Title
The Wild Duck Themes
Truth and Falsehood
Truth and falsehood are major themes in The Wild Duck. Gregers is determined that Hjalmar learn the truth about Gina's past and why Hakon Werle has been so helpful to the family. Hjalmar has lived in blissful ignorance, never questioning why Hakon decided to be of such service to him and his family. He leads a contented life and actively seeks to avoid unpleasantness, as he childishly tells Gregers. Gina protects Hjalmar from unpleasant economic realities, truly catering to all his needs, both his physical and emotional ones. Hedvig adores him, never seeing how he makes use of her love. For instance, though he worries about her sight, he lets her do eye-straining work of retouching photographs so he can play in the attic with his father. His life is based on one simple, yet determined falsehood: the photographic device that he will never invent.
The Wild Duck Introduction
In a letter accompanying the manuscript for The Wild Duck, Henrik Ibsen wrote to his publisher, "This new play in many ways occupies a place of its own among my dramas; the method is in various respects a departure from my earlier one. ... The critics, will, I hope, find the points; in any case, they will find plenty to quarrel about, plenty to misinterpret." Ibsen, however, was disappointed in these early expectations. When the play opened in Scandinavia early in 1885, critics paid relatively little attention to it. The play soon traveled throughout the continent. While a few luminaries commended it notably the playwright George Bernard Shaw and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke most early critics found the play incomprehensible and incoherent. Audiences, as well, showed little positive response to The Wild Duck.
The Wild Duck Author Biography
Ibsen was born in 1828 in a small town in Norway. When he was fifteen years old, Ibsen left his family's home to begin an apprenticeship as an apothecary. Two years later, Ibsen fathered a child with an older housemaid,
Truth and Falsehood
Truth and falsehood are major themes in The Wild Duck. Gregers is determined that Hjalmar learn the truth about Gina's past and why Hakon Werle has been so helpful to the family. Hjalmar has lived in blissful ignorance, never questioning why Hakon decided to be of such service to him and his family. He leads a contented life and actively seeks to avoid unpleasantness, as he childishly tells Gregers. Gina protects Hjalmar from unpleasant economic realities, truly catering to all his needs, both his physical and emotional ones. Hedvig adores him, never seeing how he makes use of her love. For instance, though he worries about her sight, he lets her do eye-straining work of retouching photographs so he can play in the attic with his father. His life is based on one simple, yet determined falsehood: the photographic device that he will never invent.
The Wild Duck Introduction
In a letter accompanying the manuscript for The Wild Duck, Henrik Ibsen wrote to his publisher, "This new play in many ways occupies a place of its own among my dramas; the method is in various respects a departure from my earlier one. ... The critics, will, I hope, find the points; in any case, they will find plenty to quarrel about, plenty to misinterpret." Ibsen, however, was disappointed in these early expectations. When the play opened in Scandinavia early in 1885, critics paid relatively little attention to it. The play soon traveled throughout the continent. While a few luminaries commended it notably the playwright George Bernard Shaw and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke most early critics found the play incomprehensible and incoherent. Audiences, as well, showed little positive response to The Wild Duck.
The Wild Duck Author Biography
Ibsen was born in 1828 in a small town in Norway. When he was fifteen years old, Ibsen left his family's home to begin an apprenticeship as an apothecary. Two years later, Ibsen fathered a child with an older housemaid,