"The Wild Duck" is the tragedy and the proof of petty-bourgeois falsehood. The heroes of Ibsen here are crushed due to their brutal honesty, stemming from a lack of moral principles and the replacement of those principles with phony illusions.

The theme of the work is the seemingly simple life of a family that chooses to be blind in order not to admit the immoral contracts that govern it according to Protestant standards. The wounded bird they harbor, the wild duck, is the most tragic symbol of the evolution of Ibsen's heroes who, immersed in their delusions, lead themselves into psychological dead ends.