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A Study Guide
Contents:
Henrik Ibsen: A Life…………………………………………………p. 3
Henrik Ibsen: Works………………………………………………...p. 4
Henrik Ibsen: Dramatic Legacy……………………………......pp. 5/6
Hedda Gabler: A Synopsis………………………………………...p. 7
Hedda Gabler: Dramatis Personae...………………………pp. 8 – 10
Hedda Gabler: Glossary of Terms……………………………….p. 11
Hedda Gabler: Style……………………………………….…..pp. 12/13
Hedda Gabler: Summary & Analysis Index……………………p. 14
Hedda Gabler: Major Themes…………….…………………pp. 31/33
Hedda Gabler: Early Reviews………………………………pp. 34 - 36
Hedda Gabler: Critical Overview..……………………………….p. 37
Hedda Gabler: Secondary Female Characters in Hedda Gabler
(A Critical Essay)…………………………………………….pp. 38 – 40
Hedda Gabler: Then & Now………………………………………..p. 41
2
Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)
“The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone.” An Enemy of the People, 1882
At the time Henrik Ibsen wrote and published Hedda Gabler (1890) he was sixty−two and a
well−established but highly controversial dramatist, but the road to that success had been paved with
deprivation and hardship. Although he was born in a well−to−do family in Skien, Norway, on March
20, 1828, financial reversals led to poverty, making Henrik's youth a dismal one. At sixteen, he began
a lonely and unhappy six−year apprenticeship to an apothecary (a pharmacist). He found his
principal solace in the theater and writing, which he hoped would provide a means of escaping from
his misery. His first serious attempt at drama, Cataline (1850), earned him the support of friends who
helped him escape from drudgery. He moved to Christiania (Oslo), where he undertook an
apprenticeship as dramatist with the Bergen National Theatre. He also spent time in Copenhagen,
studying at the Royal Theatre. In 1857 he left the Bergen Theatre to become the director of the
Norwegian Theatre in Christiania and despite his wretched financial state, married and began a
family.
Lack of public support for his work forced him into exile. In 1864, he moved to Rome. It was the first
major turning point in his long career, for it was as an expatriate that he wrote most of the plays on
which his great international reputation was built. Not only did he leave Scandinavia, he left behind a
direct participation in theater. While in Italy, he wrote Brand (1866) and Peer Gynt (1867), two
important poetic dramas. The former play was an immediate success and helped alleviate Ibsen's
dire poverty.
In 1868, the French invasion of Italy obliged Ibsen to move to Germany, where he began writing the
series of plays on which his fame largely rests. He turned from writing mythic−poetic drama to
realistic, social−problem drama in prose, starting with The League of Youth in 1869, which, like so
many of its successors, caused an uproar when first staged. Although his success was limited, by the
time he returned to Rome in 1878, he had permanently freed himself from debt.
In the next year, 1879, he published A Doll's House, garnering international acclaim and putting him,
critically, at center stage. Each succeeding social−thesis play brought increased recognition and
notoriety, for each was, in some quarters, condemned. For example, Ghosts (1881) created such a
furor that it could not be staged immediately. Others, like An Enemy of the People (1883) and The
Wild Duck (1885), though less sensational, still caused critical controversy. Ibsen's fame and his
notoriety spread quickly.
By 1890, when Hedda Gabler was published, he had even become a national hero in Norway. He
returned home in 1891, where, before his death, he wrote The Master Builder (1892), Little
Eyolf(1894), John Gabriel Borkman (1896), and When We Dead Awaken (1899), dramas that are
more symbolic and introspective than any of his previous works. He died on May 23, 1906, widely
regarded as the most important dramatist of the age.
3
Henrik Ibsen: Works
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Cataline (1850)
The Burial Mound also known as The Warrior's Barrow (1850)
Norma (1851)
St. John's Eve (1852)
Lady Inger of Oestraat (1854)
The Feast at Solhaug (1855)
Olaf Liljekrans (1856)
The Vikings at Helgelan (1857)
Digte - only released collection of poetry, included ‘Terje Vigen’ (1862)
Love's Comedy (1862)
The Pretenders (1863)
Brand (1866)
Peer Gynt (1867)
The League of Youth (1869)
Emperor and Galilean (1873)
Pillars of Society (1877)
A Doll's House (1879)
Ghosts (1881)
An Enemy of the People (1882)
The Wild Duck (1884)
Rosmersholm (1886)
The Lady from the Sea (1888)
Hedda Gabler (1890)
The Master Builder (1892)
Little Eyolf (1894)
John Gabriel Borkman (1896)
When We Dead Awaken (1899)
Ibsen's later plays tended to meet with controversy on the occasions of their first
performances: Hedda Gabler was reviled by critics of the published script and of the first
production in 1890. It is at about this time that Ibsen's work, partly as a consequence of
George Bernard Shaw's lecture The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1890), became
extremely popular in England.
Interestingly, late in his career Ibsen turned to a more introspective drama that had much
less to do with denunciations of Victorian morality. In such later plays as Hedda Gabler
(1890) and The Master Builder (1892) Ibsen explored psychological conflicts that
transcended a simple rejection of Victorian conventions. Many modern readers, who
might regard anti-Victorian didacticism as dated, simplistic and even clichéd, have found
these later works to be of absorbing interest for their hard-edged, objective consideration
of interpersonal confrontation. Hedda Gabler and The Master Builder centre on female
protagonists whose almost demonic energy proves both attractive and destructive for
those around them.
Hedda Gabler is probably Ibsen's most performed play, with the title role regarded as
one of the most challenging and rewarding for an actress even in the present day.
There are a few similarities between Hedda and the character of Nora in A Doll's
House, but many of today's audiences and theatre critics feel that Hedda's intensity
and drive are much more complex and much less comfortably explained than what
they view as rather routine feminism on the part of Nora.
4
Henrik Ibsen: Dramatic Legacy
Ibsen had completely rewritten the rules of drama with a realism which was to be adopted by
Chekhov and others and which we see in the theatre to this day. From Ibsen forward,
challenging assumptions and directly speaking about issues has been considered one of the
factors that makes a play art rather than entertainment. Ibsen returned to Norway in 1891,
but it was in many ways not the Norway he had left. Indeed, he had played a major role in
the changes that had happened across society. The Victorian Age was on its last legs, to be
replaced by the rise of Modernism not only in the theatre, but across public life.
Ibsen’s work and ideas had a profound effect on those of his generation such as Anton
Chekhov and Constantin Stanislavski and Georg Brandes. This influence was felt later by
prominent writers and thinkers such as George Bernard Shaw, André Antoine, Aurélien
Lugné-Poe, Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, Arthur Miller and Raymond Williams.
C19th Century Theatre:
C19th Century Theatre describes a wide range of movements in the theatrical culture of the
19th century. In the West, they include Romanticism, melodrama, the well-made plays of
Scribe and Sardou, the farces of Feydeau, the problem plays of Naturalism and Realism,
Wagner's operatic Gesamtkunstwerk, Gilbert and Sullivan's plays and operas, Wilde's
drawing-room comedies, Symbolism and Russian Symbolism, and proto-Expressionism in
the late works of August Strindberg and Henrik Ibsen.
Realism began around 1850 as the Romanticism period was ending around 1870, and gave
way to the 'isms' of Modernism in the theatre of the 20th century. Henrik Ibsen is
considered to be the father of Realism in theatre. In the UK, Thomas William Robertson
was an early proponent.
The theme of Realism in theatre was likeness to life and this movement sought to create
theatre that was a laboratory for the nature of relationships. The goal of a realism-era
play was to set forth a functional or dysfunctional situation in an objective manner to an
impartial audience. The audience is meant to view the characters as a visitor observes
animals in a zoo. Other features include:
 Dialogue only, no asides, soliloquies or monologues (except when addressed to another
onstage character)
 An individual represents a societal problem
 Fourth wall removed convention is strictly followed
The Problem Play:
The problem play is a form of drama that emerged during the 19th century as part of the
wider movement of realism in the arts. It deals with contentious social issues through
debates between the characters on stage, who typically represent conflicting points of
view within a realistic social context.
The critic F. S. Boas adapted the term to characterise certain plays by Shakespeare that he
considered to have characteristics similar to Ibsen's 19th-century problem plays. Boas's term
caught on, and Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, Timon of Athens, Troilus and
Cressida, and All's Well That Ends Well are still referred to as Shakespeare's ‘problem
plays’. As a result, the term is used more broadly and retrospectively to describe pre-19th5
century, tragicomic dramas that do not fit easily into the classical generic distinction between
comedy and tragedy.
Realism was a general movement in the late nineteenth century that steered theatrical texts
and performances toward greater fidelity to real life. The realist movement began with
Henrik Ibsen and was largely developed by Constantin Stanislavski and his Moscow Arts
Theatre. Together with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko the two pioneered a break away
from the highly stylised and unrealistic theatre styles (e.g. Melodrama) prevailing in the late
19th and early 20th centuries.
Realism:
Realism began earlier in the 19th century in Russia than elsewhere in Europe and took a
more uncompromising form. Beginning with the plays of Ivan Turgenev, who used "domestic
detail to reveal inner turmoil", Alexandr Ostrovsky, who was Russia's first professional
playwright, Aleksey Pisemsky, whose A Bitter Fate (1859) anticipated Naturalism, and Leo
Tolstoy, whose The Power of Darkness (1886) is "one of the most effective of naturalistic
plays", a tradition of psychological realism in Russia culminated with the establishment of the
Moscow Art Theatre by Constantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko.[3]
Their ground-breaking productions of the plays of Anton Chekhov in turn influenced Maxim
Gorky and Mikhail Bulgakov.
The realist dramatist Thomas William Robertson in Britain, August Strindberg in
Scandinavia, and Eugene O'Neill in the United States of America, among others, rejected
the complex and artificial plotting of the well-made play and instead present a theatrical
verisimilitude that would more objectively portray life as recognizable to the audience.
This is accomplished through realistic settings and natural speech which gives form to the
general philosophy of naturalism (roughly, the view that man's life is shaped entirely by his
social and physical environment). However, the style of realism soon came to
distinguish itself from Naturalism as a style that was heightened reality. Realism
maintained the strength of such elements of drama as tension and focus, while maintaining
an audience’s direct connection and relation to the situation and characters. They
were a reflection of themselves. Realism is the art of drawing from one's own personal
memories and feelings to show and present an emotion. It is the art that has helped and led
into method acting. Realism takes human morals and emotional inner thoughts and
beliefs to bring about most of the conflict it presents. Naturalism is a break off of realism
that uses physical dangers for its conflict instead of moral and inner character conflict such
as realism. Realism was first crafted into the works of Shakespeare and other early 16th
century writers.
6
Hedda Gabler: A Synopsis
Hedda Gabler and her new husband, George Tesman, return from their six-month honeymoon
to their new house. We soon learn that Hedda, the daughter of an esteemed general, deigned to
marry Tesman only because she had reached the age at which society dictated she should wed.
Hedda, not even a year into her marriage, is showing signs of boredom with Tesman even
though she's pregnant with his child.
Tesman's Aunt Julia is there to welcome them home. Hedda is quite rude to the older woman,
so Julia leaves quickly. After her departure, Mrs. Elvsted arrives to let the Tesmans know that
Eilert Lovborg, Tesman's academic nemesis, has returned to town after having fallen into
alcoholism and taken two years to achieve sobriety and return to society. Mrs. Elvsted hints to
Hedda that she truly loves Lovborg, and doesn't care about her husband anymore - but that
she's worried that Lovborg's return to the city will mean that he'll start drinking again.
Judge Brack arrives as soon as Mrs. Elvsted leaves, and lets the Tesmans know that Lovborg
has been greeted warmly, and that his new book has been a major success. Indeed, Brack tells
Tesman that the professorship he's been expecting might go to Lovborg instead. Privately,
Hedda tells Brack that she cares little for her new husband, and that she hopes that the Judge
might be able to somehow entertain her during these dull years of marriage. She agrees that
Brack will be part of their "triangle" - a relationship that won't necessarily involve explicit adultery,
but will provide her with some much-needed companionship.
Tesman returns to the room and says that he's going the stag party that the Judge is holding
later that night. Eilert Lovborg soon arrives, and privately confesses his long-held love for Hedda.
Once upon a time, they used to be friends, but Lovborg got "too close" and Hedda cut off ties
with him - even, at one point, threatening to shoot him. Now he hopes to at least restart a
friendship. Mrs. Evlsted arrives, and Hedda mischievously uses the information she has from
both parties to pit the two against one another. She makes Mrs. Elvsted look like a fool for
having worried that Lovborg would suddenly start drinking again. In retaliation, Lovborg decides
to follow Tesman and Brack to their stag party, clutching the pages of the handwritten
manuscript for his "revelatory" new book about the future.
Hedda and Mrs. Elvsted wait all night for the men to return, but Tesman doesn't arrive until
morning. He is carrying Lovborg's manuscript, which he says the scholar dropped in a fit of latenight drunkenness. Tesman leaves the manuscript with Hedda while he goes out to visit a dying
relative, and in the meanwhile, Judge Brack arrives to tell the women that Lovborg got into
trouble with the police the night before after assaulting a group of women whom he said took his
manuscript.
Lovborg soon arrives and tells Hedda and Mrs. Elvsted that he didn't lose the manuscript, but
rather tore it into a thousand pieces. Mrs. Elvsted leaves, devastated that Lovborg has become
so self-destructive. Just before leaving, however, Lovborg tells Hedda that he did in fact lose the
manuscript. Hedda, who possesses the manuscript herself, says nothing about it, but rather
encourages him to follow through on his thoughts of suicide, handing him one of her father's
pistols. Lovborg leaves, and Hedda burns the manuscript.
Mrs. Elvsted arrives that night and tells the Tesmans that Lovborg is missing and is rumored to
be in the hospital. Brack arrives to confirm the reports that Lovborg has died of a bullet wound to
the chest. While Mrs. Elvsted and Tesman sit in the living room trying to reconstruct his
manuscript from the notes Mrs. Elvsted possesses, Brack privately tells Hedda that Lovborg did
not kill himself, but rather died from a wound inflicted to the bowels - either the result of an
accident or someone else's fire. Brack tells Hedda that either she must account for the pistol
7
being hers, or do whatever he tells her to, as only he can keep her from falling into the police's
hands or suffering through a public scandal. Realizing that she is now in Brack's power, Hedda
goes into the next room and shoots herself.
Hedda Gabler: Dramatis Personae
Hedda Gabler: Hedda is a complex character torn by opposing desires that make her both victim
and victimizer. Her willfulness completely dominates the play, so much so that the other characters,
even the more intriguing ones—Eilert Lovborg and Judge Brack seem to exist primarily to help sculpt
her character in high relief.
Hedda is selfish, proud, and cold, cruelly heedless of the pain she inflicts on others in her efforts to
satisfy the inner desires that she is unwilling to deal with honestly or directly. Inhibited by her
upbringing, she is unwilling to sacrifice her own comfort to satisfy those longings, even though she
finds her respectable marriage wearisome and her doting husband contemptible. Instead of dealing
openly with her dissatisfaction and her growing fear of drowning in boredom, she becomes
desperate, even hysterical, as is revealed in her sometimes treacherous and destructive behavior.
First of all, she rejects George's efforts to bring her closer to his family. In fact, from the start, she
seems bent on ruining George's ties to his past. She refuses to address his Aunt Juliana with the
familiar form of the pronoun ''you'' and, instead, treats her rudely. She also threatens to dismiss
Berta, the loyal family servant. But her calculated coldness towards the Tesmans is most pronounced
in her total lack of concern for George's Aunt Rina, whose death seems to affect Hedda not at all.
Secondly, Hedda responds only negatively to her new role as wife. Most particularly, she refuses to
accept her own pregnancy, something in which she is unable to take any joy at all. She seems to
sense that a child will forever bind her to a life of suffocating boredom. At best, marriage seems only
to offer her a sort of sanctuary from a far more exciting but dangerous world beyond, the world of
Eilert Lovborg, a world that she perceives as romantic and beautiful but also terrifying. She does not
love George, and she deeply resents having to rely on him for security, but she has almost a
parasitical need for his respectability.
Thirdly, Hedda attempts to manipulate others, either from spite or to satisfy her needs vicariously.
The doting George is an easy pawn in Hedda's cruel games. So is Thea Elvsted, a woman too
trusting of Hedda's seeming good will. Hedda's jealousy of Thea, a feeling that extends back into
their school days, makes her betray the woman's confidence, setting in motion the tragedy that at the
last will destroy both Lovborg and Hedda. It particularly goads Hedda that Thea has played a major
role in Eilert's reclamation, corralling his free spirit and directing his energies in a way she herself
was unable or unwilling to do. Her dislike of Thea goes yet deeper, however. Thea, as her
appearance suggests, is warm and engaging, even sensual, whereas Hedda, though attractive, is
steely and distant. Thea's large, blue eyes are fixed with ''an inquiring expression,’’ while Hedda's
‘‘steel−grey eyes express a cold, unruffled repose.’’ Most especially, Hedda is obsessed with Thea's
luxuriant and abundant hair, which she treats like a hated thing to be destroyed, almost as if it were a
reminder of the passion that, from fear, she represses in herself. Her own hair is described by Ibsen
as ‘‘not particularly abundant.’’
As long as Hedda is able to manipulate others, she can deal with her dangerous passions, including
her sexuality. She had once driven Eilert off, threatening him with her father's pistols, and she
threatens Brack in the same way. However, her options run out when Brack gets her in a
compromising position, one in which she can be manipulated, something that she will not endure.
Her only alternative is to take her own life.
While it is impossible to excuse Hedda's selfish and destructive character, at least some of the blame
for her behavior rests with external influences, particularly her upbringing and the social dictates of
her age. As the daughter of a general, she had learned to shoot and ride—hard, masculine activities
that did not fit a respectable woman's role. That she is unable to make a mature adjustment to a
feminine role, surrendering her freedom, is not entirely her fault.
8
George Tesman: George Tesman is a well−intentioned young man on his way to becoming a
harmless drudge. He is a research scholar whose chief abilities, ''collecting and arranging,’’ are more
clerical than insightful. He also seems more devoted to the minutia of history, the domestic industries
of medieval Brabant, than he is to his wife, Hedda, around whom he usually seems doltish and
imperceptive. He is unaware, for example, that she is pregnant, a fact that does not escape his Aunt
Juliana. He also seems insensitive to Hedda's incivility and sarcasm, as well as her obvious
discontent and bitterness.
On the other hand, George is devoted to his aunts, especially Juliana, who has been like a surrogate
mother to him. He cares for her deeply, and he is upset that Hedda finds herself unable to develop a
familiar relationship with her. To Hedda, Juliana is too much a busy−body and too cloying in her
affection.
Although professionally ambitious, Tesman is also essentially honest and fair. He recognizes in
Lovborg the visionary genius that he utterly lacks, knowing, for example, that he could never make
projections about the future the way Eilert has done in his manuscript sequel to his successful book.
At the end of the play, he is willing to put aside his own work to collaborate with Mrs. Elvsted in an
effort to reconstruct Lovborg's destroyed manuscript.
Tesman both bores and annoys Hedda. He treats life like his work, unimaginatively. At times he acts
like a nincompoop, especially in his habit of responding to the most serious turn of events with the
same inane enthusiasm accorded matters of no consequence. His tag expression, ‘‘fancy that,’’
registers his apparently equal astonishment at the fact that his aunt has bought a new bonnet as, at
the end, the fact that Hedda has shot and killed herself.
Judge Brack: Judge Brack hides his desire for an intimate relationship with Hedda with an outward
friendship for George Tesman and a cloak of respectability. He is, in truth, quite sinister and
unprincipled, a sophisticated stalker who awaits an opportunity to seduce Hedda, to become the
‘‘one cock in the basket.’’
Brack is particularly dangerous because he is a fair judge of character, except, finally, in Hedda's
case. He is genuinely shocked by her suicide, something he did not anticipate would result from his
success in maneuvering her into a compromising position. He is otherwise a glib and masterful
manipulator. At the outset, it is made clear that he has put George Tesman in his debt by arranging
the loans for purchasing the villa. George, ingenuous to a fault, sees Brack only as an unselfish
friend, one he trusts implicitly. Brack also challenges the hapless Lovborg, inviting him to his party,
knowing full well that Eilert might slip again into his former dissolution. Hedda, on the other hand,
penetrates Brack's mask of good will, identifying the leering innuendo in much of his seemingly
harmless conversation with her.
It is Brack who forces Hedda into her last desperate act, her self−destruction. He knows that the
pistol used by Eilert Lovborg was one of a pair of General Gabler's pistols in Hedda's possession.
That he can expose her and subject her to scandal gives him the advantage he has sought, but
Hedda, unwilling to become his "slave," elects to escape such a predicament through death.
Eilert Lovborg: Eilert Lovborg is George Tesman's potential nemesis. Unlike Tesman, he is both a
visionary and genius, but he is cursed with an inability to moderate his behavior. He carries
disreputability on his back, luggage from a past in which he ruined his reputation by unspecified but
dissolute conduct. However, when he first appears, he has renewed hopes. He has been inspired by
Thea Elvsted, who has both prompted his reformation and been his able assistant in his scholarship
and writing. He has also published a successful book and is close to finishing its more brilliant
sequel.
Newly arrived in Christiania, Lovborg hopes to befriend George and interest him in his work, even
though he is a threat to Tesman. He also attempts to refrain from any activity that might lead to a
lapse into scandalous activity. However, his reformation proves both fragile and tragic when Hedda,
9
his old love, reveals to him that Thea lacks sufficient faith in his self−control. He begins drinking, then
goes off to Judge Brack's party. In the early morning, after heavy imbibing, he carelessly drops his
manuscript on the street, where Tesman picks it up. It is later destroyed by Hedda, leading to Eilert's
death and her own.
Lovborg offers a sharp contrast to Tesman. He is a disreputable and somewhat jaded genius,
whereas George is a totally respectable and ingenuous plodder. Eilert has a creative, moody, and
somewhat arrogant spirit; Tesman is unimaginative but steady and diligent. Hedda finds the latter
boring but safe, and the former exciting but threatening.
Mrs. Elvsted: During the course of Hedda Gabler, Thea confesses that she has fled from her
loveless and boorish husband, Sheriff Elvsted, and her stepchildren, destroying her reputation to
follow Eilert Lovborg to Christiania. For the prior two years, she had both reformed the debauched
Lovborg and inspired his new work. Despite her great influence on the brilliant Eilert, her hopes of
securing his love are faint. A shadow sits on their relationship: Eilert's residual feelings for a former
lover, who, unbeknownst to Thea, is Hedda Gabler.
Thea and Hedda, like Eilert and George Tesman, are sharply contrasting characters. Thea has
courage and hope, selflessness and warmth. She is willing to risk all for love, even the kind of
scandal that cowers Hedda, and though she knows her love for Eilert Lovborg is futile, her chief
concern is for him, not herself. Hedda, on the other hand, is selfish and severe, incapable of the
generosity of spirit necessary to love.
The two women even contrast physically. Thea seems made of softer stuff, rounded, not chiseled like
the obdurate, stone−cast Hedda. Both have a kind of beauty, but Thea's greater beauty lies within. It
is reflected in her outer femininity, in her rich and luxuriant hair, particularly. Hedda's beauty is
sharper, more masculine or androgynous.
Above all, Thea is devoted, her desertion of her oafish stepfamily not withstanding. Her loyalty to
Lovborg inspires her to work with George Tesman to reconstruct Eilert's manuscript, their "child,"
which, she believes, Lovborg destroyed before his death. That Hedda is excluded from participating
in their work contributes to Hedda's despair and suicide.
Other Characters:
Berta: Berta is the Tesmans' middle−aged, maid. She is a loyal family retainer, formerly employed
by George Tesman's maiden aunts but now in the service of George and Hedda at their newly
purchased villa. Her closeness to Juliana Tesman makes her a minor threat to Hedda, who intensely
dislikes George's aunt. Early on, Hedda threatens to discharge Berta, partly to discomfort George,
but also because she clearly identifies Berta with George's family and its deeply affectionate binds
that Hedda loathes. Although Berta appears often, she has no significant part in the play's action.
She is very protective of George Tesman and his privacy.
Aunt Julia: See Miss Juliana Tesman.
Mrs. Rysing: See Mrs. Elvsted.
Hedda Tesman: See Hedda Gabler.
10
Hedda Gabler: Glossary of Terms
Falk Villa: A home that Hedda admired, and that Tesman eventually bought for her. When
the play opens, the couple has just moved into the Falk Villa, even though it is too expensive
for them to maintain.
green-eyed: Jealous. Tesman uses the word in reference to how his friends feel about him
having landed Hedda as his wife.
Potboiler: A much-admired book; a "hit". Lovborg says that he deliberately crafted a
potboiler by not writing a single word that would be disagreed with.
Security: A down payment on a house. In order to pay the security for the Falk Villa, Aunt
Julia mortgaged her annuities.
Solicitor: A lawyer (such as Mrs. Elvsted's husband).
triangular relationship: A relationship between three people that may or may not include
sexual elements, but in this context certainly involves mental stimulation. Brack suggests
that Hedda and Tesman allow him to enter their intimate circle so that he can provide Hedda
with the conversation that she so desperately years for.
vine leaves: When Hedda says that Lovborg will return from Brack's party with vine leaves
in his hair, she means only that he will return inebriated. Vine leaves are an ancient Greek
symbol of Dionysian hedonism.
11
Hedda Gabler: Style
Setting: While it is important, the physical setting of Hedda Gabler—the Tesmans' newly
purchased villa in Christiania, Norway—is of less importance than the social environment of
the time and place. The comfortably furnished house reflects both the class status of the
Tesmans and their future expectations. In the first act, Hedda makes it clear that they plan to
move beyond mere comfort to new levels of luxury. Her old piano, unsuited for the drawing
room decor, must be moved into another room, to be replaced by a second, more elegant
piano—at best a frivolous and impractical expense. Hedda wants both the security of
respectability and the extravagant lifestyle of the wealthy, something threatened by
Lovborg's arrival.
There is a price to be paid, though, a price that makes the villa a kind of prison. Against her
innermost desires, Hedda must act like a proper wife, deferring to her husband's authority.
She attempts to feign that role, but she finds it extremely boring. She grows desperate,
especially when George warns that his appointment is no certainty. Fearing the loss of
comfort as much as the loss of respectability, Hedda destroys Eilert's manuscript and
bamboozles George into believing that she did it out of love for him. Hedda will not live in
such a cage unless it is extremely well−appointed and all her material needs are met. She is
simply that selfish and abusive of others.
Structure: Hedda Gabler, a four−act play, has what at the time was probably the most
common formal pattern of dividing full−length plays into discrete segments. Works from
earlier eras are usually divided into five acts, while more modern plays are generally divided
into either three acts or, as is the case with many contemporary plays, into two acts. As is
also traditional, the acts of Hedda Gabler mark divisions in time, segments in which
significant action occurs over the course of two days. The plot is linear in its progression,
strictly adhering to a straight−forward, chronological order.
Equally important, each act reaches a climactic moment when something decisive or
irreversible is said or done. These are memorable moments, when, for example, at the end
of the second act, Hedda burns Eilert's manuscript or, at the end of the play, kills herself with
one of her father's pistols. Each act has the classic dramatic structure characterizing the play
as a whole, and the warp and woof of each is a rising action that takes the whole to a new
plateau of tension. In short, Hedda Gabler, provides an excellent example of what
constitutes ''a well−made play.''
Realism: Like the other social−problem or thesis plays of Ibsen, Hedda Gabler follows the
tenets of realism prevalent in late nineteenth−century Europe. Principal among these was
the idea that the writer should render life both objectively and faithfully, concentrating on
fairly ordinary people who face problems that can only be resolved in a manner that is true to
life. In his realistic works, Ibsen sought to capture a sense of reality by using the
characteristics of ordinary conversation, unencumbered with ornate diction and insistent
poetic effects. In their cadences and diction his characters speak like real people, if, from
dramatic necessity, somewhat more effortlessly and pointedly, and, in Norwegian at least,
somewhat more sonorously.
12
Generally, too, characters in such works have discernible and valid motives for their
behavior, even if they are complex, as they are in Hedda's case. If they are not clear, they
must at least have verisimilitude, that quality that allows the viewer to conclude that even
very puzzling characters are true to life and have validity. Ibsen allows his audience
glimpses into Hedda's deeper motives, those things which do not wholly surface in the play's
verbal matrix but are suggested, for example, both in persistent symbols and in her actions.
It is in Hedda Gabler that Ibsen takes his realism in drama to his limits. It has been described
as the dramatist's most objective work, almost clinical in its coldness and distance. His plot
driver, Hedda, is a vicious, petty, and extremely selfish woman, for whom, in Ibsen's time,
few could find an iota of sympathy. Perhaps to underscore her brusque incivility and abrupt
mood changes, Ibsen experimented with a new technique, eliminating long speeches
altogether. He also used insistent words and phrases to reveal and even encapsulate his
characters, a prime example being the ''fancy that'' of George Tesman.
Foil: An important device used by Ibsen in Hedda Gabler is the character foil. Contrasting
figures help define their counterparts, providing a heightened sense of each character's
personality. Hedda has two principal foils: Thea Elvsted and Juliana Tesman. Both women
are very unselfish and at peace with life, willing to sacrifice themselves for others, even
though, in Thea's case, it will destroy her reputation. Hedda's paralyzing fear of losing
respectability stands in sharp contrast. George Tesman and Eilert Lovborg are also foils.
Tesman is "correctness" itself, a dull but steady plodder with a very limited imagination. His
principal interest as scholar lies in rooting through the relics of the past, taking and
organizing notes about the domestic industries of medieval Brabant. Lovborg, in contrast, is
an erratic genius, prone to excess and easily drawn to hedonistic pleasures. As a visionary
scholar, he is much more interested in the past for what it may reveal about the future, the
unknown. He is, however, arrogant, self−destructive, and, at the last, somewhat pathetic.
Symbol
Ibsen makes it impossible to ignore some important symbols in Hedda Gabler. Primary are
the pistols, Thea Elvsted's hair, and Eilert's manuscript. Because of the association made by
both Hedda and Thea, the most obvious of these is Lovborg's manuscript. In the minds of
both, the work is Eilert and Thea's "child," born of their love and affection for each other. It is
partly from her intense jealousy that Hedda destroys it and sets out to break the bond
between Thea and Lovborg.
Less open in symbolic significance is Thea's luxurious and abundant hair, especially as it
contrasts with Hedda's own. Thea's hair is a point of fixation for Hedda, something that she
despised in Thea when the two were schoolgirls; it continues to annoy her during the course
of the play. Thea's hair seems to embody those qualities in Thea's character that Hedda
lacks, including an engaging femininity that Hedda envies, perhaps even a sensuality that
Hedda hates because she represses it in herself.
The pistols, on the other hand, suggest masculinity, and have long been identified as phallic
symbols. It is noteworthy that both George Tesman and Judge Brack are appalled by the
fact that Hedda plays with them. As extensions of Hedda's character, the guns suggest a
masculinity, a hardening that has resulted from her repressed femininity. They represent the
freedom that Hedda longs for but must sacrifice to respectability.
13
Hedda Gabler: Summary & Analysis
Summary and Analysis of Act I, Part I (pp. 13/14)
Summary and Analysis of Act I, Part II (pp. 15/16)
Summary and Analysis of Act II, Part I (pp. 17/18)
Summary and Analysis of Act II, Part II (pp. 19/20)
Summary and Analysis of Act III, Part I (pp. 21/22)
Summary and Analysis of Act III, Part II (pp. 23/24)
Summary and Analysis of Act IV, Part I (pp. 25/26)
Summary and Analysis of Act IV, Part II (pp. 27/28)
14
Hedda Gabler: Summary and Analysis of Act I, Part I
Summary:
The play opens with Aunt Julia and Berta, the housemaid, entering the house of George
Tesman and his new bride, Hedda. Berta tells Aunt Julia that the couple just returned from
their six-month honeymoon the night before, and that she's anxious about whether she will
be able to please the new mistress of the house, since she seems "terrible grand." She
comments that she was shocked to see how much Hedda had to unpack. Berta also feels
guilty that she's leaving the house of Aunt Julia and Aunt Rina, especially since Rina's health
is declining so precipitously. Aunt Julia comforts her, implying that the new Mrs. Tesman is a
great catch for her nephew. She also says that in keeping with Jorgen's recent spate of good
fortune, he's been given the title of "Doctor", and might have an even grander title coming his
way in the near future.
Tesman enters the room, happily greets his aunt, and tells her of all the research he did on
his honeymoon. Julia is surprised that Jorgen would work on his honeymoon. Tesman helps
his aunt untie her new bonnet, and makes quite a fuss over its beauty. Aunt Julia, pleased,
says that she purchased the hat so that Hedda wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen with her
if they should go out in public together. Tesman and Julia sit, and Julia inquires as to
whether Tesman has any important news that he wishes to share with her. Tesman,
however, seems not to pick up on the reference to a baby, and says that his only big news is
that he has recently become a doctor.
Both Julia and Tesman comment on the cost of the expensive honeymoon needed to satisfy
a "lady" like Hedda, and Tesman points out that their pricey new house - the Falk Villa - was
purchased only because Hedda said she so dearly wanted to live in it. It's a bigger house
than they need, and Tesman wonders aloud what they will do with the two empty rooms next
to Hedda's bedroom. Aunt Julia remarks that they may be filled soon enough, but again
Tesman does not seem to understand the reference. Aunt Julia then tells her nephew that
she's helped with the burden of the costs by taking out a mortgage on her annuities to pay
for the house's security. Tesman is shocked at his aunt's kindness, but the news seems to
relieve him somewhat. The last revelation Aunt Julia offers is that Tesman's academic rival,
Eilert Lovborg, has recently published a book. Tesman reacts to this information with
surprise, as Lovborg has had a decidedly difficult few years.
Hedda enters, and promptly complains that the maid has opened the windows. Within
minutes, she manages to insult Tesman's favorite slippers, remark on the ugliness of Aunt
Julia's bonnet, and coldly rebuff her husband's attempts to make conversation. When
Tesman remarks that Hedda has "filled out" on their honeymoon, Hedda replies that she
hasn't changed at all since the day they left. Aunt Julia takes Hedda's head in her hands and
kisses her hair, blessing her "for George's sake." Aunt Julia leaves, and Tesman tells Hedda
that she should be nicer to his aunt. Hedda says he should invite her over again later in the
day. Tesman, happy at this seemingly conciliatory response, asks Hedda to start calling
Julie "Auntie", but Hedda refuses.
Analysis:
Ibsen structures Hedda Gabler almost like a classical tragedy, using the first act to set up a
clear plant-to-payoff design. Information that will ultimately inform his characters' fates is
15
clearly and gradually laid out. There is also a striking amount of foreshadowing - by the
section's end, we are already aware of three of the major conflicts to come: Tesman's
precarious finances, Hedda's unacknowledged pregnancy, and the arrival of Tesman's rival,
Eilert Lovborg. Already we can sense that Lovberg will play a key role in resolving the
tensions between Hedda and Jorgen, either as a foil that will force Tesman and Hedda to
ally themselves against him, or as an iceberg that will drive them apart.
Hedda Gabler, of course, is one of the theater's most famous and coveted female roles. It's
not hard to see why: in Hedda, Ibsen has created a woman of such complexity that for years
critics and audiences have been divided in determining what it is that actually motivates her
coldness and impenetrability. Critics have called her "a true type of degenerate incapable of
yielding herself, body and soul, to the man she loves," "a complete perversion of
womanhood," and even a dangerous example of "the New Woman, a female character
common in fiction in the 1890s, when women were actively demanding equality with men"
(Melani 3).
As we continue our examination of Hedda Gabler, it is vital to repeatedly consider to Hedda's
role in the ensuing mini-tragedies - is she simply a player in a larger design, or is she a
plague being delivered onto this small community? Or is she rather playing God, and
dictating all of the events that take place? In other words, is Hedda a victim, a tool, or a
perpetrator?
Perhaps our first clue comes from her dealings with Aunt Julia. Hedda makes it a point to
comment on the ugliness of the hat on the chair, which she states that she believes is the
maid's. When Aunt Julia claims the hat as her own, Hedda does little to retract her
statement, even though she somewhat makes up for it by telling Tesman that she'll invite
Aunt Julia over later. This is simple boorishness, barely redeemed by a transparent facade
of manners. Later, however, we find out that Hedda in fact manufactured the whole event,
knowing quite well that the hat was Aunt Julia's all along. This is a recurring theme in the
play - Hedda's ability to not just react in a given moment, but to design, to plan interactions
with characters in order to achieve a certain goal.
Another clue as to why these designs seem so integral to Hedda's character comes in the
repeated references to Hedda's father, General Gabler. As the general's daughter, Hedda
was known for her style and sophistication. Indeed, it was she who was responsible for
keeping up the general's reputation, whereas with Tesman she is a burden on his meager
finances. Hedda seems strangely resigned to her unhappy marriage, but we must ask: why
did Hedda marry Tesman in the first place? In understanding the reasons behind her
willingness to commit to a man that she either doesn't love or a man who she may love
abstractly but despises practically, we will begin to unravel the mystery of her character.
16
Hedda Gabler: Summary and Analysis of Act I, Part II
Summary:
Mrs. Elvstead, a pretty, delicate woman, arrives at the house, having left some flowers and a
calling card there earlier. It is immediately apparent that she is distraught, but is hesitant to
reveal the source of her dismay. Finally, she reveals that she is at her wit's end because
Eilert Lovborg has recently arrived in town, and that she fears the town will be full of
"temptations" for him. Lovborg used to be the tutor to Mrs. Elvsted's step-children, and
recently wrote a bestselling book. He was a model of sobriety while he was living with the
Elvsteds, but Mrs. Elvsted is concerned that living in the city will prove too much for him. She
begs Tesman to keep an eye on Lovborg, as he will certainly seek out his old friend. Hedda
tells Tesman that he should invite Lovborg over to visit (and urges him to write a "long"
letter), and Tesman goes out of the room to compose the invitation.
As soon as Tesman leaves, Hedda tells Mrs. Elvsted to explain what's really happening.
Mrs. Elvsted is reluctant, saying that Hedda used to torment her viciously at school, but
Hedda dismisses the incidents as mere childhood play. She treats Mrs. Elvstead with
remarkable affection, urging her to call her "Hedda" and looking at her with compassion in
her eyes. Slowly, Mrs. Evlsted opens up and reveals that she never had a happy marriage indeed, that her husband is "repellant" to her - and that when Eilert Lovborg began to tutor
her husband's children, they developed a close relationship. Mrs. Elvsted claims she saved
him from vice, and that in return, Lovborg taught her a great many things. She also says that
they worked on his book together. But Mrs. Elvsted adds that she's afraid there's another
woman in his heart - a woman he only spoke of once. She recalls that Lovborg said that
when he and this woman parted, the woman threatened to shoot him with a pistol.
Mrs. Elvsted leaves, and Judge Brack enters the house. Brack and Tesman sit down to talk,
and Brack promptly brings up the subject of Lovborg's return. Brack subtly implies that
because of Lovborg's influence in the town, he may receive the professorship that Tesman's
been expecting. Brack leaves, and Tesman tells Hedda that since the professorship is in
doubt, they need to be more frugal. Hedda drolly replies that she at least has one thing left to
amuse her - her father's pistols. As Hedda leaves the room, Tesman runs after her, pleading
with her to leave the dangerous weapons alone.
Analysis:
The plot thickens considerably in the second half of the first act, offering more information
that will assuredly pay off in the play's climax. First, Brack sets up the implied duel between
Jorgen and Lovborg over the professorship that is essential to Tesman's financial solvency and thus crucial for the success of his marriage, since Hedda comes with certain
expectations about her standard of living. Second, Mrs. Evlsted reveals that though she and
Lovborg have grown close, she is afraid a woman stands between them - a woman who
shoots pistols. The final image of the first act is of Hedda leaving Tesman to go shoot her
father's pistols, thus revealing that not only does Lovborg stand between Tesman and the
professorship, but also between Tesman and Hedda.
Readers gain a fuller understanding of Hedda's character in the second section of the act.
For example, Mrs. Elvsted tells Hedda that she cannot confide in her because of the way
Hedda treated her at school (threatening to burn her hair, tormenting her), but Hedda calmly
dismisses it as "talk" and manipulates Mrs. Elvsted into confiding in her. As readers, we
already sense that Mrs. Elvsted is slowly becoming wrapped up in a snake's coils, but Hedda
17
is the play's protagonist, so more information is needed before we can completely abandon
our sympathies. Later, when Hedda encourages Tesman to invite Lovborg over in order to
get him out of the room, we have the same reaction: curiosity as to what Hedda is planning,
but continued refusal to wholly implicate her as the villain.
One of the key moments comes at the end of the act when Tesman suggests that the loss of
the professorship would mean the end of Hedda's extravagant lifestyle: she would have to
curb her spending for the sake of the marriage. Hedda promptly replies that she still has her
pistols to amuse her. The question, of course, is who the pistol would be pointed at: Tesman,
herself, or Lovborg?
At this point, it is perfectly clear that Hedda is miserable in her marriage, and yet completely
responsible for her own misery - she not only willingly married Tesman, but is seemingly
pregnant, and we have no idea why she's allowed either situation to come to pass. As
General Gabler's daughter, we assume she had other options for marriage, and yet there is
the strange sense that she forecasts her own doom - that she senses in her an alien nature
that cannot exist in harmony with the world. She must cause chaos, or she must die.
Indeed, Hedda has set designs into place that we cannot yet quite understand - simply
because we have yet to fully decode the target of her rage. If it is an internal conflict that
drives her, then she is strangely devoid of self-loathing. If it is anger at the world, then she is
curiously passive-aggressive. As we move into Act II, we will achieve a better understanding
of how Hedda's state of mind motivates her actions.
18
Hedda Gabler: Summary and Analysis of Act II, Part I
Summary:
Hedda is in the drawing room of the house, loading one of her father's pistols. When she
sees Judge Brack approaching, she spooks him by pretending to shoot at him. Brack gently
takes the pistols from her, and asks her if she has nothing else to do but play with guns.
Hedda replies that she does not. She then informs him that Tesman is at his Aunt Julia's and
that he's come too late. Brack says that if he had known Tesman was away, he would have
come even earlier. Immediately we realize that Brack is quite fond of Hedda; he even tells
her that during her honeymoon he prayed every day that she would return.
Hedda tells Brack that her honeymoon was deathly boring: Tesman worked all day, and
there was no one from their circle to entertain her. She also says that she found it
"intolerable being everlastingly in the company of one and the same person." When Brack
asks her whether she loves her husband, she tells him not to use the word "love" and says
that she married him because her "time was up" - it was time to get married, and Tesman
seemed poised for success. Now, however, Hedda isn't so sure that she made the right
decision. Brack suggests that he would like to be in a "triangular friendship" with the couple,
free to come and go as he pleases. Hedda says that it would be a relief to have someone
around to engage her in conversation, but it is obvious that Brack would like to provide much
more.
Tesman arrives carrying his scholarly tomes, including Eilert Lovborg's new book, which he
is quite impressed by. Tesman tells Hedda that she'll be alone that night, because Aunt Julia
won't be visiting - likely the result of the hat incident, which left her deeply offended. Tesman
exits to get ready for the all-male party that he and Brack will attend that night, and Hedda
reveals to Brack that she had known all along that the hat was Aunt Julia's, and that she had
behaved so mischievously because she couldn't help doing so; sometimes "irresistible
impulses" come over her. Hedda then expresses how deeply bored she is, and Brack
suggests that she find a vocation. Hedda says that she wishes Tesman would go into politics
to allay her boredom, even though Brack laughs off the suggestion, as Tesman is so illsuited to the political world. Brack then makes an allusion to the fact that Hedda might have
a "new responsibility" on the way. When Hedda tries to avoid the subject, Brack says that
having a child depend on her is a woman's greatest talent. Hedda replies that her only talent
is boring herself to death.
Analysis:
Two key questions about Hedda's character are answered for us in the first section of Act II.
First, we are offered an explicit explanation as to why she married George Tesman: "I'd
danced myself out. That was all. My time was up." It's a curious statement, because from all
we've learned about Hedda, we might wonder why she would succumb to societal pressure
to get married. What seems more likely is that for all her "dancing", she isn't financially
independent. Ultimately, she needed to ally herself with a man who could support her and
take care of her material needs. And in that sense, Tesman is a "model" - if not superior husband.
Hedda, it seems, has an oddly narrow conception of life. There are only a certain number of
people and things that she is "interested in", and when none of these are present, she
becomes deathly bored. This feeling of boredom seems to well up in her like a tide of black
sludge - not unlike the rage or envy seen in countless flawed tragic heroes or villains. When
Hedda gets bored, it seems, terrible things start to happen.
19
A second revelation comes when Brack implies that children might help alleviate Hedda's
boredom and renew her, but she refuses to acknowledge that she is pregnant, or to even
entertain the idea of having children. The idea of having children with Tesman, of her time
fully being "up", is abhorrent, and she seems to view raising children with the same sense of
boredom. Indeed, the only thing that continually gets a rise out of Hedda is shooting her
pistols - the idea of ending life at any moment keeps her boredom at bay.
The issue of Brack's "triangle" proposition is an interesting one if only because we cannot
gauge for certain whether it's sexual in nature. Brack at first suggests that Hedda "jump out"
of her marriage every so often - in other words, have an affair with Brack - but Hedda quickly
rebuffs such a possibility. However, when Brack says he will "jump in" with the couple,
creating a triangle, Hedda is more than open to the idea. But what, exactly, does Brack
mean by "jumping in"? How can this kind of triangle possibly sustain itself if one of the points
- namely Tesman - is unaware that it exists?
Slowly, we're beginning to understand Hedda's modus operandi - she feels trapped by a
world that she feels is closing in on her, and has no recourse but to try to expand her circle
as much as she can without endangering her marriage. If there's one thing Hedda's afraid of,
it's "scandal" - the idea that somehow her name might be tarnished, since it's the only thing
left that's still wholly her own.
20
Hedda Gabler: Summary and Analysis of Act II, Part II
Summary:
Eilert Lovborg arrives at the house, having been invited by Tesman via note. When the
group compliments him on the success of his book, he produces his new handwritten
manuscript - a sequel to the earlier book that presents his predictions for the culture of the
future. The subject of the professorship comes up, and Eljert says he doesn't have any plans
to compete with Tesman, as what he wants is fame. Tesman is relieved, but Hedda seems
more irritated by the news than happy about it.
When Lovborg suggests that he read some of his book that evening, Tesman tries to tell him
that he and Brack are off to a party, but is afraid to invite Lovborg because of his alcoholic
past. While Tesman and Brack go to enjoy some punch before leaving, Hedda and Lovborg
quietly discuss their past, and it becomes clear that Hedda is the "other woman" that Mrs.
Elvsted was so afraid of - it was Hedda who threatened to shoot Lovborg with her pistol
when their relationship "grew too close." When Lovborg tells Hedda that she should have
shot him - that he doesn't understand why she didn't - Hedda replies simply, "The scandal."
Mrs. Elvsted appears and discovers that Brack and Tesman are going out to a drinking
party. When Lovborg refuses punch and declines the invitation to the party, Hedda points out
to Mrs. Elvsted in front of Lovborg that her concerns were unwarranted - that Lovborg is "a
man of principle." Mrs. Elvsted is horrified that Hedda has said this in front of Lovborg, and
Lovborg is equally enraged at Mrs. Elvsted's belief that he would suddenly start drinking
again the moment he returned to town. Lovborg downs two successive drinks to punish Mrs.
Elvsted.
Lovborg then decides to accompany Brack and Tesman to the party and takes his
manuscript with him, hoping to read some of it at Brack's house. He promises to return later
to take Mrs. Elvsted home, and the three men leave. Mrs. Elvsted is concerned that Lovborg
will have a relapse, but Hedda tells her to stay and have tea, and assures her that soon
enough Lovborg will return "with vine leaves in his hair."
Analysis:
Every time Tesman leaves the room, isolating Hedda with another man, we learn that she
had some kind of relationship with that man in the past. First Brack, and now Lovborg, who
arrives at the new Tesman home and quickly reveals that it is Hedda who he has not been
able to forget - the woman whom Mrs. Elvsted said threatened to shoot him with pistols.
Hedda, then, is in a strangely untenable position - she has an absent husband, is pregnant
with a child, and has two other men (Brack and Lovborg) throwing themselves at her.
Perhaps there is a way of working these conflicts out, but Hedda has two character "flaws"
that make her feel trapped - she is paralyzed by her fear of scandal, and is simultaneously
incapacitated by her fear of getting too close to anybody. Thus the idea of a baby, an
emotional relationship with Lovborg (whom she nearly killed when he got too close to her), or
a sexual relationship with Brack are all impossible to her - she is both bored by life and
unable to take steps to engage with life deeply enough to become excited by it.
When Mrs. Elvsted arrives, Hedda has been presented with the possibility of entertaining
Lovborg for the night while the other men are at the party, but instead she sees only an
opening to wreak havoc. Having earlier earned Mrs. Elvsted's confidence, she now sets
Lovborg against Mrs. Elvsted, induces Lovborg to relapse into drinking after two years of
sobriety, and drives him to go to the party with Tesman and Brack, leaving her alone with
Mrs. Elvsted - a companion that, we might imagine, is most undesirable to Hedda. For all of
21
her seeming intelligence in the way she strategizes and designs, Hedda nearly always
manages to create a situation she didn't quite plan on.
It's important to realize that Hedda isn't a sexual infidel; she does not seem to have
consummated her relationship with either Brack or Lovborg. In fact, it's implied that it was
Lovborg's proposition of sex that inspired Hedda to bring out her pistols. This begs the
question: why is Hedda so threatened by sex? Why does she link sex and "getting too close"
to a man? There are of course a variety of theories that might be offered on the matter, but
her sexual frigidity is one of the defining aspects of her character.
Hedda also shows a strange penchant for violence and destruction - she shoots off pistols,
pinches Mrs. Elvsted's arm and threatens to burn her hair, and encourages Lovborg to drink.
Whenever Hedda feels threatened - or even simply bored - her violent streak begins to show
itself. This proclivity will, of course, play a crucial role in the play's climax.
22
Hedda Gabler: Summary and Analysis of Act III, Part I
Summary:
Mrs. Elvsted and Hedda sleep in the living room, waiting for Tesman, Brack and Lovborg to
return. Berta enters, giving Mrs. Elvsted false hope that the men have arrived home, but she
is only carrying a letter for Tesman. Hedda is irritated that the men still aren't there, but
theorizes that the men simply stayed at Judge Brack's house out of consideration, so that
they wouldn't wake the women. Hedda convinces Mrs. Elvsted to go try and sleep, saying
that she'll continue waiting for the men. Mrs. Elvsted goes to Hedda's room.
Hedda reprimands Berta for having allowed the room to become so cold, but the doorbell
rings and Hedda bids her to answer it, saying she'll tend to the fire herself. A moment later,
Tesman enters. Tesman tells Hedda that they had arrived at the party an hour too early, and
so Eilert had passed the time by reading to him from his new book. He remarks that he was
just dazzled by it, but Hedda replies that she "doesn't care" about the book; what she's
interested in is the goings-on of the previous night. Tesman tells her that Lovborg began to
drink, and once he was intoxicated he began making speeches about his "muse" - the
unnamed woman who inspired his work. Hedda asks Tesman if Lovborg named this woman,
but Tesman says that although he did not, he assumes that he was referring to Mrs. Elvsted.
The men escorted Lovborg home, but on the way, he dropped his new manuscript, which
Tesman picked up and has brought home with him.
Hedda's interest is piqued by this turn of events. She asks Tesman whether anyone knows
that he has the manuscript, and he replies that no one does. He says that for Lovborg's sake
he didn't tell a soul, and simply plans to return it in the morning. Hedda is clearly conjuring
some sort of plan, but she distracts Tesman by handing over the letter that arrived earlier.
Tesman opens the letter and learns that Aunt Rina is "at death's door" and that he must
come immediately to the house. He begs Hedda to come with him, but Hedda is repulsed by
the very idea of being in the presence of death. Berta enters and announces that Brack has
arrived, so Tesman makes a hasty exit to avoid him. Just before he leaves, Hedda
convinces her husband to give her Lovborg's manuscript for safekeeping.
Analysis:
Hedda Gabler is set in a single location - the Tesman house - and, even more incredibly, in
only one room in that house. Ibsen carefully manipulates who is in the drawing room at any
given time, ensuring that his dramatic purposes are served without sacrificing the credibility
of story. There are a few moments when the exits seem tenuous - Lovborg arriving as soon
as Brack leaves, Tesman arriving when Mrs. Elvsted retires - but these machinations
generally appear to be in the service of time compression, rather than plot convenience.
Hedda, in a strange way, seems to represent the collective unconscious in the play. Her
husband, for instance, is clearly jealous of Eljert's new book, and holds onto it as if he has
every intention of destroying it, but ultimately resigns himself to the fact that it must be
returned. By handing it to Hedda, however, his unconscious desires will come to fruition. The
same holds true for Lovborg. He is clearly a self-destructive man - or, in a sense, Hedda's
puppet in the wake of her rejection. His unconscious desire is to be freed from her, to be
freed from the constant thoughts that plague him. By the end of Act III, however, Hedda will
do to Lovborg what she's done to her husband: appropriate his desires as her own. The
book will burn, and Lovborg will find the "courage" to die.
A quote from Ibsen offers a great deal of insight as to the motivations behind Hedda's
actions: "Hedda's desperation is a conviction that life must offer so many possibilities of
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happiness, but that she can't catch sight of them. It is the want of a goal in life that torments
her." Hedda lives for the rush of a moment, the adrenaline that comes with controlling life
and determining the fates of others - for it is only this that gives her the fleeting sense of
purpose and control that makes her feel alive. Ultimately, though, the boredom keeps
returning - that feeling that she ultimately has no control over her own fate. She had to marry
a man she didn't love simply because her time ran out; she is carrying a child that will dictate
her future; she is ultimately at the mercy of the men who covet her.
Hedda wants to keep the manuscript not because she knows exactly what she's going to do
with it, but because it gives her an ephemeral sense of control over other's lives. In an
instant, she is transformed from the observer to the puppetmaster, holding a bunch of pieces
of paper that ultimately control all of the main characters in the play. Tesman is deeply
jealous of the book and would be freed by its eradication, Mrs. Elvsted needs the book in
order for Lovborg to regain his reputation and ultimately marry her, and Lovborg needs the
book for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it remains his only connection to
Hedda, his "muse". Now that Hedda has the book, however, she has all of these characters
lodged firmly in her web. It is not out of malice that she will continue her machinations, but
rather out of her desire, as Ibsen says, to find happiness in the fleeting accomplishment of a
goal.
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Hedda Gabler: Summary and Analysis of Act III, Part II
Summary:
When Brack arrives, Hedda immediately pesters him for details about the previous night's
events. After leaving Tesman, she learns, the "inspired" Lovborg visited Mademoiselle
Diana's "boisterous soiree" - an exclusive party to which he had been invited but had
promised Brack and Tesman he would not go to because he had "turned over a new leaf." At
the party, however, Lovborg's mood turned from merriment to fury when he discovered that
his manuscript was gone. He began assaulting the women at the party, and the police soon
arrived to break up the fracas. Lovborg resisted arrest, attacked one of the policemen, and
ended up at the station.
Brack tells Hedda that Lovborg might use the Tesmans as a haven if he is shunned by the
town, and encourages Hedda to close her doors to him. Brack also implies that he doesn't
want Lovborg joining their new "triangle"; he fears that he will find himself "homeless" if
Hedda allows Lovborg to take refuge with her. Hedda says that she feels as though Brack is
threatening her, but Brack replies that he is not, he is merely saying that the "triangle ought
to be spontaneously constructed." Brack exits, and moments later Eilert Lovborg arrives.
Hedda offers Lovborg no clues that she knows what happened the night before, but he
seems extremely distraught. Mrs. Elvsted enters the room, and Lovborg tells her that their
"ways must part" because he has abandoned his book and she can thus no longer be of
"service" to him. Mrs. Elvsted is aghast and insists that she will not leave his side, but
Lovborg is adamant. Lovborg says that he shredded the manuscript because he shredded
his life to pieces, so it was only natural he should shred his work as well. Mrs. Elvsted
leaves, devastated, realizing that she and Lovborg cannot have a future now: his reputation
is ruined, and the possibility that his book could save it is now gone.
Hedda is left alone with Lovborg, who reveals the truth to her - that he's lost the manuscript.
Lovborg implies that now he must kill himself, and Hedda encourages him to "make it
beautiful." She tells him never to return again, and gives him one of her pistols "as a
memento." He says that he recognizes the pistol - it was the same one she pointed at him
years before - and says that she should have used it on him then, but she replies that he can
use it now. Lovborg leaves, fully intending to commit suicide. Upon his exit, Hedda sits down
by the fire and burns Lovborg's manuscript.
Analysis:
In Brack, Hedda sees a man whose thirst for control frightens even her. The moment Brack
senses that Lovborg might become part of their new "triangle" he immediately threatens
Hedda, saying that he will not protect the Tesmans if they fall into disrepute. Hedda says
ominously, "I am heartily glad you have no power or control over me at all," and we
immediately sense the subtext behind her words: for all of the lack of control Hedda has had
in her own life, she fundamentally believes in free will - hence her obsession with pistols,
which serve as a perpetual reminder that it is she who decides who lives and who dies.
There is, however, a rather sadistic game-playing element to Hedda's character that cannot
be dismissed. In a sense, she sees society as a parlor game - one must behave and keep
up one's reputation, all the while trying to conceal darker impulses and motivations. When
one loses by succumbing to scandal or revealing these darker impulses or motivations, time
is "up" and the consequences must be acknowledged. On one level, this explains her
marriage - she "danced around" and tried different men until she likely saw that her
reputation was at stake and had to marry Jorgen to remain a part of society. Even more,
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however, Hedda believes that the only natural option is death when scandal subsumes one's
character. She puts an abrupt end to her scheming whenever her own reputation seems
poised to fall into disrepute - for that would mean that she too would now have to check out
of life's parlor game.
Hedda is a highly idiosyncratic character, but Ibsen nevertheless appears to view society's
stiff repercussions for individuality with some disdain. In a sense, it is the opinions and
perceptions of the community that seem to dictate all of the important decisions of an
individual's life - when they marry, who they marry, when they have children, what they do
for a living, how they live, and when they die.
Hedda, in her own way, seems to have declared herself judge, jury, and executioner,
assimilating all of the necessary information and ushering people towards the realization of
their deepest desires. The only character she can't seem to fend off is Brack, who seems
even more intent on controlling people than Hedda herself. In her efforts to play the game
and rid herself of Brack's threats, Hedda destroys Lovborg: the absence of Lovborg means
that Brack can no longer hold the threat of ruining Hedda's reputation over her head.
In the fourth act, all of these threads in this drawing-room reenactment of life converge in a
final struggle for power and control. Hedda has essentially commanded Lovborg to his
grave; Brack will be left without his prime source of control over Hedda; Mrs. Elvsted has lost
her love; Tesman will return to find that the manuscript he entrusted to his wife has
seemingly evaporated. Hedda is very much the ringmaster at the end of the fourth act, but
can she maintain this level of control, or will her need for power be her undoing?
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Hedda Gabler: Summary and Analysis of Act IV, Part I
Summary:
Act IV opens with Berta, her eyes rimmed with red, lighting a lamp against the evening
gloom. Aunt Julia comes to the house and tells Hedda that Aunt Rina has died. She laments
the passing of her beloved sister, but says that the old woman died peacefully. Hedda asks
Julia if there is anything she can help her with, but Julia protests, saying that she wouldn't
think of it. She also makes yet another reference to Hedda's supposed pregnancy, saying
that it is not the time for her to be bringing "misery" into Hedda's house. When Tesman asks
Julia what she plans to do next, she says that she might move another sick person into
Rina's vacated room. Julia also implies that she may move in with her and Tesman once
Hedda's child is born. Hedda reacts to the idea with revulsion, and Aunt Julia exits.
Once alone with Tesman, Hedda remarks that his aunt's death seems to be affecting him
even more deeply than it is Aunt Julia. Tesman, however, tells her that he is simply
preoccupied - he went over to Eilert's house to tell him that the manuscript was safe and
sound, but Lovborg was nowhere to be found. He then ran into Mrs. Elvsted, who told him
that Lovborg had been to their house in the morning, and had said that he had torn the
manuscript to shreds. Tesman asks Hedda if she told Lovborg that she had the manuscript,
but Hedda replies that she did not. Tesman says that he must return the manuscript
immediately, but Hedda reveals that she herself has burned the pages. Tesman screams out
in horror, asking his wife how she could have committed such a blatant crime. Hedda tells
him that she did it because she knew he was jealous of the work, and she didn't want
anyone to overshadow her husband. Tesman becomes ecstatic at the idea that his wife
might love him after all, and is also overjoyed when Hedda refers to him as "George" presumably she rarely calls him by his first name. Hedda, for her own part, is utterly repulsed
by his happiness, and says in despair, "I can't stand this."
Analysis:
In the fourth act, the play comes full circle. Whereas we opened with sunlight bathing the
drawing room and a lively young couple returning from their honeymoon, it is now evening,
and the atmosphere is one of funereal darkness. At the same time, the sense of possibility
that characterized the play's first act - Hedda was in a new marriage, and a new home, and
pregnant with her first child - has now given way to a sense of stifling inevitability. Now that
Aunt Rina is dead, it seems certain that Hedda will be burdened with two new housemates:
an infant child and an elderly woman. She will be stuck in a loveless marriage, raising a baby
she seemingly has no interest in, and fussed over by a woman for whom she can barely hide
her revulsion.
One of the biggest mysteries of Hedda Gabler is why, exactly, Hedda burns Lovborg's
manuscript. It is possible that she simply wants to destroy the "child" that has sprung from
Lovborg and Mrs. Elvsted's relationship - and indeed she witnesses the two of them referring
to it as such, Mrs. Elvsted saying that she feels as though he has killed their child, and
Lovborg confiding to Hedda after Mrs. Elvsted's departure that he is as distraught as if he
had lost his offspring. However, it would be inconsistent with Hedda's character to be
motivated by such a trivial concern. It is also possible that Hedda sees the book as yet
another one of society's puppet strings, keeping Lovborg tied to a circle and a life he wants
to be freed from. Throughout the play, Hedda's machinations are intended to free people
from the societal bonds that restrict them, alerting them to their deepest desires. Indeed,
Hedda seems to see Lovborg as very much like herself: he cannot seem to find happiness in
the conventions of life. Lovborg's alcoholism is what separates him from society, but it is also
an integral aspect of his character, and perhaps Hedda believes that by burning his book,
she is setting him free.
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The unfortunate consequence of this, however, is that she must somehow account for her
actions and frame them in some kind of socially acceptable light. Even though it is likely that
even Hedda herself does not understand why she burned the book - on a conscious level, at
least - she must explain to her husband why she did so. Tesman is aghast when Hedda
reveals to him what she has done, but she quickly turns his mood to one of joy by insisting
that she did it for him, so that he would not be overshadowed by his rival's success.
Tesman's career, of course, is the last of Hedda's concerns, but her rationale certainly
pacifies her husband. In fact, he is so thrilled that his wife is finally showing him some
affection that he's tempted to tell everyone on earth of his wife's grand gesture. Hedda, of
course, is utterly mortified at this idea - her husband is threatening to reveal her act of
liberation as an act of self-sacrificing devotion. Hedda can't bear the idea, and it is this that
precipitates her final decline.
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Hedda Gabler: Summary and Analysis of Act IV, Part II
Summary:
Mrs. Elvsted arrives, terribly distressed, and tells the Tesmans that Lovborg never returned
to the boarding house. She has heard some strange rumors, and she is afraid that
something terrible might have happened to him. Brack enters and says that he heard about
Rina's death, but that he has more "sad" news for them. Lovborg, he says, shot himself in
the chest with a pistol and is lying "at the point of death." Mrs. Elvsted breaks down in
despair, but Hedda merely questions Brack about the circumstances: where, she wants to
know, did it happen, and is he certain that Lovborg shot himself in the chest, and not in the
temple? Brack replies that he did indeed shoot himself in the breast, to which Hedda replies,
"That's a good place too." Hedda then states that there is beauty in the act, shocking
everyone. Hedda goes on: "Eilert Lovborg has closed his account with himself. Had the
courage to do...what had to be done."
Mrs. Elvsted then reveals that Lovborg's book has been destroyed, which Brack finds
suspicious. Mrs. Elvsted cries out that she wishes there was some way the book could be
reconstructed, but then realizes that there is a way: it seems she still has in her possession
all of the original notes. Tesman and Mrs. Elvsted announce that they will reconstruct the
book together, and Tesman says that he will dedicate his life to the task. They both exit
triumphantly.
Left alone with Brack, Hedda reveals that Lovborg's death has shown her that they are truly
free, "because I know it's still possible to choose. Freewill! Still possible, and beautiful."
Brack, however, tells Hedda in confidence that Lovborg didn't shoot himself: he was shot in
Mademoiselle Diana's boudoir, and he is already dead. Hedda is stunned that he went back,
but Brack adds that he entered Diana's raving about his "lost child" - which Brack assumes is
a reference to his pocketbook, since Lovborg presumably tore his manuscript to pieces.
Brack adds that Lovborg was fatally shot not in the chest, but rather in the bowels.
Brack then tells Hedda that the pistol with which Lovborg shot himself was Hedda's. He says
that there will be an inquiry since the police are now in possession of the pistol, but as long
as Brack doesn't say anything there is no way they will be able to trace it back to her. If he
were to hint that the pistol might have been stolen, however, Hedda would be implicated in a
terrible scandal and would have to appear in court to defend herself. Hedda, it appears, is
wholly in Brack's power. "You...own me," she tells him, and exits the room to go lie down. A
few moments later, a pistol goes off in the back room. Tesman runs in and calls out that
Hedda has shot herself.
Analysis:
Hedda's singular goal throughout the play has been to prove that she is still in possession of
free will. She believes that happiness, peace of mind, and purpose can be found in
maintaining power over oneself despite all the pressures that the world places on an
individual. As she manipulates those around her in an attempt to prove this to herself, she
occasionally finds fleeting moments of peace, but as the last act hurtles towards its tragic
conclusion, Hedda discovers that it she who spun the web in which she now finds herself
trapped.
Several distinct moments precipitate Hedda's decision to take her own life. The first occurs
when her husband and Mrs. Elvsted decide to resuscitate Lovborg's book. After she so
deliberately destroyed Lovborg and Mrs. Elvsted's "baby", her husband will now join a new
triangle in which she will have no part. Meanwhile, her husband has completely abandoned
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his own work for that of another man, and Hedda will be left with a permanent reminder of
the man she couldn't love, and a mere shadow of the man whom she married.
Next, Brack tells Hedda that Lovborg's death wasn't so "beautiful" after all. Instead of
shooting himself with Hedda's pistol, he went to Diana's boudoir, raved about the lost
manuscript, and ended up getting shot in the stomach by someone else. His death was not
only marked by a distinct lack of free will, but was also terribly painful. Hedda laments that
everything she touches ends up being "sordid", but does not have the insight to see that it is
her machinations that create these unfortunate circumstances.
Brack also reveals that he knows that it was Hedda's gun that killed Lovborg, and tells her
that the only way she can avoid scandal is if he keeps quiet. Hedda has always been
terrified of scandal, perhaps because it would tarnish her father's memory, or because it
would limit her freedom to manipulate those around her while playing the part of the impartial
observer. Even more, however, she is frightened of being beholden to another, of losing her
free will entirely. She is faced with an impossible choice: throw herself on the mercy of
society, or become Brack's "slave". Ultimately, of course, she realizes that there is a third
option: death.
Brack never sets out any specific terms for his ownership of Hedda, but it certainly seems
likely, given their earlier conversations, that a sexual element would be introduced at some
point. Regardless, the mere idea of losing her free will is what finally leads Hedda to make
her decision. She has bound herself into a corner from which she cannot escape. Hedda
sees her life unspooling before her: she will remain wed to Tesman, who will in all likelihood
fall in love with Mrs. Elvsted as they bond over their passion for their shared project. She will
be prisoner to Judge Brack, who will "own" her for the rest of her life. She will bring a child
into this toxic environment, and will most likely have to spend each and every day in the
company of Aunt Julia. This, Hedda thinks, is what her life will be - drained of free will,
drained of possibility - and so she gives herself the beautiful death she so badly wanted to
see, convinced that perhaps it might set her free after all.
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Hedda Gabler: Major Themes
Betrayal: At a critical point near the end of Act II of Hedda Gabler, the titular character
betrays the trust of Mrs. Elvsted by revealing Thea's fears regarding Lovborg. Hedda does
this out of pure malice. She is jealous ofThea's influence over Eilert, a man with whom
Hedda had once been involved but, afraid of her own passions, had driven off (at gunpoint).
Hedda's betrayal is the last manifestation of a hatred that extends all the way back to her
school years, when she had bullied Thea. She despised the younger woman from a
deep−rooted jealousy of Thea's comfortable and natural femininity. The betrayal starts a
chain of tragic events in motion, ultimately leading to Lovborg's death and Hedda's suicide.
Courage and Cowardice: One admission that Hedda openly makes to Lovborg is her fear
of scandal, which prompts him to charge that she is a ''coward at heart,’’ which she confirms.
It was her fear of scandal that compelled Hedda to drive Eilert away, a fear that
overwhelmed her love for him. Lovborg, as a free spirit, had represented too much of a risk,
for he had already been tainted by his scandalous, immoderate behavior.
Although she, unlike Thea Elvsted, is unwilling to be drawn into Eilert's life again, to sacrifice
her respectability, she is willing to sacrifice him. She provides him with a pistol, expecting
him to exit life with a grand and triumphant display of scorn for the tedium and convention of
human existence. From his death, Hedda hopes to confirm that there is still beauty in the
world and partake of it vicariously. She is, however, deluded by her romantic fantasies, even
less capable of guiding Eilert's behavior than Thea Elvsted had been. He destroys Hedda's
triumphant vision by accidently shooting himself in the abdomen. In the play's final irony, it is
Hedda who shoots herself in the temple, not in a grand escape from life but from a cowardly
fear of scandal and an unwillingness to become Judge Brack's sexual pawn.
Deception: Hedda, from selfish motives, uses deception as a tool in her efforts to
manipulate others, particularly her husband and Mrs. Elvsted. Because they are both
forthright and somewhat ingenuous, they are susceptible to Hedda's machinations. Hedda
feigns a friendship with Thea, one that she does not and never has felt. She is, in fact,
jealous of the younger woman and despises her. In her relationship with George, Hedda
never has been honest. She finds him and their marriage boring, but she is unwilling to
confront him with such truths for fear of losing the secure respectability that he provides. He
is, as she says, ''correctness itself.'' He is also a man with good if dull prospects.
Hedda is more open with Judge Brack, possibly because she recognizes in him a kindred
spirit, a fellow deceiver, one who is too sly to fool. She knows that Brack's friendship with
George is at least part sham. He also hopes to manipulate Tesman, ingratiating himself in
order to enter a triangular relationship with the Tesmans, which, through innuendo, Brack
suggests will involve more than a Platonic friendship with Hedda. She is able to play a
verbal cat and mouse game with Brack until he gains the upper hand; it is the prospect of
submitting to his will that compels her to destroy herself.
Duty and Responsibility: Hedda Gabler is a study in contrasts. Both Juliana Tesman and
Thea Elvsted are foils to Hedda, for in their distinct ways they reveal that duty and
responsibility must arise from a loyalty prompted by love, not fear. Unlike Hedda, Juliana is
a selfless person, willing to sacrifice her life for those she loves: her sister, Rina, and her
nephew, George. She profoundly annoys Hedda, who cannot understand how such devotion
can give Juliana a sufficient purpose in life.
Thea Elvsted has a similar selflessness, but her circumstances are very different. She is
willing to sacrifice her reputation in her love for Lovborg, leaving behind a loveless, joyless
marriage. Society might condemn her for betraying her duty and responsibility, but Ibsen
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makes it obvious that society would be wrong. She had been exploited, turned into a mere
household servant in her marriage to the Sheriff. In following Lovborg to Christiania, Thea is
heedless of imminent scandal, showing the moral courage that Hedda lacks. The difference
is that Thea allows love to guide her, an emotion that Hedda represses in allowing her fears
to rule her.
Good and Evil: "Evil" is too strong an adjective to apply to Hedda in any absolute sense.
She does exhibit self−centered traits, as do most intriguing, dramatic villains, but these
tendencies are muted by the playwright's dedication to realism. Hedda's wretched behavior
cannot be forgiven, but at least it can be partially understood. It comes not from the deep
recesses of a corrupt soul but from emotional needs that have been warped by
environmental influences—her upbringing by a military father and her context within a
morally strict social climate.
Despite this background, Hedda is proud and wanton in her cruelty. She cares little that she
inflicts pain on others. She burns Lovborg's manuscript, not from love for her husband, which
she leads George to believe, but from utter spite and jealousy. She views the work as Eilert
and Thea's surrogate child, something to be destroyed because it was created from a love
that she deeply resents and cannot understand. No less vicious is her effort to shape Eilert's
final destiny, the "beautiful" and "triumphant" death she envisions for him. Her misdirected
passion only destroys, for in Eilert's death there is no beauty at all, only a terrible waste of
genius.
The shame is that to be good in Hedda's terms means living with unrelieved boredom,
married to a ''proper'' but dull, plodding, and predictable scholar whose only virtue is his
"correctness" in all things. Without real love or devotion, her duties and responsibilities
become major irritants. She reacts with precipitous and thoughtless behavior, running the
gamut between the petty and the tragic.
Sex Roles: Much of the conflict in Hedda Gabler arises from Hedda's resistance to the role
of wife and mother, a role defined by the straight−laced, paternalistic society of the time and
place. Women were expected to behave in accordance with traditional values that placed
them in subservient and dependant relationships with men, from whose labors and leisure
activities, both by custom and law, they were largely excluded. One hope they might have is
that they could have a positive influence on men, such as Thea Elvsted has on Eilert
Lovborg. Hedda even imagines that she might have a similar impact on George. She hopes
to persuade him to enter politics, where, because of her ability to manipulate him, she might
yield some clandestine but substantial power. However, when she confides her hopes in
Judge Brack, he dampens her enthusiasm with observations about George's unsuitability for
and disinterest in politics.
Hedda clearly feels both trapped and bored by her role. Her unwanted pregnancy only
serves to remind her of just how much more confining her existence is to become, but she is
paralyzed by her deep−rooted fear of scandal. She is simply unwilling to sacrifice
respectability to be her honest self. The conflict between desire and fear finally perverts her
character, turning her increasingly frantic and destructive. Her only respite is to cling to her
father's pistols, symbols of a male freedom that she has lost as an adult and can never
regain.
By contrast, Juliana Tesman and Thea Elvsted are comfortable and untroubled in their roles.
Juliana, as nurse and caretaker for her sister, is selfless. Her respectable role is personally
rewarding. Thea, who has sacrificed her reputation by abandoning her husband, is
untroubled by such things. She sees that her path lies outside of respectability, and she is
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not afraid to follow it. Hedda scorns both women, masking her envy with contempt. It galls
her that they are both at peace with themselves, something she can never be.
Victim and Victimization: Paradoxically, Hedda is both victim and victimizer. In her
desperate boredom, she attempts to use others, even for petty amusement. As she
confesses to Judge Brack, she had known that the bonnet about which she complains in Act
I was not old and did not belong to Berta, but she could not resist her cruel whimsy. At first,
there is little harm done. Besides, Hedda's discontent enlists some sympathy, for her
husband is something of a ninny, who, for all his doting behavior, is all but oblivious of her
needs.
Hedda must bear the responsibility for the marriage, however. As she acknowledges, she
had been the one to fashion it, not from love, but from her need for comfort and
respectability. That she cannot abide either herhusband or her marriage is her own fault, and
in that sense she is her own victim. She responds with anger and resentment, taking her
desperation out on others, those she envies because they have found a contentment that
completely eludes her.
At the same time, Hedda is very vulnerable. The fears that had led her to reject Eilert
Lovborg and enter a loveless marriage with George Tesman finally ensnare her in Brack's
power, something that she can not tolerate. The alternative is scandal, which Hedda elects
to evade by suicide, her final destructive act.
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Hedda Gabler: Early Reviews
Hedda Gabler, published in 1890, was first performed in Munich, Germany, on January 31, 1891, and
over the next several weeks was staged in a variety of European cities, including Berlin, Stockholm,
Copenhagen, and Christiania (Oslo). Its premier performance in English occurred in London, on April
20 of the same year, in a translation by Edmund Gosse and William Archer (a translation that has
continued to be employed throughout the twentieth century).
Many scholars link the play with what Ibsen described as the happiest event in his life, his brief
liaison with Emilie Bardach, an eighteen−year−old Viennese girl whom he met in the small Alpine
town of Gossensass in September of 1889. It is an ironic association, for in the months after the
sixty−two−year old playwright stopped corresponding with Emilie, he wrote Hedda Gabler, which
Herman Weigand termed the ''coldest, most impersonal of Ibsen's plays’’ in The Modern Ibsen: A
Reconsideration. It is almost as though the Hedda Gabler normally reserved and distant Ibsen had to
exorcize his emotional attachment to Emilie by struggling to become yet more detached and
objective in his art.
In its printed version, even before production, Hedda Gabler received the worst reviews of any of
Ibsen's mature plays. Its earliest stagings fared little better. Conservative critics, predominately
males, condemned the work as immoral, just as they had condemned many of Ibsen's earlier
social−problem plays. It survived the critical deluge, however, thanks in no small part to the efforts of
the dramatist's ardent admirers, many of whom—including playwright George Bernard Shaw—
belonged to the new intelligentsia shaped by the revolutionary thinking of such philosophers and
scientists as Karl Marx and Charles Darwin.
Hedda Gabler's reputation steadily rose in the twentieth century, engaging the interest of many
important actresses who found in Hedda one of the most intriguing and challenging female roles in
modern drama. They helped earn the play the eminence it now enjoys as one of Ibsen's premier
works and a landmark of realist drama.
Below are two excerpts from reviews of productions in the 1890s:
The production of an Ibsen play impels the inquiry, What is the province of art? If it be to elevate and
refine, as we have hitherto humbly supposed, most certainly it cannot be said that the works of Ibsen
have the faintest claim to be artistic. We see no ground on which his method is defensible...Things
rank and gross in nature alone have place in the mean and sordid philosophy of Ibsen. Those of his
characters who are not mean morally are mean intellectually - the wretched George Tesman, with his
enthusiasm about the old shoes his careful aunt brings him wrapped up in a bit of newspaper, is a
case in point. As for refining and elevating, can any human being, it may be asked, feel happier or
better in anyway from a contemplation of the two harlots at heart who do duty in Hedda Gabler?...We
do not mean to say that there are not, unhappily, Hedda Gablers and George Tesmans in "real life".
There are; but when we meet them we take the greatest pains to get out of their way, and why should
they be endured on the stage?
Saturday Morning Review
Now, to us Hedda Gabler appears a wonderful work of art, one that must produce a profound
impression upon those who will accustom themselves to regard a stage-play from the point of view of
real, living character in actual contact with the facts and sensations and possibilities of human
experience, instead of gauging it by the conventional standard of playmaking, or the superficial
observation of ordinary social intercourse. Ibsen has a way of going to the root of the matter, and
exposing the skeleton in the cupboard, which is certainly not always a pleasant sight. But life, with its
infinite subtleties and inconsistencies, is always interesting, and Ibsen shows the wonder and the pity
of it, while perhaps he only infers its loveliness by contrast. But therein he proves himself a master
artist, for his point of view is definite, and the impression he produces is complete and final. In Hedda
Gabler he gives us a typical tragedy of modern life, and in the strange, sensitive, selfish heroine, he
presents one of the most wonderful and subtle conceptions of woman in the whole range of dramatic
literature.
Sunday Times Review
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Hedda Gabler: A Critical Overview
Hedda Gabler was published in December of 1890, a few weeks before it was first performed.
Norwegian, English, German, French, Russian, and Dutch versions were printed almost
simultaneously, with the result that the consternation many readers felt quickly spread throughout
Europe. The play garnered the worst press reviews of any of Ibsen's mature plays, even
Rosmersholm, which had been critically mauled four years earlier. The newer work offended many
and puzzled more critics, who, as Hans Heiberg noted in Ibsen: A Portrait of the Artist, found the
main character too monstrous, a ''revolting female creature'' who ''received neither sympathy nor
compassion.’’ Just as damning, the work seemed to lack a message, a corrective purpose, the sort of
social critique for which Ibsen had become so famous.
Hedda's character was the principal target of much of the negative criticism. Quoted in Ibsen: A
Biography, Alfred Sinding−Larsen called her ‘‘a horrid miscarriage of the imagination, a monster in
female form to whom no parallel can be found in real life,’’ suggesting that the great realist had
completely missed the mark in creating her and that he was only ''pandering to contemporary
European fashion.’’ Similar complaints came from even the most ardent admirers of Ibsen, including
Bredo Morgenstierne. Reprinted in Ibsen, the critic opined: ‘‘we do not understand Hedda Gabler, nor
believe in her. She is not related to anyone we know.'' Also quoted in Ibsen, Gerhard Gran observed
that while the play aroused his curiosity, it did not and never could satisfy it. For Gran, a figure as
complex as Hedda was not suited to drama and could only be satisfactorily treated in the novel; the
play, he argued, only ''leaves us with a sense of emptiness and betrayal.’’
Much of the criticism was lodged on moral grounds, renewed objections that Ibsen had faced with
earlier plays like A Doll's House (1879) and Ghosts (1881). Some Scandinavian critics suggested
that the printed play ''should not be found on the table of any decent family.’’ Others dismissed the
work as either too puzzling or too decadent. Harald Hansen, reviewing stage productions of 1891,
dismissed it in as single sentence as ‘‘an ungrateful play which hardly any of the participants will
remember with real satisfaction’’ (Ibsen).
Ibsen and his play had their champions, including Henrik Jæger in Norway and Herman Bang in
Denmark. Jæger, who had once gone on tour lecturing against A Doll's House, had become a
pro−Ibsen convert. He saw Hedda as a very realistic, earth−born female, ''a tragic character who is
destroyed by the unharmonious and irreconcilable contrasts in her own character’’ (Ibsen). He
suggested that the poor reception of Hedda Gabler stemmed from the general unpopularity of
tragedy, not from faults in the play. Meanwhile, Bang, in some of the play's most perceptive early
criticism, argued that Hedda was the female counterpart of a familiar Ibsen character, the egotistical
male. Without the socially−sanctioned outlets afforded men, she is driven ''into isolation and
selfadoration." "Hedda," Bang observed, ''has no source of richness in herself and must constantly
seek it in others, so that her life becomes a pursuit of sensation and experiment; and her hatred of
bearing a child is the ultimate expression of her egotism, the sickness that brings death’’ (Ibsen).
Most criticism, both of the printed play and first staged productions, was hostile, which, in retrospect,
suggests a remarkable short−sightedness on the part of Ibsen's contemporaries. Now, over a century
later, Hedda Gabler is considered one of the principal stars in the dramatist's artistic crown, and it
has been for some time. In his 1971 biography Ibsen, Michael Meyer said that the work was then
‘‘perhaps the most universally admired of Ibsen's plays,'' and noted that it was Ibsen's most
frequently performed work in England. Today, its chief competitor in Ibsen revivals is A Doll's House,
in part because of its protagonist Nora Helmer's appeal to the women's liberation movement. Unlike
Hedda, there is nothing vicious about Nora, who is mostly pure victim in a society under male control.
Interestingly enough, it is because Hedda so completely dominates her play that her role soon
became very attractive to actresses, and because it proved a great vehicle for the most talented and
highly regarded among them, it evolved from its maligned beginning into a stage favorite. Among
those who undertook the role were leading international stars, including Eleonora Duse, Eve Le
Gallienne, Nazimova, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Claire Bloom, Joan Greenwood, Ingrid Bergman, and
Glenda Jackson. That is the final irony, for it was the ''monstrous'' Hedda who, in the minds of the
early critics, condemned the play, whereas it is now her character that makes it one of Ibsen's most
durable works. The attraction of the part remains, despite the fact that the society that the play
depicts is virtually extinct.
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Hedda Gabler: Secondary Female Characters in Hedda Gabler (A Critical Essay)
In this essay the author investigates the significance of the secondary female characters in Hedda
Gabler, with a focus on their function both as foils to Hedda and as women who themselves fail to
meet the woman's primary role as wifemother in the conventional thinking of the time.
Because the titular character so completely dominates Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, discussions of
the play from a gender perspective seem to almost exclusively focus on Hedda. It is easy to
understand why. She is clearly the central figure, the one whose grating dissatisfaction arises from a
conflict pitting her needs against conventional notions of propriety and female fulfillment as an
adoring, dutiful, submissive wife and nurturing, loving mother. She is, moreover, the play's prime
mover, the plot driver, the one who has the most at stake, and the one whose name answers the
most important question: whose play is it? It is, of course, her play, pure and simple.
Hedda struggles violently against the conventional wife−mother role, a role she does not want but is
mortally afraid to reject. She suffers most from what Gail Finney called in The Cambridge Companion
to Ibsen ‘‘victimization by motherhood’’; she is unable to face or to escape the suffocating reality of
marriage and motherhood. That surely is as big a factor in her self−destruction as is her fear of being
held sexual hostage to the sinister Judge Brack, who threatens to expose her to scandal, of which
she is at least equally terrified.
More is learned about Hedda than any of the other female characters. She alone is prone to
self−analysis, to confessing her fears and dissatisfactions, which, ironically, she reveals to the two
men besides her husband who have pursued her: Judge Brack and Eilert Lovborg. Hedda has no
real female friends, no confidantes with whom she is either close or honest. In fact, she perceives
each of the other women as an antagonist. The fact that they seem at peace with themselves
profoundly annoys her and contributes to her mounting hysteria. Towards Thea Elvsted, she feigns a
friendship, and she quickly betrays what trust Thea places in her. She is also mean−spirited towards
her husband's well−intentioned aunt, Juliana, whom she views as an insufferable busy−body, an
unwelcome intruder, and a possible threat to Hedda's control of George. She is also determined to
rid her house of Berta, the household servant whose loyalty to the Tesman family daunts Hedda as
well.
Also, just as there is much more divulged about Hedda's past, there is also much more implied about
Hedda than any other female character in the play. As Finney claimed, ''the influence of her
motherless, father−dominated upbringing is everywhere evident.'' Her inheritance reveals itself in her
masculine traits, her fondness for horses and pistols, for example, or her excitement over the
impending contest between Eilert Lovborg and her husband George, or her interest in manipulating
George into the male arena of politics, where she might exercise some real power. In some ways,
she seems more masculine than George, the fussy foster−child of two maiden aunts who is
uninterested in politics and is afraid of Hedda's handling of her father's pistols.
George also seems prone to what from a male point of view seems to be a typical female trait:
excited chatter about trivial matters. His ubiquitous ‘‘fancy that’’ seems more appropriate to the tea
table than the smoking room, saloon, or other haunt that in Ibsen's time were visited exclusively by
men, unless, as in some saloons, disreputable females women like the unseen ‘‘singing woman,’’
Mademoiselle Diana, were allowed. To Hedda, the masculine ideal is represented by her father
General Gabler. His portrait, a constant reminder of his influence, hangs in a prominent place in her
inner sanctum, her room adjoining the drawing room. There are hints of an Electra complex, a
deeply−rooted but repressed incestuous and terrorizing desire that is an important strain in Hedda's
enigmatic character. Under her father's tutelage, she had become a fit masculine companion for him,
but not one suited for her husband, who merely bores her. As for the woman's world, the society of
the tea table, she is clearly a pariah, though certainly by willful choice.
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The other women in Hedda Gabler, even those unseen, have one thing in common with Hedda. They
are women who have either failed to meet the male ideal of woman as wife−mother or have rejected
it, as Hedda, the least suited to the task, desires to do. They also differ from Hedda in a vitally
significant way: they have made peace with themselves. And therein they represent some of the
limited alternatives to what society at large viewed as a woman's primary goal—marriage and
motherhood. George Tesman's two aunts are maiden aunts, Thea Elvsted has fled a brutal and
loveless marriage, and Berta, having given her life over to service, remains, presumably, unattached
outside the Tesman family. Their relative contentment speaks volumes about Hedda's discontent, but
they are, of course, very different kinds of women, interesting in their own right and not just because
as foils they set off Hedda's more complex character.
Like so many secondary characters in drama, the other women of Hedda Gabler run much closer to
stereotypes than the play's enigmatic protagonist. Two of them, Aunt Rina and Mademoiselle Diana,
are superb examples of off−stage characters whose presence is felt but never seen. The one is
George Tesman's dying aunt; the other, ''a mighty huntress of men,’’ is a lady of pleasure for those
who can afford her.
The unseen Diana is, in fact, one of those notorious fallen women. Talk about her is strained through
polite euphemisms which only thinly veil that she is a prostitute, though not of the crass sidewalk
variety. She and her friends entertain gentlemen, both in salons and boudoirs, with the implication,
too, that they are under some protection from the authorities, thanks to a double standard that
permitted respectable men a sexual license denied to respectable women. Judge Brack tells Hedda
that Eilert Lovborg had formerly been one of Diana's ‘‘most enthusiastic protectors,’’ even before his
dissolution and disgrace. The implication is that during his wooing of Hedda, frustrated by her
repression of sexual passion, Eilert had found easy solace in the ready arms of Mademoiselle Diana.
Lovborg's renewed association with Diana helps ignite Hedda's perverse desire to see Eilert redeem
himself through a triumphant and majestic suicide, a kind of ersatz expression of the sexual freedom
Hedda had repressed in herself, if only because, unlike Mademoiselle Diana, she could never thumb
her nose at respectability.
A sickly invalid, Rina is most important because she is her sister's main burden. Since Juliana is a
selfless and loving person, she bears the burden with affection, dignity, and grace, all to Hedda's
annoyance. To her, Rina's death only means that Juliana may become a more frequent and
troublesome visitor, even though Juliana confides to both Hedda and George that she plans to
devote herself to caring for some other sickly person. She tells them that ‘‘it's such an absolute
necessity for me to have one to live for.’’ Juliana, a dedicated nurse, is simply beyond the selfish
Hedda's comprehension. Juliana lives only for others, but Hedda lives only for herself. From Hedda's
perspective, Juliana is both a fool and a threat.
Juliana is more than a nurse, however. For good or ill, she has also been a surrogate mother and
father to George, as he cheerfully admits in the opening of the play. She and her sister helped shape
her nephew's adult character, explaining why George utterly lacks the strong−willed and arrogant
hardness of his wife. Unwittingly, they turned George into someone safe for Hedda. She can easily
manipulate him, verbally beating down whatever objections the docile and compliant fellow raises. As
regards Hedda, George is ''correctness itself' not only because he is a respectable man with good
prospects but because he lacks the intestinal fortitude to challenge her. She has none of the fear of
George that Lovborg and Brack inspire in her.
Berta is another selfless woman who finds meaning and satisfaction in her service to others. In Act I,
it is disclosed that she has been a loyal retainer in the Tesman family for years, and that with
George's marriage to Hedda, she has come to the newlyweds' villa as servant and caretaker.
Nothing is disclosed of her private life, but she speaks of ‘‘all the blessed years’’ that she spent with
the Tesmans, suggesting that she has found fulfillment only in their employ and that she has had
neither husband nor children. George and Juliana both treat her with affection and respect. Also, as if
she were a member of the family, they confide in her, something that Hedda cannot do. That and her
overly−protective behavior towards George irk Hedda, who wants to rid the house of Berta and
threatens to do so with a petty complaint about her carelessness. Like Juliana, Berta represents a
threat to Hedda's control over George, something that she will not tolerate noblesse oblige (‘‘nobility
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obligates,’’ a notion that those of high social standing were required to behave in an honorable
manner) and familial gratitude be damned.
Hedda's most troubling female adversary is, of course, Mrs. Elvsted. She does not stand in Hedda's
way of controlling George; she stands in Hedda's way of a greater challenge, controlling Eilert
Lovborg. Hedda's frightful dislike of Theais mixed with intense jealousy. It goads her that someone
who seems like such a simpleton has been able to redeem Lovborg from his recklessness and
inspire his work. Thea, for all her experience, acts like an innocent compared to Hedda. She is
gullible and vulnerable, easily duped by Hedda into believing that Hedda is her friend, believing that
Hedda's girlhood antagonism had been entirely vitiated over the years. She does not sense Hedda's
spite and is both surprised and hurt when Hedda betrays her confidence.
Thea is, however, both a wholly sympathetic character and unlike Hedda—a survivor. She has
devoted herself to redeeming the dissolute Lovborg with a love that he cannot fully return, even
though she has sacrificed her reputation in the process by fleeing from her loveless and enslaving
marriage to Sheriff Elvsted. It is her admirable courage and devotion that make Lovborg seem like an
arrogant ingrate, someone at least partly deserving of his inept death. In fact, apart from his genius,
nothing about his character is quite so memorable as his insufferable dismissal of Thea as being ''too
stupid' ' to understand the kind of love that he believes he has shared with Hedda.
Thea's eagerness to immerse herself with George Tesman in an effort to reconstruct Lovborg's
manuscript has the aura of a magnificent obsession about it and argues that it is Thea who sees the
truth about Eilert that the man's ideas are both more admirable and important than his life. Ironically,
too, it is she who triumphs over her rival, Hedda, winning not Eilert but George, making him her
coconspirator in their efforts to breathe new her rival, Hedda, winning not Eilert but George, making
him her coconspirator in their efforts to breathe new life into Thea and Eilert's destroyed child,
Lovborg's brilliant work. As much as Hedda's own unborn child and Brack's endgame sexual
advantage, Thea's triumph drives Hedda to despair and suicide, proving that even in Ibsen's stark
realism there is adequate room for at least a modicum of poetic justice.
Source: John W. Fiero, for Drama for Students, Gale, 1999.
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Hedda Gabler: Then & Now
1890s: The world stands on the threshold of the second major phase of the industrial revolution,
revolutionary changes in communications and transportation, the advent of the automobile, airplane,
radio, phonograph, and film. These innovations will bring isolated communities into virtual proximity
with the cultural and political centers of the world.
Today: In the advanced nations of the world, the industrial revolution has ended. It is the time of
technological revolution, leading the world into the space and information ages. Satellite
communications and the computer make it possible for even the most isolated people to
communicate with anyone in the world.
1890s: Puritanical codes of acceptable behavior govern the social mores of Ibsen's day. Throughout
Europe, social sanctions against such things as pre−marital sex, divorce, and family abandonment
are strong, forcing many people to live miserable lives. The socalled ''Victorian underground'' teems
with prostitutes and thieves, many of whom are ''fallen women'' who had to resort to such a life or
face abject poverty. Officially, however, moral sanctions in society were strict and penalties for
infractions severe.
Today: Life in most post−industrial societies is permissive. In the United States, many marriages end
in divorce. In many urban areas, single−parent families are prevalent, with pregnancy among
unmarried teenage girls reaching epidemic proportions, despite the availability of birth−control drugs
and devices. Homosexuality has not only been decriminalized, it has reached considerably wide
acceptance, at least in some quarters. The overall nature of this ''non−taboo'' society has led many
conservatives to call for a return to ‘‘family values’’ and the respectable morality of Ibsen's day.
1890s: Official and unofficial protectors of the strict community moral standards put theatrical
performances under close scrutiny, and many have the authority either to shut down productions or
lead boycotts or protests, some of which result in riots. Plays can even be censored before they are
performed.
Today: Both on stage and in media, especially film, there is virtually no official censorship. In the
United States, for example, whatever moral codes relate to the substance of produced and broadcast
works are self−imposed by the industries themselves. Frank treatment of what were once considered
indelicate subjects is common, as are nudity, sex, and violence. Only the boycott remains as a
possible avenue of protest, and it is rarely effective.
1890s: In Ibsen's day, men and women live separate lives. Although there are various women's
organizations dedicated to change, women remain "unliberated," except, perhaps, in groups on the
fringes of respectable society. They are educated in their own finishing schools and are excluded
from most professions. Much of their leisure time is spent in the company of other women,
segregated from men. They lack political power because, even in the democracies, they lack the
vote. Their possibilities in life outside of marriage are limited, unless, like Mme. Diana in Ibsen's play,
they are willing to sacrifice their reputations.
Today: Although many feminists still argue that women have yet to complete their liberation,
enfranchisement and greater freedom have resulted from the revolutionary changes that have
occurred in this century. Women who sacrifice marriage and family for a career still earn reproach
from more reactionary corners, but they are hardly censured or demonized by society at large. There
remain few male−only bastions, and these are all under siege, at least in the United States. Women
take the same jobs as men, go to the same schools, study the same subjects, and mix freely with
men at all functions, from corporate board meetings to sporting events. The feminist complaints of
today are not so much about exclusion now as they are about equal treatment and compensation.
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Author of ClassicNote and Sources
Soman Chainani, author of ClassicNote. Completed on October 03, 2006, copyright held by
GradeSaver.
Updated and revised by Jordan Reid Berkow October 22, 2006. Copyright held by
GradeSaver.
McLeish, Kenneth. Hedda Gabler. London: Nick Hern Books, 1995.
Lyon, Charles. Hedda Gabler: Gender, Role and World. London: Twayne Publishers, 1991.
"Henrik
Ibsen's
'Hedda
Gabler'."
2006-09-13.
<http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/ibsen.html>."Hedda
Gabler,
Psychoanalysis and the Space of Play." 2006-09-18. <http://human-nature.com/freeassociations/hand.html>."Hedda Gabler, A Play by Henrik Ibsen." 2006-09-17.
<http://www.theatredatabase.com/19th_century/henrik_ibsen_006.html>.
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