RELL. [to Gregers] Yes. Yours is a complicated case. First of all there is that plaguy integrity fever . . .
RELL. While I think of it, Mr. Werle, junior—don’t use that foreign word: ideals. We have the excellent native word: lies.
GREG: Do you think the two things are related?
RELL. Yes, just about as closely as typhus and putrid fever.
The problem here is the Ibsen problem. He seems to be darker and more hopeless than Camus. Well, at least as dark, (although I am working on the angle of happiness in Camus). But back to Ibsen.
Ibsen is not satiric because he is too light-less. Satire has a glimmer of light in it. Mankind can be redeemed.
The Wild Duck seems to be an obsession with how individuals may find or defend the integrity of their individuality under the impact of the prevailing social atmosphere. Ibsen suggests, through Relling, in this case, that it cannot be done. The cynicism of Relling is complete. He says here that ideals (and integrity) are really lies.
How wrong he is but maybe it’s just that overcast Scandanavian sky and long winters which have Ibsen fooled. Ideals (and integrity) are not lies. Hopelessness is the lie.
Yes, it’s hard to hang on to an ideal. Yes, it’s lonely, sometimes. Yes, pinning down an ideal is not about pleasing crowds and looking cute. Ibsen, however, seems to skip the hard work and go straight for characters at their most undeveloped. Dr. Relling is a lightweight character and rather silly. His pronouncements about ideals cannot be taken seriously since he is undeveloped and superficial.
I am not a believer that that the human psyche is best revealed by bare and raw contempt for the ideal. Sorry, but Ibsen doesn’t win me here. Sophocles is much more convincing in regard to ideals, frail though they are in Oedipus.
