Read Act 5
1) What is a tragedy?
2) Is the Wild Duck a tragedy? Explain.
3) Who is the tragic hero, why?
4) Are there any other characters who are tragic heroes?
5) Who is not a tragic hero, why?
Journal 5: The Wild Duck by Ibsen - (Tragedy)
1) A tragedy is a piece of literary work or a drama where one or more leading characters are eventually faced with devastation or extreme sadness. This is caused by a characters’ terrible weakness, personal failing, moral weakness, or the inability to cope with unfortunate situations that he or she could not deal with. The events that occur happen often through no fault of any character in the play.
2) I think that The Wild Duck is a tragedy because this play involves characters that have tragic or moral flaws that seriously damaged Hjalmar’s relationship with Gina. Each leading character meets devastation or sorrow depending on how much influence they had on their relationship.
For instance, Hjalmar’s moral flaw was that he had a strong tendency to pass the blame to someone except himself. When he forgets to bring the candy that he promised for Hedvig, in act two, he does not accept responsibility, but blames something else. Hjalmar states that, “I forgot to bring anything else, I tell you. But take my word for it: it’s bad business, this doting on sugar candy.” (144). This moral flaw was further amplified when Gregers told Hjalmar the truth about Gina’s past in act four. In act five, he starts blaming Hedvig saying, “She’s managed to blot the sun right out of my life.” (211).
3) In my opinion, the tragic hero is Hjalmar because he was one of the leading characters destined for downfall. His decisions with regards to his relationship with Gina were strongly influenced by Gregers’s input even though he was the head of the household. As the story progresses he develops accusations and misperceptions of Werle, Mrs. Sorby, and Hedvig. This happens every time Gregers intervenes and gives his opinions. Hjalmar’s tragic flaw was that he instantly supported all of Gregers’s opinions without question or thought to the consequences it would have on Gina, Hedvig, and Old Ekdal. Gregers unknowingly put immense pressure on Hjalmar because he was the son of Haakon Werle which represented money, power, and indebtedness. Such pressure put Hjalmar in a situation where he was not able to make the right and just decisions with regards to his relationship with Gina and Hedvig. He expresses his anger towards Gina in the quote, “Tell me - don’t you every day, every hour, regret this spider web of deception you’ve spun around me - (kicking at a chair.) my whole home - I owe it to a favored predecessor.” (183). Hjalmar blindly accepts the truth that Gregers gave him without considering the fourteen to fifteen years of good life with his family. In addition, he let his own emotions decide for himself. This resulted in the devastation of a relationship and death of Hedvig. Dr. Relling reflects on this situation saying, “We’ll be lectured on this when the first grass shows on her grave…you can hear him spewing out phrases about ‘the child torn too soon from her father’s heart,’ and you’ll have your chance to watch him souse himself in conceit and self-pity.” (216). Hedvig’s death affects Hjalmar’s outlook on life because he had a good relationship with her. Her death will also cause a blot in Hjalmar’s relationship with Gina. Eventually, his trust to society will not be the same anymore - always suspicious.
4) Gregers seems to be a tragic hero because his morals of “true marriage” were defeated when Hjalmar’s family was thrown into turmoil. It was his moral flaw to be too idealistic which affected his friend’s comfortable life of lies. Initially, he grew up in a life of torment with his father who was a philanderer and his mother who was the victim of the philanderer. Later in life, he worked in solitude at Hoidal works, not taking in any pay because he need time to think things over. After a while of working there, he came to the realization that his father was using women for their money. During Gregers’s converstation with Hjalmar the dinner party at Werle’s house, he came to the conclusion that Gina, his housekeeper, was married to Hjalmar as part of a set up. He found that Werle had disassociated himself with her by manipulating the situation so that Hjalmar would marry Gina. Gregers could not take his father’s abuse of women so he tried to talk it out with his father which was not successful. He eventually decided to make it his life’s mission to inform Hjalmar of the truth in hopes that he would live a “true marriage” and exclude Werle from his life. However, Hjalmar did not blame Werle for this but instead blamed his own family members. If Gregers wanted Hjalmar to know the full truth about his marriage, why was Hjalmar not informed that Werle had set up Old Ekdal to go to jail? What were Gregers’s real intentions toward his father? His downfall finally came when he admitted his destiny as the “thirteenth man at the table” (216) to Dr. Relling. In Norwegian Mythology, Loki was the thirteenth god to enter the Halls of Valhalla where twelve gods and goddesses were holding festivities. Here he killed Baldur, the son of the god Odin. This was confirmed by Dr. Relling when he said, “Oh, the hell you say” (216) which referred to Hel, one of the sons of Loki.
Gina is possibly a tragic hero because she had to keep a dark & shameful secret from Hjalmar. Her secret was that Haakon Werle forced himself on her. Her mom had advocated their relationship just because of money and power. This was an unfavorable circumstance for her. If she had informed Hjalmar about this, he would have reached a wiser decision, in my opinion. This was her personal failing that caused a major problem in her relationship with Hjalmar. Her relationship with Hjalmar is brought down when Hjalmar says, “Just answer me this: does Hedvig belong to me-or? Well!” (195). At that point, his trust for his own family is gone and there was nothing between him and Gina that prevented him from getting out the house. The final blow came when Hedvig died.
Hedvig is a tragic hero because of her tragic flaw of misunderstanding what Hjalmar means in most of his conversations. Hedvig shot herself after she heard her father say to Gregers, “If I asked her then: Hedvig are you willing to give up life for me?” (212). This is because of the extreme affection she had with her father after he had left the house as in the quote, “I think I’ll die from all this. What did I do to him? Mother, you’ve got to make him come home!” (196). She was confused and distraught as to why her father left. To her, her father was the puzzle piece that kept the family together.
5) Relling is not a tragic hero because he remained neutral in most of his encounters with Hjalmar and Gregers. He told the truth about them and did not cause conflict in his or anyone’s life. At one point in act three, he had warned Gregers that his belief in informing Hjalmar of the truth would be devastating to their relationship saying, “Can’t you see the man’s mad, crazy, out of his skull” (177). Mrs. Sorby is not a tragic hero as well because she did not intend to influence any character. She was just a “messenger” of Haakon Werle. In at one point act four, she speaks from Werle himself in order to show that he is making amends for his actions in the past. In addition she did not experience any devastation or downfall from any of her actions.
Additional Questions [Update]:
1) How does the author create catharsis?
2) Is there a way for the tragic hero to escape the events that are about to take place?
3) Do any of the characters face an internal struggle?
1) The author creates catharsis in Hjalmar, Gregers, and Gina. Hjalmar goes through catharsis after Hedvig’s death when he says, “And I drove her from me like an animal…she crept terrified into the loft and died out of love for me…There she lies, so stiff and still.” (215). Here he realizes that his family is worth more than the deception behind them through an intense emotional experience. Gregers experiences catharsis when he was “glad my destiny is what it is…to be the thirteenth man at the table” (216). Through Hedvig’s death he realizes that he was the one who ruined a family living comfortably under a lie. Gina goes through catharsis when she states to Hjalmar that, “We must try to help each other. For now, she belongs to us both, you know.” (215).
2) One way for Hjalmar to escape the tragic events that are about to take place is to stop Gregers from influencing him about anything anymore. Once Hjalmar knows the truth, he should not let anger consume his comfortable life of lies. He should accept fate as it is. If he desires to be independent, he must make a gradual attempt to disassociate himself with Haakon Werle only when he can support himself comfortably.
3) Hjalmar, Hedvig, Gina, and Gregers are the leading characters that face internal struggle. Hjalmar is caught between blaming his family members as in the quote, “The worst thing is precisely that I don’t know what to believe - that I’ll never know” (212). At first he blames Gina for not telling him the truth about her life. Then he starts to blame Dr. Relling in Act five for convincing him to work on inventing something. Hedvig is caught in an internal struggle when she was faced with sacrificing the wild duck in return for her father’s happiness and family unity saying, “I’d slept then thought it over, it didn’t seem like so much.” (203). Gina is faced with internal struggle when she had to tell Hjalmar about her previous relationship with Werle saying, “Well, you might as well know it all.” (183). This showed that she had hesitated to speak the truth fearing that her relationship with Hjalmar might end. Gregers is also faced with internal struggle when he was thinking about the corruption of Werle in Hoidal works saying that it was “Marvelously solitary…with a good chance to mull over a great many things”. Gregers also has an internal struggle when he debates with Werle near the end of act one. He sees the deception that Werle is putting around Hjalmar who is Gregers’s friend. Gregers responds to this saying, “-and there he sits right now, he with his great, guileless, childlike mind plunged in deception - living under the same roof with the creature, not knowing that what he calls his home is built on a lie. (Coming a step closer) When I look back on all you’ve done, it’s as if I looked out over a battlefield with broken human beings on every side.” (135). Gregers puts Werle’s past relationship with Gina under heavy criticism and blames his father for making Hjalmar live with that “creature”. Another example of when Gregers is in internal struggle is when his father tells him that he should have spoken up about how he ruined Gregers’s life. Gregers replies that, “I didn’t dare; I was so cowed and frightened…unspeakably afraid of you - both then and for a long time after.” (175). In short, he had smelled Werle’s treachery long before Hjalmar’s relationship. He had a conflict with himself for so long just because he was afraid to tell his father about this.
