The Wild Duck Journal #2

I feel the main point of this motif of disease is to show weakness in humanity- but represented in a physical form. On page 133, Werle talks for the first time about how his eyesight is leaving him and how he can't see clearly. At the same time, Gregers 'sight' of the situation involving Werle's love child Hedvig becomes clearer. However, this metaphor clearly extends to page 135, when he then talks about how Gregers sees him though 'his mothers eyes- which were clouded at times'. It is as if Gregers has figured him out, and Werle is trying to say that Gregers's vision is clouded, except for the fact that it's Werle's perception that truly is clouded because he cannot see that his secret is being figured out. Also, I feel that with this parallel in Hedvig's vision, Ibsen is trying to say that without the truth, Hedvig's life only becomes more complicated as she is not exposed to the truth. On page 178, after a heated discussion about morals, Hedvig says 'this is all so strange to me'. She appears to be innocent, however in her mind there is no clouded perception. This becomes an issue later on when she does not understand why her father does not love her, and ends up shooting herself- she does this because she thinks she has a clear perspective on a situation, however in reality Hedvig does not. Also at the end of Act 3, Relling talks about the moralist fever, which I understand to be Ibsen's idea that those who try to meddle in others affairs have a disease. I think that Ibsen is trying to highlight that truth is good, it is also destructive when the wrong person exposes the truth of a situation. They have this disease where they always want to show the most moral decision of a situation, however they are the wrong person to do so.