A Psychoanalytical Reading of Ibsen’s The Wild Duck

Ibsen, as a playwright, Thomas F. Van Lann comments, has been accused of deceiving his audience regarding the matters play- both its central business and manner; particularly in style mode. While reviewing Ibsen through Lacanian lens, critics such Oliver W. Gerland III, argue that reading is task revising interpretative paradigms Ibsen’s protagonist revises strategies for enacting “self”. The Wild Duck (1884), critiqued poignant drama illusions, where an idealistic outsider’s gratuitous truth-telling destroys family. This paper argues texts stage Oedipal crisis revised form by taking recourse to Lacan’s re-reading Freud, he suggests paradigmatic triad representation displaced familar structure. For Lacan, structure not simple love mother hatred father, rather it places child realm Symbolic, i.e linguistic association with father. He self rooted mirror infant’s identification images coherence stability- e.g own reflected image. locates simples complex, but it. Hjalmar Ekdal’s Imaginary web disrupted when idealist Gregers Werle breaks down Imaginary, invokes Symbolic authoritarian “no”, substitutes retelling Hakon Werle. seeks accentuate Gregers’ idealism what Lacan termed obsessional neurosis display lacking preserving playing father friend maintaining Hjalmar’s heroic image mind, finally resulting little Hedvig’s suicide.