Abstract

The Wild Duck, written by Henrik Ibsen in 1884, is singled out by many critics as his greatest dramatic work. The play presents a diverse array of characters, fascinating plot and a high emotional tendency. In fact, Ibsen in writing The Wild Duck, for the first time, undertook to launch on a dramatic work, which besides rendering typical of his principal themes aimed at approaching his characterization with a desire to investigate them more scientifically than his previous works.The main objective of this article has been to apply Lacanian psychoanalysis to this dramatic work in order to shed some light on the unconscious aspects of its main characters (Gregers, Hjalmar and Hedvig) and the way their actions are the result of their unconscious pathological motivations rather than their conscious intentions. In other words, the researcher has tried to demonstrate how Gregers and Hjalmar are respectively suffering from some degrees of neurosis and psychosis, which directly affect their conscious behaviors. In the third part of this article we concerned ourselves with Hedvig and her relation to the wound, on the body of the duck, was deeply explored. By concluding the fact that these characters do not avoid the truth because they are not willing to confront reality; rather they believe that by dismantling their illusion the reality itself would be demolished

Key words: Desire, foreclosure, neurosis, psychosis, the-name- of-the-father.