Journal 5

I believe that The Wild Duck is not a tragedy. This is because both the fact that the person who dies is usually at a high social or economic place and then the tragedy is their fall itself. However, The Wild Duck does not really have a fall but merely an odd death. Furthermore, there is no clear hero in The Wild Duck, but merely major characters. For this to be a tragedy Hedvig would have to be the hero of the story, however that would be hard to argue. Although early on she stands out as a unique character in the sense that she is arguably the only pure one, she does not play a major role. This changes only after her death where her suicide takes center stage in the play. Also, their extremely docile reaction to the death of her daughter undermines her importance in the overall story.