The Wild Duck

The Wild Duck, drama in five acts by Henrik Ibsen, published in 1884 as Vildanden and produced the following year. In the play, an idealistic outsider’s gratuitous truth-telling destroys a family. Gregers Werle, who has a compulsion to tell the truth at all costs, reveals to the Ekdal family certain unasked-for information about each family member’s past. The knowledge destroys their illusions and their family life. As the final destructive act, Hedvig, the Ekdals’ adolescent daughter, kills herself after Werle informs the family that she may be the illegitimate daughter of a man other than her beloved father.