Ideology in Ibsen's The Wild Duck

Abstract

The present research is a probe into the ideological predicament of the characters, Hjalmar Ekdal and Gregers Werlein Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck. They feel alienated because the social ideology limits them to the particular definition of subjects. They are cynical subjects and know what they are doing by getting involved in the sociological activity of their society but they still keep on doing it. This social ideology regulates their behaviours and conducts. They are not conformists on the ideological belief of their society. Rather than loosing themselves in the status quo, they take recourses to alternatives ways to come out of the crises of the dominant existing ideology and live a self-determined life. For this Hjalmar leave his home, take shelter in drinks and book reading. Whereas Gregers challenges the society by the way of irrational resistance and takes shelter in Hjalmar Ekdal's house. Ironically besides their desperate efforts to free themselves from the social ideology they are enslaved by its ritual practice either knowingly or unknowingly and this leads to the tragic consequence with the death of Hedvig. In the drama they are doomed to live under the ideologies as put forth by the existing ideological society. In the eye of their society their vain efforts seem insubstantial illusion and they themselves are proved nothing more than the heroic day dreamers.