Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck recap

Gregers Werle returns home and learns that his old friend Hjalmar Ekdal has built a modest family life upon secrets connected with Gregers's wealthy father. Believing that a good marriage must rest on complete truth, Gregers moves into the Ekdals' home and pressures Hjalmar's wife Gina to disclose her former relationship with Hakon Werle. Hjalmar then doubts whether fourteen-year-old Hedvig is his child, rejects her, and plans to leave. Gregers tells Hedvig that surrendering her beloved wild duck could demonstrate her devotion to Hjalmar. Instead, Hedvig shoots herself in the attic. Hjalmar's grief is genuine, but Doctor Relling disputes Gregers's hope that catastrophe has morally transformed him, arguing that people such as Hjalmar survive through consoling illusions. Gregers remains committed to his demand for truth, while the Ekdal household is left bereaved and broken.

Gregers Werle returns after years at his father's industrial works and attends a formal dinner at the family home. Among the guests is his old school friend Hjalmar Ekdal, now a photographer. Gregers learns that Hjalmar married Gina, a former servant in the Werle household, and that Hjalmar's disgraced father survives by doing copying jobs supplied by Hakon Werle. The contrast between Hakon's prosperity and Lieutenant Ekdal's ruin renews Gregers's suspicions about his father. He also learns that Mrs Sorby, Hakon's housekeeper, is likely to become Hakon's wife. Gregers rejects his father's offer of a business partnership and decides to visit Hjalmar, convinced that his friend's apparently contented life conceals something that must be confronted.

Gregers visits the Ekdals' combined home and photography studio. Gina handles the business and household while Hjalmar speaks grandly of an invention that will redeem the family. Their daughter Hedvig, whose eyesight is expected to deteriorate, is affectionate toward both parents and fascinated by the attic. Old Ekdal has transformed that space into a small private hunting ground filled with rabbits, pigeons, and a wild duck that was wounded during a hunt by Hakon Werle and later given to the family. Gregers sees the wounded bird and the household built around it as symbols of damaged lives made comfortable in confinement. He announces that he will rent the spare room, despite Gina's visible discomfort at bringing a Werle into their home.

Gregers settles into the Ekdal home and begins pressing his belief that Hjalmar cannot live honorably without knowing the whole truth about his marriage. Doctor Relling, a downstairs neighbor, recognizes the danger in this campaign and argues that Hjalmar depends upon flattering ideas about himself, including his supposed invention. Hakon Werle visits and tries to stop Gregers. Their confrontation makes plain the secret Gregers has been circling: Gina had an intimate relationship with Hakon before her marriage, and Hakon helped arrange Hjalmar's livelihood afterward. Hakon also has the same kind of failing eyesight that threatens Hedvig. Gregers disregards his father's warning and takes Hjalmar away for a private conversation, intending to expose the past.

Hjalmar returns from his talk with Gregers and forces Gina to admit her former relationship with Hakon. His image of himself as the unquestioned husband and father collapses, and Hedvig's inherited eye condition makes him suspect that Hakon may be her biological father. Gina cannot give him the certainty he demands. A letter from Hakon offers Old Ekdal a pension that will later pass to Hedvig, but Hjalmar treats the offer as further proof that his family has been purchased and tears it up. He declares that he will leave Gina and recoils from Hedvig's affection. Hoping to restore the bond, Gregers tells Hedvig that she can prove her love by sacrificing the wild duck, the creature she treasures and which came from Hakon.

Hjalmar returns the next morning, still speaking of departure but gathering his possessions slowly and showing how dependent he remains on the household. Hedvig has been hiding in the attic after his rejection. When a pistol shot is heard, Gregers initially believes that she has killed the wild duck as he advised. Instead, the adults find Hedvig mortally wounded; Doctor Relling determines that she deliberately shot herself. Hjalmar's suspicion vanishes in grief, and he begs the dead girl for forgiveness. Gregers interprets the catastrophe as a possible moral rebirth for Hjalmar, but Relling predicts that the intensity will fade and that Hjalmar will eventually turn the tragedy into another consoling account of himself. The wild duck remains alive, Hedvig is dead, and Gregers leaves the ruined family still convinced of his vocation to demand absolute truth.

After Hjalmar rejects Hedvig as his daughter, Gregers persuades her that sacrificing the wild duck may prove her love for him. Hjalmar returns intending to leave, but his attachment to the household is already weakening that resolve. A shot sounds in the attic. The adults discover that Hedvig has shot herself rather than the duck, and Relling concludes that the wound was deliberate. Hjalmar is overwhelmed and pleads over her body, while Gina and Old Ekdal share the loss. Gregers wants to believe that the death will permanently ennoble Hjalmar, but Relling predicts that even this grief will eventually become part of the self-dramatizing story by which Hjalmar lives. Gregers nevertheless declares that he will continue pursuing his moral mission, leaving the play with no restoration of the family he disrupted.