“The Wild Duck” is strikingly and definitely a masterpiece of realism. It is a realistic play as regards its plot and situations, character-portrayal, language and dialogue. There are a couple of improbabilities in it though they do not weaken its total impression as a realistic play.

In Ibsen’s time, the drama in Europe followed either the romantic tradition or the new trend of “well-made play”. Romantic drama depicted unreal situations and the “well-made play” seemed to be more life-like but only apparently. Ibsen was the pioneers of realistic plays. He was more interested in the social realities and problems than in romantic themes or in the melodramatic plots of the “well-made” plays.

In the beginning we are acquainted with Mr. Werle’s past misdeeds. Mr. Werle had brought about the financial bankruptcy of his business partner, Old Ekdal leading to his imprisonment. He had been leading an immoral life with many women including Gina, his maid. He made his wife miserable by his illicit relationships and had also tricked upon Hjalmar by having Gina married to him. There is nothing improbable about these actions of Mr. Werle. Everything is realistic. Similarly, Gregers’ grievances against his father on his misdeeds are perfectly justified. He feels so strongly about his father’s evil-doing that he decides to leave his father’s house.

Gregers reveals the secret of Gina’s past to Hjalmar. Hjalmar’s reaction to this discloser is one of shock. On his asking Gina about her past, she confirms everything. Hjalmar’s grief knows no limits. He scolds Gina for having kept him in the dark and accuses her of deceiving him All this is also perfectly realistic. No husband would be able to bear that his wife had sexually yielded to another man before her marriage.

Hjalmar’s reaction to Mr. Werle’s letter is also perfectly natural. Mr. Werle’s offer of a monthly allowance to Old Ekdal for life and to Hedvig’s after the death of Old Ekdal. This offer gives rise to a suspicion in Hjalmar’s mind. He learnt that Mr. Werle would soon be going blind. He knows that Hedvig too would go blind and that her eye-ailment is hereditary. He naturally begins to think that Hedvig is not his own daughter but Mr. Werle’s. Hjalmar now cannot even bear to look at Hedvig and declares his intention to leave the house taking his father with him. Gregers had thought that Hjalmar would be able to face the bitter truths and would readjust himself. But he has not been able to accept the claims of the ideal.

Hjalmar suddenly takes a somersault. Instead of leaving his home, he suddenly begins to talk about Hedvig most sentimentally. He tells Gregers that his love for her is too deep-rooted to be dislodged from his heart. Hjalmar now shudders at the thought that the girl might be taken away from him by Mr. Werle. Though strange yet there is nothing impossible about his attitude.

There is nothing improbable about the catastrophe of the play. Hedvig has been feeling miserable at Hjalmar’s rejection of her. At first, in keeping Gregers’ advice, she gets ready to kill the wild duck to please her father but shoots herself. She thought that her life would be utterly meaningless if Hjalmar had ceased to love her. If we understand Hedvig's character, we shall find nothing improbable about her suicide.

Mr. Werle is a perfectly credible person. His actions in the present are convincing also. He naturally feels annoyed with Gregers’ accusations against him and denies them angrily. His distress at Gregers’ rejection of his offer of partnership in business and of half of his estate is also natural. It is natural also for Mr. Werle to decide to marry Mrs. Sorby as he has become old and would soon go blind. It is natural also for Mr. Werle to feel a slight pang of remorse about his misdeeds and to offer a monthly allowance to Ekdal. His advice to Gregers to stop from revealing the facts about Gina is also believable.

Gregers too is a credible person, though he is an unusual kind of man. Gregers is by nature a truth-seeker. He has been talking about and preaching the claims of the ideal. He is of the view that people should face the truth and should bear it. He reveals the true facts to Hjalmar in spite that his father and Relling tried to dissuade him from doing so. His father says that Gregers is suffering from “an inflammation of the conscience”. Gregers has noble motives but he lacks a judgment of character.. He does not understand that Hjalmar is not the type of man who would be able to endure the unsavory truth about his wife’s past life.

The portrayal of Hjalmar too is perfectly realistic. He is a lazy, weak-minded, and vacillating man. He hardly does any work but all the time complains that he is over-worked. He also keeps saying that his will work as long as he is strong. His weak-mindedness appears in his failure to adjust himself to the disclosure of the facts. His desire to get away from Gina and Hedvig is natural but he cannot leave them because he cannot live without them. Hjalmar is no hero at all. He is an average man who cannot face the bitter truths of his life.

The other characters in the play have also realistically been drawn. Relling is a realist to the core. He truly understood the character of Hjalmar and warns Gregers against meddling with the life of Hjalmar and Gina. Relling believes that the average man needs “a saving lie” in his life. He has saved Molvik’s life by making him a demoniac. He believes that Old Ekdal is surviving because of a saving lie in his life. Relling says:


Gina too is a realist. She is thoroughly practical and earth-bound. Like any practical woman, she has not thought it necessary to reveal to her husband the facts about her life before her marriage. In fact, having been busy with routine household duties she had completely forgotten her past life. She tries to make Hjalmar conscious of her usefulness to him as a wife.
Mrs. Sorby is another practical and realist woman. Relling had wanted to marry her but she was not certain whether Relling would be the right kind of husband for her. Now she has been making herself useful to her employer, Mr. Werle, who begins to look upon her as being essential to him. Certainly Mrs. Sorby would be very happy with Mr. Werle because there has been no concealment on either side and she would be more useful to Mr. Werle when Mr. Werle goes blind.

The dialogue throughout the play is perfectly realistic and extremely simple. There is no rhetoric, no flourishes, no artifice, no embellishment and no effort at eloquence, no fine phrases. All the speeches are natural, life-like and spontaneous to the point of baldness. The opening dialogue between the servants, the conversation among the guests at the lunch, the dialogues between Mr. Werle and his son Gregers, between Gina and Hedvig about the mounting expenses, between Gregers and Hedvig about various articles in the garret, between Mrs. Sorby and those among whom she meets at Gina’s place, dialogue between Gregers and Relling – all these have an authentic stamp. Each character in this play speaks his own language. Gina’s original illiteracy breaks through the surface of that education which Hjalmar had imparted to her. It is then that she misuses words that she has overheard in her husband’s conversation and speaks ungrammatically. In Old Ekdal the speech of a gentleman has been gradually overlaid by the habits of the servant Patterson. But when he is happy and unselfconscious, his speech is then that of an old fashioned army officer.

Ibsen is a dramatist of social realities. In this play he has depicted in a most realistic manner the relations between a father and his son, between an employer and his housekeeper, between a husband and his wife, between a father and his daughter, between a friend and a friend. He has depicted paternal love, filial love, conjugal life and fraternal relations. His main concern is the ordinary people to show an acute perception of realities. Gregers’ idealism is unusual but its impact is perfectly convincing. On seeing the performance of “The Wild Duck” on the stage of Global Theatre, G. B. Shaw was greatly struck by its realism and thus commented: