The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1917-02-13
The Wild Duck"
(By Philip Littel in the New Republic)

the irving Place theater!
Recollect If you are old enough. the late eighties.
when stray copies OF German translation began to
find their way about the United States In those
early days the American readers OF 1bsen were not
many, and each OF them felt himself more or less
bound to furtherest into the stoniest wall, Most
of could not into 1.-THE wild Duck" no matter
how hard tried Our failure left us detected and
rather indignant We took to calling the play in
comprehensive intricatey and dimly symbolic, a
blend OF vagueness and sneers Perhaps 1bsen
only wrote 1t to annoy?
A small minority which declined to be baffed
had an idea Look, they said at Ibsen's last three
plays. In Ghosts" he had told truths his public
People," written when very angry and in half his
customary time, he had assailed the public and
glorified truth and the truth teller Now in 1.-THE
Wild Duck he had chosen to make return upon
himself by exhibiting the truth teller as a fool a
dupe, wrecker of lives. Thus the new play, be-
ing conceived in reaction against the teaching OF
IAN Enemy OF the People," was naturally incoherent
with the body of 1bsen's doctrine and an exception
| to the lbsen rule. 1t was Ibsen's satire upon
| Ibsenism
For few years to the best OF my recollection,
this explanation slowly gained ground Then, in
the early ninees. came Shaw, first in this as in so
many other fields and formulated that more general
| lbsen rule to which "The Wild Duck" was not an
exception at all The play was just more on
slaught upon the kind Of idealism that 1bsen had
attacked again and again. 1t had puzzled people
only because they unprepared for the lesson in
such new FORM They had been amazed and be-
wlldered when they saw truth-teler sitting among
the mischevous ideasts. They had mistakenly as
sumed that 1bsen counted truth-telling as an abso
lutte virtue, good in your own house. in your neigh
boris house, and about your neighbor's wife Some
persons ready for the truth and others are not
Gregers Werle trying to force his variety of IDEAL
ism upon family nowise fitted to receive it, de-
stroys their happiness at the time that he de-
stroys their belief in their felie. The meaning of
the play is expressed by of the minor charac-
ters Dr. Relling whose function is to rescue Ship
wrecked folk by throwing fe-les to them and haul
ing them ashore to self respect.
How could anybody ever have been blind to the
truth OF this explanation? In no play has
1bsen made his intentions clearer He has scat
tered brightly lit signs all the later acts and
each sign says Enthusiastically either "This way to
the catastrophe" Here you have a superb view
Of the meaning Of the play
Nevertheless, THE Wild Duck" is still what we
first thought it. one of the strangest of Ibsens
pays. but WIN ul11erence. Those things in it
which once appeared strange because we found them
obscure have grown all too clear so that it is the
emphasis upon them, the space they take up their
importance to Ibsen himself, which now seem
strange to our misdirected attention For our at
tention is still fixed what used to puzzle us so
that we too plainly through Ibsen's representa-
tons of human destnies and human nature the
bare mechanism of his demonstration and the alb
stract triumph Of his @. f. d.
Perhaps should not feel this so keenly if the
characters here not so simple and so readily
comprehended. and if all except Gregers did not live
so near the earth. This nearness to earth is re-
sponsble too, for ones feeling symbolism must
be forever alien outsider among human beings
such as these No air can be too heavily charged
with symbols for Uric Brendel or the Rat-Wife
to breathe it comfortably, but symbols and Gina
Ekdal belong in different universes Woe. however
to any producer who tries to diminish the symbol
ism by effacng the wild duck itself. You cannot
treat 1bsen So His work is too organic. We must
near all about the wild duck if to understand
Hedwigs emotional life-where of her childish
treasures is, and part of her childke heart. One
OF the most touching children in the world. and she
touches us by the simplest means She does not
know that she is going blind. The sources of her
joys are few. even with the wild duck to comfort
her and with her mothers love to eat like daily
bread. She owes her most tremulous hopes and all
her deep dsaprointments to her father, whose self
love does not think of her but follows its own law
making promises to her and forgetting them, draw
ing her to him and pushing her away
Her fathers self -ove-f Hjalmar be her father
is warm and rich and genial. 1t is poured out in
| an abundant stream. No tributary is too small to
| make it overflow. 1t magnifies everything 1t re-
fleets. But for Gregers Were it would have gone
on endlessly and untroubed IIjalmar is one of the
great comic scil-deceivcrs
The many emotional discords of the play come
from the juxtaposition of Hjalmar whom we laugh
/ at, and Hedwig. who breaks hearts Here the
| closeness of laughter and tears. instead of being
| the bland mixture of these ingredients that
used to- Is bitter in our mouths. Ibsen meant it
| to be. After Hedwig has shot herself and her
Il 90