The Wild Duck Journal #2

"What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out?" To what extent do you find this statement applicable in at least two plays you have studied?

I this statement really applicable in both "Oedipus" and "The Wild Duck." In "Oedipus," Sophocles shows just one day of his life. This is the day where he finds out that the horrible prophecy came true. This is just one day of his life that happens to have a lot of importance and drama to it. The play is just Oedipus' life with the drama. Sophocles isn't telling a story of one normal day. He is telling a dramatic day of his life.

In "The Wild Duck," Ibsen is showing "dramatic" days of Hjalmar and Greggers' lives. Ibsen doesn't show Greggers working at the mill or a normal day of Hjalmar. He decided to show the scenes of when Hjalmar first meets Greggers after years apart. He could have just as easily decided to show a normal day on the job. The fact that Ibsen decided to show this, shows that this is the characters' lives with the "dull bits" cut out to make a dramatic play.

In both "Oedipus" and "The Wild Duck," Sophocles and Ibsen have showed the interesting parts of the characters' lives. They have decided against showing the normal every day parts of the characters' lives. Instead they have shown the drama and the dramatic parts of their lives: in "Oedipus" the discovery that the prophecy came true; in "The Wild Duck" the meeting of Hjalmar and Greggers after years and their lives after that.