the household, kills the fourteen-year-old Hedvig, and leaves nothing but wreckage. The wild duck itself — wounded and unable to fly, living in a basket in the attic, cared for by Hedvig — is the central symbol: it is the Ekdal family, adapted to their diminished and illusion-sustaining life; it is what idealism does to people who were managing perfectly well with their lies; it is the beautiful and fragile thing that is destroyed by the person who wants to save it. The Wild Duck is the hardest of Ibsen's plays to stage and the most intellectually demanding — which is why it is also the most rewarding.
Where to start
The Wild Duck (1884) — the complete play in one of the standard translations: Michael Meyer (Methuen), William Archer (Project Gutenberg), or Stephen Mulrine (Nick Hern Books). Best reading order: A Doll's House → Ghosts → An Enemy of the People → The Wild Duck (the plays in which Ibsen's treatment of truth-telling becomes progressively more complex and self-critical)
Complete The Wild Duck Book List
- 1Buy
The Wild Duck
Henrik Ibsen·1884·The pivot work — Gregers Werle's idealistic truth-telling destroying the Ekdal family and Hedvig. The play in which Ibsen interrogates the idealism of his own earlier work, asking what happens when the truth is applied not to strong people who can face it but to ordinary ones who cannot - 2Buy
A Doll's House
Henrik Ibsen·1879·The necessary companion and the target of The Wild Duck's self-examination — the play whose argument (that truth liberates) The Wild Duck then questions. Nora's truth-telling works because Nora is exceptional; what The Wild Duck asks is what happens when Gregers Werle applies the same imperative to the Ekdals, who are not exceptional and whose ability to function depends on the illusions Gregers destroys - 3Buy
Ghosts
Henrik Ibsen·1882·The immediate predecessor — Mrs. Alving's revelation of the truth about Captain Alving's life. Ghosts is the play in which truth-telling is still the hero; The Wild Duck is the play in which truth-telling becomes the villain. Reading them in order shows the development of Ibsen's thinking about the relationship between honesty and happiness - 4Buy
Hedda Gabler
Henrik Ibsen·1891·The later companion — the complex portrait of another person of will and intelligence in a world that has no adequate use for them. The Wild Duck and Hedda Gabler are companion plays in which Ibsen moves from social problem drama (A Doll's House, Ghosts) toward psychological complexity: in both plays, the destructive agent has understandable motives, the victims are partly complicit in their destruction, and the moral structure is too complex to reduce to a single judgment - 5Buy
An Enemy of the People
Henrik Ibsen·1882·The companion play from the same period — Dr. Stockmann's discovery that the town's baths are polluted and the community's resistance to the truth. An Enemy of the People and The Wild Duck are companion explorations of truth-telling and its consequences: in An Enemy of the People, truth-telling is heroic (Dr. Stockmann stands against the crowd); in The Wild Duck, truth-telling is catastrophic (Gregers destroys a family). They are Ibsen's two possible verdicts on the same act - 6Buy
Major Barbara
George Bernard Shaw·1905·Shaw's companion in the tradition of the problem play that interrogates its own idealism — Barbara's discovery that her father's munitions money underlies the Salvation Army's good works. Major Barbara and The Wild Duck are companion investigations of what happens when an idealist (Barbara; Gregers) discovers that their idealism is implicated in the world they want to reform - 7Buy
Long Day's Journey into Night
Eugene O'Neill·1956·O'Neill's 1941 companion (published 1956) in the tradition of the family play about illusion and truth — the Tyrones' terrible day of accusation and recognition. Like The Wild Duck, Long Day's Journey into Night is organized around the question of what truth-telling does to a family whose ability to function depends on mutual illusions; unlike Ibsen, O'Neill shows the truth being told without the consolation of symbolic resolution - 8Buy
The Cherry Orchard
Anton Chekhov·1904·The Russian companion in the tradition of the play about illusion and its costs — the Ranevskaya family's inability to face the reality of their situation until the cherry orchard has been sold and the axes begin. Both The Wild Duck and The Cherry Orchard are organized around people who cannot face a truth (that the orchard must be sold; that the Ekdals are living on illusions), and both show the consequences of this inability with the same compassionate refusal to judge
The Wild Duck — Frequently Asked Questions
What does the wild duck symbolize in The Wild Duck?
The wild duck is one of the most layered symbols in the dramatic canon. At its most literal level, it is the wounded duck that old Lieutenant Ekdal found in the attic and that Hedvig cares for — a duck that was shot down by Håkon Werle (Gregers's father), dove to the bottom of the sea (a lake bed below the attic), and was retrieved by a dog but now lives in captivity, adapted to its diminished circumstances. At the symbolic level, the duck is the Ekdal family: people who have been wounded (by Håkon Werle's business dealings, which destroyed Lieutenant Ekdal and which have left Haakon Werle in possession of what was rightfully theirs), who have adapted to a diminished life in which they sustain themselves with illusions (the 'forest' in the attic), and who are managing adequately until Gregers's idealism intervenes. Most importantly, the duck is what Gregers does to Hedvig: his demand that she prove her love for her father by sacrificing 'what she holds most dear' destroys the thing he intended to liberate, just as his truth-telling about her parentage destroys the family he intended to save.
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