Wild Duck Journal #5

"Although doubt is not a pleasant condition, certainty is an absurd one." In the light of this statement, explore the impressions of doubt and/or certainty conveyed in at least two works you have studied.

I understand this statement to mean that while people do not like to be in a position of doubt, a condition of certainty is an absurd idea because it is almost impossible to obtain exact certainty. In Oedipus the King, Oedipus gets upset with Tiresias when he will not tell him directly who the murderer of Laius is. He is uncomfortable not knowing the truth, and even when Tiresias tells him he does not want to hear it, Oedipus says: "What? You know and you won't tell?/ You're bent on betraying us, destroying Thebes?" (lines 376-377). After learning the truth, Oedipus is still not in a position of certainty, because he does not actually believe Tiresias when he says that Oedipus is the murderer of Laius and at fault for the plague. While he hated not knowing Tiresias' news, Oedipus is not content knowing the news either because he sees it to be untrue and is greatly offended by it. In this case, Sophocles shows us that it is better to be in the unpleasant condition of doubt than to try to obtain the impossible condition of certainty.

In Wild Duck, Hedvig finds herself in a position of doubt. She starts to pick up on tensions around the house and wants to know why her father does not want to see her anymore. Hedvig, like any typical person, does not like being in the dark about her situation, so she tries to replace her doubt with certainty. She asks Gregers about it, thinking that she can trust him to help her find the complete truth. However, like Oedipus, she soon realizes that certainty is indeed an unrealistic condition when Gregers avoids telling her the truth by saying: "That's something you mustn't ask until you're big and grown-up" (Ibsen, 196). Ibsen uses Hedvig to show that it is somewhat better to be stuck in a condition of unpleasant doubt than it is to be constantly disappointed by trying to reach certainty and realizing it is impossible.