Connections-the search for truth.

In both The Wild Duck and Oedipus the King, there is a motif of characters searching for the truth when it is concealed.

In The Wild Duck, this motif is especially prominent. In Act I of the play, Gregers comes home to find that Gina has married Hialmar, and he is immediately suspicious of his father.

WER. What do you mean by that? [flaring up] You are not alluding to me, I hope?

GREG. [softly but firmly]. Yes, I am alluding to you.

This immediate suspicion of possible deciet begins Gregers search for the untainted truth behind his father's relationship with the Ekdals. To do this he goes to live with the Ekdals and reveal the lies that his father has created.

In Oedipus the King, the search for truth takes a different form. Oedipus begins the play looking for the man who killed his father, which is in a way a search for the truth behind the murder.
When he is told that he must find the murderer, he says to the supplicants,

"Well, I will start afresh and once again Make dark things clear"

This desire to "make dark things clear" is the driving force in the play. As the play moves on, Oedipus begins to suspect that the oracle was correct and that he himself was the one who murdered his father. Here he is still engaged in the search for truth, only it has shifted slightly so he is searching to see if the predictions of the Oracle are correct.

Both authors likely use this motif to highlight the complexity of the world and the fact that, despite the hero's greatness they are still only humans struggling against the forces of fate, or the world.