The Wild Duck Journal #2

Ibsen uses the motif of decay, disease and illness to show the secrets hidden within the characters as well as reveal their motives. After Gregers ask Hjalmar to go for a walk with him, Relling says to Gina, "He's suffering from an acute case of moralistic fever" (178). Relling states that Gregers has a moralistic fever which is causing him to do what he is doing. His "fever" is what is giving him the motive to bring out the truth in the Ekdal family. Although Gregers might not believe in having this fever, it shows how the character has secrets hidden within him that he wants to reveal about others, and therefore creates a facade of Gregers.
Even Werle's blindness is interesting. Mrs. Sorby says, " No need to hide it any longer, much as he'd like to. He's going blind" (190). Werle wants to keep his blindness as a secret within his family, but Mrs. Sorby does not mind revealing it to everyone. If Werle's blindness was kept a secret, than no one would understand that Hedvig is Werle's daughter, but that fact that Mrs. Sorby said he was blind, it reveals the secret that was hidden. It also reveals Werle's motives of keeping everyone living under this web he created which we would have never understood the reason behind it if it wasn't for revealing his blindness.
When Hjalmar talks about Hedvig to Gregers, he says, "Yes. You see, there's the gravest imminent danger of her losing her sight" (147). Hedvig's road to blindness shows how she is living under this trap that she does not know anything about. She was placed in this place that she believes is true, with a family, when it is nothing but a lie that was created with her as a catalyst to the lie created by Gina and Werle. Her blindness brings the idea of secrecy within the entire family, and how she is unaware and does not understand things that goes on around her. Her blindness also reveals her motives of trying to understand things that go around her. When Hjalmar found out about the truth, she tells Gregers that she wants to know what is going on and does not want to wait until she grows up. Therefore this shows her motives that was created by her blindness.