A Sign Transformation Analysis of Wild Ducks and Dogs in Ibsen’s Wild Duck

• Main Authors: Wang, Yuan-Sheng, 王淵生
• Other Authors: Liu, Chin-li
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/gb3387

碩士 === 國立臺灣藝術大學 === 戲劇學系 === 103 === Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) is known as the Father of Modern Drama. In his very first play of symbolism, The Wild Duck, the images of dogs and wild ducks appear abundently amid the interactions of the characters. These images, coupled with the structural relationships among the characters, undergo sign transformations to deliver Ibsen’s sophisticated philosophy of life. Algirdas Julien Greimas (1917-1993), the iconic figure for the Paris School of Semiotics, introduced actants to refer to people, animals or even abstract concepts in a given narrative; they have become an important tool for text analysis. I believe that the actantial model makes it easy to clearly analyze the interactions between characters in The Wild Duck or the transformation of signs between characters, dogs, and wild ducks. Therefore, the actantial model by Greimas is adopted in this dissertation to examine the interactions between the seven major characters in the play, i.e. Hjalmar, Gregers, Hedvig, Ekdal, Werle, Gina, and Relling, and then explore the sign transformations between dogs and wild ducks.