Wild Duck: Journal #4

"Not Rounding off, but opening out." Comment upon the way the writers deal with the ending in relation to the whole. In your answer you should refer to two or three of the works you have studied.

This statement of a writer not "rounding off, but opening out" is true for Wild Duck in that Ibsen doesn't continue the story and tell the reader what happens to the family after the death of their daughter but instead he leaves it open for the reader to decided for themselves what happens. The drama ends with a scene with non-family members, but just before that the mother and father leave. The last part with Gina and Hjalmar is when they are taking the body of their daughter out of the room. Ibsen uses this technique of opening out quite well with the way he ends the scene in with no words but just an action. Also there is a lot of anticipation and suspense through out the book. The ending that Ibsen chooses to use continues this sense of questioning, except this time he does not answer the questions. In this way he leaves the rest of the story open for the reader to finish it in their own way, or just keep guessing.

In Oedipus, Sophocles uses pretty much the same technique to end his drama. In the end Oedipus is taken off to live out his fate. Sophocles does not exactly tell the reader what is happening to him, he gives hints but that is it. In this way he is leaving the story open for the reader to decide for themselves what is going to happen for the rest of the live of Oedipus and the rest of his family. Slowly through the last scene the family of Oedipus disappears from the play as they die or are taken away. "clutching his daughters as the guards wrench them loose and take them through the palace doors. [...] Exit OEDIPUS and CREON to the palace" (250-251)This is the last the audience or reader see these characters but it doesn't explain where they are going. As for Jocasta, she commits suicide earlier in the act. Sophocles leaves the ending and consequences of the rest of the characters open for the reader to make up and in that he creates an effective ending to his drama.

In both Ibsen's Wild Duck and Sophocles's Oedipus there is the use of leaving the story open instead of rounding it off for the ending. This is an effective ending for both dramas because it gets the reader to think and not rely on the writer to give them a ending. For both plays this technique fits the character of the drama itself and even adds to the ending drama of the last act.