Wild Duck Journal #6

Readers are attracted to moments of intensity in a writer's work. By what means and with what effect have writers in your study offered heightened emotional moments designed to arrest the reader's attention?

In Wild Duck, Henrik Ibsen offers an emotional moment when the Ekdals and Gregers realize that Hedvig has killed herself. Ibsen shows the emotions of the characters through the stage directions and repetition in the characters' dialogue. Gina cries "Oh, no! no! no!" when she finds out about Hedvig's death. The repetition of "no" in her speech shows her sorrow and anguish over her daughter's demise. Hjalmar also does the same, saying "Oh, Gina, Gina-can you ever get over this?". He repeats "Gina" twice, reflecting his need to connect with a person who feels the same way he does. This repetition reveals Hjalmar and Gina's feelings of despair and sadness. Ibsen also includes stage directions that show the emotions of the characters. In the same scene of Hedvig's death, Hjalmar is described as "sobbing" and "[c]lench[ing] his fists and cr[ying] up to heaven". These stage directions enhance the reader's knowledge of what Hjalmar feels. They can not only read the words of his sorrow, they can also imagine how Hjalmar acts in his despair.

Sophocles also uses repetition in his characters' dialogue to show heightened emotion, but he also uses rhetorical questions to reveal Oedipus' confusion and sorrow in his grief. Oedipus says "Oh, Ohh- / the agony! I am agony- / [...] where does all this agony hurl me?". The repetition of "agony" describes the intense feelings that he has when he finds out the truth about his past. When Oedipus' children are taken away from him, Oedipus cries "No- / don't take them away from me, not now! No no no!". He repeats the word "no", as Hjalmar does in Wild Duck and expresses the same sorrow as Hjalmar of being torn from his children. Both playwrights use repition in the speech of their charcters to show the pain of losing a child. Sophocles uses the technique of rhetorical questions to show Oedipus' confusion and sorrow in his grief. "What can I ever see? / What love, what call of the heart / can touch my ears with joy?" are the questions Oedipus asks after blinding himself. These rhetorical questions show his uncertainty and confusion about the future, which arouses feelings of pity from the audience. The chorus also uses rhetorical questions, asking "But now to hear [Oedipus'] story-is there a man more agonized? / More wed to pain and frenzy?". Feelings of sympathy and pity are aroused in the audience through the chorus asking these questions. These questions suggest that there are few, if any, people that have a more tragic stoty than that of Oedipus.