The Wild Duck #2

Ibsen uses the motif of disease and illness to show the detrimental effects of living a false life and forcing an illusion upon someone's life to solve a problem in your own. When Gregers and Werle are arguing at the end of Act 1, Werle tells Greger that,"You have seen me through your mother's eyes. But you ought to remember that her eyes were- were- clouded now and then" (Ibsen 90). This quote happens during the middle of an argument so clearly that gives a negative and destructive connotation to illness. After talking about Gregers' mother's clouded eyes they continue fighting and then Gregers accuses Werle of messing up Hjalmar's life and says, "And there he is now [...] without the slightest idea that what he calls home is built on a lie" (Ibsen 90). This is important because it is a mention of lying and deceit during an argument immediately after the mention of clouded eyes which connect to being blind. This quote shows how Ibsen is making a connection between illness, specifically failure of eyesight, to the destructive effects of lying. When Gregers comes to the Ekdal home later in the story, Act 2, him and Hjalmar talk about Hedvig's eyesight and Hjalmar tells Gregers that him and Gina do not "have the heart to tell her anything about it. She suspects nothing" (Ibsen 101). This is another connection between lies and eye disease. The fact that eye disease comes up with lying connects to a negative thing pairing with not telling the truth. This helps to prove that Ibsen uses disease and illness to show the detrimental effects of lies.