The Wild Duck: Journal Two

Narrative Structure


The Wild Duck's plot is structured into five acts. This makes the play -while being read- certainly feel like it was meant for a stage, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It makes the play seem more realistic, and organic. It is hard to make a complete judgement of the acts effect, since we are only two deep, however. The acts do not pick up directly where the previous left off, but offer a new perspective as each on begins. Another interesting feature of this play is that it seems to have no single protagonist, with the stories' structure switching each act from one character to the next. The first act seems to focus more on Gregers and his return/his relationship with his father, while the second act seems to focus Hjalmar/his relationship with his family. In this way it seems like the author constructs a parallel structure within the plot, subtly weaving in disagreements and illusions within what appears to be functional families.

Although we have not gotten as far as the end of the play yet, I am aware of it. It seems to me that the end of the play is quite vital, in that it is the ultimatum of all the characters' actions. In the end of the play, due to Gregers' exposure of Hjalmar's poor treatment of his family, as well as the truth about his wife, Hedvig decides to kill herself. This is interesting, because Ibsen uses this to make a critique of virtually all the characters in the play. The time period which this spans is actually unknown to me, although it takes place some time after 1875. Because the play is set so close to the turn of the century, Ibsen may have been using the time of the play to make a critique about so called "progressive" society; although I cannot make that claim for certain because my historical background of the play is limited. The actual time of which the play takes place over is also unknown to me, although I would make the guess around two or three weeks.