July 18, 2005
The Books: "The Wild Duck" (Henrik Ibsen)
Next in my Daily Book Excerpt:
Next play on my script shelf:
Ibsen: The Complete Major Prose Plays
The Wild Duck is next. Ibsen's commentary on the split within the modern man: the things he needs to do to survive - and the more rich life he senses beyond that struggle. (Ibsen, like I said before, is mainly a playwright of the middle-class, and the concerns he writes about are concerns of this relatively new middle-class). Ibsen, in his working notes for this play, wrote: "In becoming civilized, man undergoes the same change as when a child grows up. Instinct weakens, but the powers of logical thought are developed. Adults have lost the ability to play with dolls." Can we retreat to a place where we re-gain our instinct? Can we narrow up the gap wtihin our modern selves? Can we remember what it was actually like to be a child? Can we be integrated? These are the themes of The Wild Duck.
This is a scene between Hjalmar Ekdal (a photographer), and Gregers Werle (son of a wholesale merchant, a wealthy industrialist). The scene takes place in Ekdal's photography studio which is a wilderness of photographic equipment.
EXCERPT FROM The Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen:
HJALMAR. (in an undertone) I don't think it's so good that you stand there, watching my father. He doesn't like it. (Gregers comes away from the loft doorway.) And it's better, too, that I close up before the others come. (Shooing away the menagerie with his hands) Hush! Hush! Go 'way now! (With this he raises the curtain and draws the double doors together) I invented these contraptions myself. It's really great fun to have such things around to take care of and fix when they get out of whack. And besides, it's absolutely necessary, you know; Gina doesn't go for rabbits and chickens out here in the studio.
GREGERS. Of course not. And I suppose it is your wife who manages here?
HJALMAR. My general rule is to delegate the routine matters to her, and that leaves me free to retire to the living room to think over more important things.
GREGERS. And what sort of things are these, Hjalmar?
HJALMAR. I've been wondering why you haven't asked that before. Or maybe you haven't heard about my iknvention.
GREGERS. Invention? No.
HJALMAR. Oh? Then you haven't? Well, no, up there in that waste and wilderness --
GREGERS. Then you've really invented something!
HJALMAR. Not completely invented it yet, but I'm getting very close. You must realize that when I decided to dedicate my life to photography, it wasn't my idea to spend time taking pictures of a lot of nobodies.
GREGERS. Yes, that's what your wife was just now saying.
HJALMAR. I swore that if I devoted my powers to the craft, I would then exalt it to such heights that it would become both an art and a science. That's when I decided on this amazing invention.
GREGERS. And what does this invention consist of? What's its purpose?
HJALMAR. Yes, Gregers, you mustn't ask for details like that yet. It takes time, you know. And you mustn't think it's vanity that's driving me, either. I'm certainly not working for myself. Oh no, it's my life's mission that stands before me day and night.
GREGERS. What life mission is that?
HJALMAR. Remember the silver-haired old man?
GREGERS. Your poor father. Yes, but actually what can you do for him?
HJALMAR. I can raise his self-respect from the dead -- by restoring the Ekdal name to dignity and honor.
GREGERS. So that's your life's work.
HJALMAR. Yes. I am going to rescue that shipwrecked man. That's just what he suffered -- shipwreck -- when the storm broke over him. When all those harrowing investigations took place, he wasn't himself anymore. That pistol, there -- the one we use to shoot rabbits with -- it's played a part in the tragedy of the Ekdals.
GREGERS. Pistol! Oh!
HJALMAR. When he was sentenced and facing prison, he had that pistol in his hand --
GREGERS. You mean he --!
HJALMAR. Yes. But he didn't dare. He was a coward. That shows how broken and degraded he'd become by then. Can you picture it? He, a soldier, a man who'd shot nine bears and was directly descended from two lieutenant colonels -- I mean, one after the other, of course. Can you picture it, Gregers?
GREGERS. Yes. I can picture it very well.
HJALMAR. Well, I can't. And then that pistol intruded on our family history once again. When he was under lock and key, dressed like a common prisoner -- oh, those were agonizing times for me, as you can imagine. I kept the shades of both my windows drawn. When I looked out, I saw the sun shining the same as ever. I couldn't understand it. I saw the people going along the street, laughing and talking of trivial things. I couldn't understand it. I felt all creation should be standing still, like during an eclipse.
GREGERS. I felt that way when my mother died.
HJALMAR. During one of those times Hjalmar Ekdal put a pistol to his own breast.
GREGERS. You were thinking of --
HJALMAR. Yes.
GREGERS. But you didn't shoot?
HJALMAR. No. In that critical moment, I won a victory over myself. I stayed alive. But you can bet it takes courage to choose life in those circumstances.
GREGERS. Well, that depends on your point of view.
HJALMAR. Oh, absolutely. But it was all for the best, because now I've nearly finished my invention; and then Dr. Relling thinks, just as I do, that they'll let Father wear his uniform again. I want only that one reward.
GREGERS. So it's really the uniform that he ---?
HJALMAR. Yes, that's what he really hungers and craves for. You've no idea how that makes my heart ache. Every time we throw a little family party -- like my birthday, or Gina's or whatever -- then the old man comes in, wearing that uniform from his happier days. But if there's even a knock at the door, he goes scuttering back in his room fafst as the old legs will carry him. You see, he doesn't dare show himself to strangers. What a heartrending spectacle for a son!
GREGERS. Approximately when do you think the invention will be finished?
HJALMAR. Oh good Lord, don't hold me to a timetable. An invention, that's something you can hardly dictate to. It depends a great deal on inspiration, on a sudden insight -- and it's nearly impossible to say in advance when that will occur.
GREGERS. But it is making progress?
HJALMAR. Of course it's making progress. Every single day I think about my invention. I'm brimming with it. Every afternoon, right after lunch, I lock myself in the living room where I can meditate in peace. But it's no use driving me; it simply won't work. Relling says so too.
GREGERS. And you don't think all those contraptions in the loft distract you and scatter your talents?
HJALMAR. No, no, no, on the contrary. You mustn't say that. I can't always go around here, brooding over the same never-racking problems. I need some diversion to fill in the time. You see, inspiration, the moment of insight -- when that comes, nothing can stop it.
GREGERS. My dear Hjalmar, I suspect you've got a bit of the wild duck in you.
HJALMAR. The wild duck? What do you mean?
GREGERS. You've plunged to the bottom and clamped hold of the seaweed.
HJALMAR. I suppose you mean that near-fatal shot that brought down Father -- and me as well?
GREGERS. Not quite that. I wouldn't say you're wounded, but you're wandering in a poisonous swamp, Hjalmar. You've got an insidious disease in your system, and so you've gone to the bottom to die in the dark.
HJALMAR. Me? Die in the dark! You know what, Gregers -- you'll really have to stop that talk.
GREGERS. But never mind. I'm going to raise you up again. You know, I've found my mission in life, too. I found it yesterday.
HJALMAR. Yes, that may well be; but you can just leave me out of it. I can assure you that -- apart from my quite understandable melancholy -- I'm as well off as any man could wish to be.
GREGERS. And your thinking so is part of the sickness.
HJALMAR. Gregers, you're my old friend -- please -- don't talk any more about sickness and poison. I'm not used to that kind of conversation. In my house nobody talks to me about ugly things.
GREGERS. That's not hard to believe.
HJALMAR. Yes, because it isn't good for me. And there's no swamp air here, as you put it. In a poor photographer's house, life is cramped; I know that. My lot is a poor one -- but you know, I'm an inventor. And I'm the family breadwinner, too. Thats what sustains me through all the pettiness. Ah, here they come with the lunch.
Posted by sheila