The metaphors of sightlessness and visual perception are frequently found in people ‘s ordinary life and address where they are normally employed to emphasize the importance of ego consciousness, to oppugn absolute values of morality and a overzealous hunt for the ideal truth. In Henrik Ibsen ‘s drama The Wild Duck, where some of the characters are literally losing their sight ( Old Werle, Hedvig ) , different fluctuations of this double motive ( blindness vs. seeing ) are used to implement and direct the secret plan development, depict, sometimes ironically, certain characters or escalate the dramatic inner struggles. Additionally, the writer ‘s dry stance towards the thought of absolute truth and its value presents the reader with the position of truth being an indispensable portion of humanity yet it is non absolute. Even though some of Ibsen ‘s characters reveal the true visual aspect of things, their hunt for the truth provokes painful, unneeded and unpointed effects.
The motive of seeing can be found at assorted degrees of the play ‘s construction ( secret plan, characters, and manner ) largely as a really influential and important metaphor that is used to depict differences in characters ‘ strongly opposing positions on life and morality, or to uncover some of their major traits and false cognition.
The dramatic struggle, which is built around the character of Hjalmar Ekdal defines the drama ‘s future secret plan development. It is based on the battle between two opposing characters – Dr. Relling and Gregers Werle. It could be said that Dr Relling represents a “ realistic ” , clear and straightforward position on life and the universe in general because he is the most perceptive character in the drama. He is familiar with the construct of the Everyman and his house belief that one time you “ take the semblance from the mean adult male, you take his felicity excessively ” seems to be a very functional expectancy of future, tragic secret plan results.
On the other manus, Gregers ‘ attitudes and values are non clear ; they are blurred, distorted and idealistic in nature. He believes that one time Ekdal is presented with the truth behind Hedvig ‘s beginning, the whole household can be saved. His blind religion causes the dispelling of Ekdal ‘s safe semblance and destroys Ekdal ‘s religion in himself and his household.
Even though he strongly believes that he can see the truth behind beds of human prevarications and semblances, Gregers ‘ self-assumed ability to convey out the truth is questioned at the beginning of the drama. When he attempts to illume the fire in the range, Gregers ends up make fulling the room with fume. This gesture creates uncertainty in the reader who becomes more “ leery ” of Gregers ‘s beliefs and thoughts. This action is besides symbolically repeated at the terminal of the drama, structurally making the sense of a closed dramatic circle. Ekdals place, happy and quiet one time, is now turned into a messy and dark prison of the yesteryear.
Similar to Gregers, Hjalmar Ekdal is besides a character who is caught in the kineticss of the sightlessness vs. seeing motive. Spending most of his clip on the couch, with his eyes closed, in his childish effort to get away the societal and practical world of life, its complexnesss and determinations. By making so Hjalmar Ekdal succeeds in converting others that he is waiting for his ‘ultimate artistic epiphany ‘ . He will, purportedly, make a ‘great photographic innovation ‘ since as a lensman his professional end is to see things clearly and in an nonsubjective mode. But, his physical stationariness, which reflects his interior religious inertness, undermines and reverses this thought of seeing clearly and actively. Like Gregers, he is besides presented as a blinded or unforesightful character at the beginning of the drama when he does n’t acknowledge his ain male parent. And besides, at the terminal, analogue to Gregers Werle ‘s effort to convey in the visible radiation, he asks his married woman Gina for a lamp. Even though these actions reveal a certain artificiality of Ibsen ‘s dramatic art and plotting, their effects in the drama are really realistic, believable and credible.
Once the inertness and stableness of the Everyman ‘s semblance collapses, contrary to the advice of Dr. Staggering that some truths should non be revealed ( and should be kept in dark like the wild duck ) , the tragic and sentimental strength of the dramatic stoping additions really quickly which is embodied in the physical and mental province of Hjalmar Ekdal.
Grasping about fanatically the impression of truth and ideals, Hjalmar Ekdal alienates himself from all other characters, particularly his married woman and girl Hedvig, claiming that he has eventually “ opened his eyes ” . Sing merely the facts, this is true, but in the greater strategy of things, Ekdals falls for sightlessness because he was ne’er genuinely ready to see things in their complexness and ambiguity. Therefore, his freshly acquired, cleared and sharpened sight leads him to the false decision that Hedvig, who is non his biological girl, does n’t love him at all and merely stands in his manner to happiness. This type of dramatic stoping is a really effectual one, because Ibsen constructs his characters as heroes who will ne’er to the full understand the comparative value of morality and truth and every measure they make would be a possible mark of another blinded point of position. Therefore, the motive of sightlessness versus seeing could be seen as a really equivocal one since sightlessness could sometimes be a mark of wisdom and visual perception, or the impulse for uncovering the true province of things could merely take to devastation and decease, as it is represented in Hedvig ‘s concluding self-destruction and violent death of the duck.
Everyone in the drama is someway physically or metaphorically blinded by his ain emotions, beliefs and partial cognition of things. Representing it in this structurally strong and tied up drama, Ibsen conveyed the thought that every pursuit or effort to obtain absolute truth ends distressingly because people differ and react otherwise. Some of them are non ready or non strong plenty to manage it, or non wise plenty to accept human defects and imperfectnesss alternatively of keeping to the ideals of human behaviour.
Besides, taking into consideration the complex interaction between the characters outlooks and the events that occur out of the blue, it could be said that the drama creates a really perplexing tone in the reader and a sense of inanity. This is because the characters of Gregers and Hjalmar represent narrow minded characters who are seeking urgently, without any uncertainty, to follow their pursuit for the truth. Even though their actions at the terminal of the drama provide a sense of calamity, the impression of their Everyman ‘s outlook makes Ibsen ‘s characters more kindred to melodramatic heroes, someplace between a calamity and a travesty.
