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Gregers Werle, the idealistic son of a rich merchant, returns home after years away and visits his old school friend Hjalmar Ekdal, a photographer, who lives…
Gregers Werle, the idealistic son of a rich merchant, returns home after years away and visits his old school friend Hjalmar Ekdal, a photographer, who lives happily with his wife Gina, their fourteen-year-old daughter Hedvig and his old father, who keeps a wounded wild duck and other animals in the attic as a make-believe forest. Gregers, convinced that their happiness rests on lies, decides to tell Hjalmar the truth about his marriage, with devastating consequences for the child.
Context and significance
Henrik Ibsen wrote the play in 1884, a turning point in his work: a tragicomedy that asks whether people can live without their 'life-lies'. This translation is by Eleanor Marx, the daughter of Karl Marx. Read Ibsen's A Doll's House and An Enemy of the People, and see his life.
About the author
Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) was born in Skien in Norway; his family lost its money when he was a boy, and at fifteen he became a pharmacist's apprentice. He worked in theatres in Bergen and Christiania with little success, and then spent twenty-seven years in Italy and Germany, where he wrote his greatest works.
His verse dramas Brand and Peer Gynt were followed by realistic prose plays about modern life, A Doll's House, Ghosts and Hedda Gabler, which shocked audiences and changed theatre forever. He is often called the father of modern drama.