Annotated passages and exam response on Hedda Gabler by Ibsen
Annotated passages and exam response on
Hedda Gabler
This document contains three passages from Hedda Gabler and a sample exam
response. The passages are:

in Act One, from the stage direction: ‘She goes out by the hall door.
Tesman goes with her …’ to Tesman: ‘That’s sweet of you, Hedda dear! If
you would!’

in Act Two, from Mrs Elvsted: ‘Hedda, Hedda, when is all this going to
end?’ to the stage direction: ‘She pulls Mrs Elvsted, almost by force,
towards the doorway.’

in Act Four, from Hedda: ‘Something done, at last!’ to Hedda: ‘Perhaps it
is’.
See Chapter 7 of Insight’s Literature for Senior Students (2nd edition, 2010) for
detailed notes on how to prepare for and write high-level responses in the VCE
Literature exam, as well as further sample responses.
Acknowledgement
Insight Publications thanks Penguin Books for permission to publish extracts from
Hedda Gabler and Other Plays (trans. Una Ellis-Fermor, Penguin, 1961).
Literature for Senior Students © Insight Publications 2006
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Annotated passages and exam response on Hedda Gabler by Ibsen
The passages
The annotations show some of the key elements and features of the passages that
could be drawn on in a response.
1.
[She goes out by the hall door. Tesman goes with her, leaving
the door half open. He can be heard repeating his messages
to Aunt Rina and thanking her for the shoes. In the meanwhile
Hedda crosses the room, raising her arms and clenching her
hands, as if in fury. Then she pulls back the curtains from the
glass door and stands there looking out.
After a moment Tesman comes in again, shutting the door
behind him.]
TESMAN [picking up the slippers from the floor]. What are
you looking at, Hedda?
HEDDA [calm and controlled again]. I’m just looking at the
Very detailed and
significant stage
direction: Hedda
expresses her
feelings physically
rather than
verbally. Note the
important role of
the set: the glass
door could be seen
as symbolic of the
social and material
barriers that keep
Hedda unhappily
inside the domestic
realm.
leaves. They’re so yellow, and so withered.
TESMAN [wrapping up the shoes and putting them on the
table]. Well, after all, we’re well on in September now.
Language use –
repetition of ‘in’
and ‘September’
draws attention to
the significance of
this month: it
signifies not
merely a time of
year, but a phase of
life at the
beginning of a
decline from
youthful vigour
and optimism.
HEDDA [disturbed again]. Yes, just think. We’re already in –
in September.
TESMAN. Don’t you think Aunt Julle was rather unlike
herself, my dear? A little bit – almost formal?
Whatever do you think was the matter? Eh?
HEDDA. I hardly know her, you see. Isn’t she like that as a
rule?
TESMAN. No, not like she was today.
Characterisation:
Tesman is portrayed
as methodical,
orderly, and not
very perceptive – he
seems oblivious to
Hedda’s mood and
does not quite grasp
the sources of the
tension between
Hedda and Aunt
Julle.
HEDDA [moving away from the glass door]. Do you think she
was really upset about that business with the hat?
TESMAN. Oh, not much. Perhaps a little, just at the moment.
HEDDA. But what extraordinary manners! To throw her hat
down here in the drawing-room. One doesn’t do that
kind of thing.
TESMAN. Well, you can be sure Aunt Julle won’t do it again.
HEDDA. Anyway, I’ll make it all right with her.
Narrative
structure: ‘One
doesn’t do …’ –
anticipates the last
words of the play
(spoken by Brack
in response to
Hedda’s suicide).
TESMAN. That’s sweet of you, Hedda dear! If you would!
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Annotated passages and exam response on Hedda Gabler by Ibsen
2.
MRS ELVSTED [who has got up and is wandering restlessly
Very unusual
image: conveys
Hedda’s romantic
and unconventional
view of Lövborg.
Also reflects her
longing for relief
from her orderly,
predictable
existence – for the
wild rather than the
domesticated. This
links with her
looking out the
glass door in
passage 1; also
links with notion of
‘beauty’ in passage
3.
about the room]. Hedda, Hedda, where is all this going
to end?
HEDDA. Ten o’clock – then he will come. I can see him.
With vineleaves in his hair. Flushed and confident.
MRS ELVSTED. Yes, if only it would be like that.
HEDDA. And then, you see, then he’ll have got control of
himself again. Then he will be a free man for the rest of
his days.
MRS ELVSTED. Heavens, yes. If only he would come like
that. As you see him.
HEDDA. He’ll come like that – ‘so and no otherwise’.
[Getting up and going nearer.] Go on doubting him as
long as you like. I believe in him. And now we’ll try …
MRS ELVSTED. There’s something behind all this, Hedda.
Central idea:
Hedda’s desire for
power, which is
related to how
powerless she feels
– and perhaps to
her aristocratic
background.
Stage direction:
Mrs Elvsted’s
movements reflect
and convey her
agitated state of
mind.
HEDDA. True; there is. I want, for once in my life, to have
Language use: ‘a
free man’ is an odd
expression here –
what does it mean
in the context of
the play? Is anyone
really ‘free’ in this
society? The idea
of freedom could
link/contrast with
Hedda’s sense of
entrapment in
passage 1.
power over a human being’s fate.
MRS ELVSTED. But haven’t you got that?
HEDDA. I have not. And never have had.
MRS ELVSTED. Not over your husband’s?
HEDDA. That would be worth having, wouldn’t it? Ah, if you
could only realise how poor I am. And here are you,
offered such riches! [Throwing her arms passionately
round her.] I think I shall burn your hair off, after all.
MRS ELVSTED. Let go! Let go! I’m frightened of you,
Hedda!
BERTE [in the doorway between the rooms]. Tea’s laid in the
dining-room, ma’am.
HEDDA. Good. We’re coming.
Hedda sees herself
as poor not due to
material wants but
emotional wants:
this suggests a set
of values quite
different from
those of her family
and friends. Of
course, Hedda’s
material wants are
largely satisfied –
so how
sympathetically are
we asked to view
Hedda at this
point?
MRS ELVSTED. No, no, no! I’d rather go home alone. At
once!
Language use –
Hedda’s use of the
diminutive ‘little
goose’ – and the
following stage
direction convey
Hedda’s power
over Mrs Elvsted,
expressed both
verbally and
physically.
HEDDA. Nonsense! You must have tea first, you little goose.
And then, at ten o’clock, Ejlert Lövborg will come –
with vineleaves in his hair.
[She pulls Mrs Elvsted, almost by force, towards the
doorway.]
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Annotated passages and exam response on Hedda Gabler by Ibsen
Characterisation
through what
Hedda says and
how she says it
(tone indicated by
stage direction).
Hedda’s
inappropriate
response to
Lövborg’s death
reflects her
boredom with her
monotonous
existence, but also
displays her lack of
compassion and
sympathy.
3.
HEDDA [in a ringing voice]. Something done, at last!
TESMAN [horrified]. Good heavens! What are you saying,
Hedda?
HEDDA. That there is an element of beauty in this.
BRACK. Hm. Mrs Tesman –
TESMAN. Of beauty! Fancy that!
MRS ELVSTED. Oh, Hedda, how can you talk of beauty in a
thing like that!
Language use:
‘beauty’ is a very
unusual word to
use in this
situation, and
draws our attention
to the strange way
in which Hedda
views other people.
Also, beauty is
valued by Hedda –
whereas the others
attach little or no
importance to it.
HEDDA. Ejlert Lövborg has balanced his account with
himself. He has had the courage to do … what had to
be done.
MRS ELVSTED. No, don’t ever believe that it happened in
that way. What he has done was done in a moment of
madness.
TESMAN. Done in despair.
HEDDA. It was not. Of that I am certain.
MRS ELVSTED. Yes, it was. In a moment of madness. Just as
when he tore up our manuscript.
BRACK [in surprise]. Manuscript? The book, do you mean?
Has he torn that up?
MRS ELVSTED. Yes, he did it last night.
Characterisation:
Tesman
acknowledges to
Hedda that he is
complicit in the
actions that have
led to Lövborg’s
death, yet he shows
no real remorse; his
instincts are for
self-preservation,
not for justice – the
text does not
endorse his values
any more than it
does Hedda’s.
Tesman and Mrs
Elvsted cannot
understand Hedda,
showing their very
different sets of
values. Hedda
rationalises
Lövborg’s
‘suicide’, whereas
the others view
suicide as
inherently
irrational.
TESMAN [whispering softly]. Oh, Hedda, we shall never get
clear of this business.
BRACK. Hm. That was odd.
TESMAN [walking about the room]. Fancy Ejlert going out of
the world like that! And not even leaving behind him
the book that would have made his name immortal.
Narrative
structure: Hedda’s
remark anticipates
her own suicide.
Language use:
repetition of ‘a
moment of
madness’ reflects
Mrs Elvsted’s
desire to excuse the
man she had loved.
Moreover, the
repetition draws
our attention to the
role of madness in
the play: who
might really be
considered to be
acting with
‘madness’?
Perhaps it is
Hedda’s actions
that are best
viewed in this
light?
MRS ELVSTED. Oh, if only it could be put together again!
TESMAN. Yes, just think if it could! I don’t know what I
wouldn’t give –
MRS ELVSTED. Perhaps it can, Mr Tesman.
TESMAN. What do you mean?
MRS ELVSTED [looking in her handbag]. Look here. I have
kept the loose notes that he used for dictating from.
HEDDA [a step nearer]. Ah!
TESMAN. You’ve kept them, Mrs Elvsted! Eh?
MRS ELVSTED. Yes, I have them here. I took them with me
when I came away, and here they’ve been, lying in my
handbag.
Characterisation:
Mrs Elvsted is
reliable and
rational; she
devises a practical
plan of action.
Here she is not
intimidated by
Hedda – contrast
with passage 2.
TESMAN. Just let me see them!
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Annotated passages and exam response on Hedda Gabler by Ibsen
MRS ELVSTED [passes him a stack of small sheets]. But
they’re in such a muddle. All mixed up together.
TESMAN. Fancy, if we could get it straight, though! Perhaps
if we help each other –
Characterisation:
Hedda’s scepticism
shows both her
accurate
knowledge of, and
disdain for, her
husband. It is also
ironic: she is the
one who will ‘give
her life’.
MRS ELVSTED. Oh yes! Let’s try, at any rate!
TESMAN. It shall be done! It must! I will give my life to this.
HEDDA. You, Jörgen? Your life?
TESMAN. Yes. Or, rather, all my spare time. My own stuff
must wait for the present. You understand, Hedda? Eh?
It’s something I owe to Ejlert’s memory.
HEDDA. Perhaps it is.
Literature for Senior Students © Insight Publications 2006
Language use: a
very interesting
expression – ‘All
mixed up together’
could also apply to
the characters’
intertwined
relationships. As
the sheets are
sorted, so are
relationships realigned: Tesman
and Mrs Elvsted;
Hedda and Brack.
Characterisation:
the project appeals
to Tesman’s
methodical nature
– link with passage
1; perhaps his
sense of guilt is
also involved?
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Annotated passages and exam response on Hedda Gabler by Ibsen
Sample response
The comments preceding each paragraph of this essay outline the writer’s approach,
so that the generic qualities of the answer are identified. They also indicate the ways
in which the assessment criteria are addressed; italicised words and phrases are key
terms in the examination criteria. (Go to www.vcaa.vic.edu.au for the criteria, or see
Literature for Senior Students, 2nd edition, pp.201–2.)
Introduction
The response opens with a quotation from the third passage, which signals one of the
main concerns to be discussed: Hedda’s interest in beauty. This is linked to several
other aspects of the play – Hedda’s social context, her sense of entrapment and
limitation, the characters’ responses to Lövborg’s death – connections which can be
further explored in the body paragraphs. The paragraph ends with a views and values
comment.
‘… there is an element of beauty in this.’
Throughout Hedda Gabler, Hedda longs for a moment, or a
vision, of beauty that will break the tedious monotony of
existence – that will render life stimulating and
provocative, rather than an endless series of meaningless
moments. Yet beauty always lies just beyond Hedda’s
grasp. She thinks, however perversely, that she glimpses
it in Lövborg’s presumed suicide; Lövborg’s death, though,
is in fact a sordid and messy affair, quite remote in reality
from Hedda’s romantic vision. Marriage, domestic life and
middle-class society all fail to satisfy – indeed, they
intensify – Hedda’s longing for transcendence. Moreover,
her friends and family do not share or understand her
vision: for Mrs Elvsted, Lövborg’s suicide can only be
comprehended as the result of ‘a moment of madness’.
Ultimately, our view of Hedda is of a tormented
character, trapped by her material and social
circumstances but also by her own distorted perspective,
which prevents her from experiencing any compassion for
or understanding of those around her.
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Annotated passages and exam response on Hedda Gabler by Ibsen
Paragraph 2
Material from passage 1, including the detailed stage direction that begins it, is used
to develop the discussion of Hedda’s longing for freedom/feeling of being trapped.
This indicates a link between the passages as well as allowing the discussion to
develop coherently. Language use, setting and characterisation are features of the text
used to develop the interpretation.
Hedda’s yearning to be free is a sign both of the
limitations of her life and of the complex nature of her
own personality. Throughout the play we see her standing
at thresholds – looking through the glass doors, pausing at
doorways – as if she longs to leave but is unwilling to
abandon the safety and relative security of her home. As
she talks to her husband she looks through the glass doors
at the autumn foliage; yet, rather than finding the leaves
a source of beauty, she sees them as signs of death and
decay, ‘so yellow, and so withered’. If her interior,
domestic setting offers few opportunities for pleasure,
the outside world is even less inviting to Hedda. The
changing leaves seem to remind her of the inexorable
passage of time in her own life; summer has passed and
winter approaches, just as her own youthful freedoms
have been left behind. The word ‘September’ is repeated
by Hedda, making its metaphorical significance as a
marker of change clearer both to herself and to the
audience. Hedda’s frustration is also evident in her actions
as she stands at the window, ‘raising her arms and
clenching her hands, as if in fury’. She contains her
emotion, just as she feels contained within a world she has
no desire to remain in, but cannot bring herself to leave.
Reference to stage
directions to support
assertions about
Hedda’s
psychological state.
Language use
(repetition) is
discussed and its
effect and meaning
explained.
Paragraph 3
The response moves to a more thorough discussion of the views and values presented
by the play, in relation to the social context it depicts. Tesman and Mrs Elvsted are
considered as embodying aspects of their social class, which the play subtly critiques
through their contrast with the more dynamic Hedda. Passage 2 is drawn on for the
discussion of Mrs Elvsted.
Just as the everyday thresholds of doors and windows
signal Hedda’s frustrations and yearnings, they also
symbolise the mundane ordinariness of suburban middle-
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Annotated passages and exam response on Hedda Gabler by Ibsen
Gives a sense of
the playwright
crafting the text for
certain effects and
responses.
class society, which Ibsen’s late plays so often hold up to
scrutiny. It is not so much that Ibsen seeks to strongly
condemn the conventions and attitudes of this social class,
as to expose the many ways in which they limit both the
behaviour and the imaginations of those within it. Tesman
and Mrs Elvsted are exemplary members of their social
context: they cultivate respectability, quietness,
conscientiousness and moderation. Of these qualities, only
the first is also desired by Hedda – the others are
diametrically opposed to the kind of life Hedda aspires to
lead. A more complex side to Mrs Elvsted’s personality is
suggested by the fact that she has left a loveless
marriage and her children; she is not, it seems, entirely
willing to live without passion. Her emotional commitment
to Lövborg – ‘I believe in him’ – and her willingness to
share Hedda’s vision of Lövborg with ‘vineleaves in his hair’
also indicate a romantic dimension to her personality.
However, this scene between Hedda and Mrs Elvsted ends
by marking the differences, rather than the similarities,
between them. Hedda is strong and dominating – ‘throwing
her arms passionately’ around the younger woman and
cajoling her with the diminutive ‘little goose’; Mrs Elvsted,
though ‘frightened’, submits meekly to Hedda’s demands.
Paragraph 4
The discussion of Ibsen’s treatment of middle-class views and values continues from
the previous paragraph, with a shift in focus to Tesman and to evidence from passage
3.
What finally draws Mrs Elvsted and Tesman together is
their shared excitement at the prospect of restoring
Lövborg’s manuscript and their pleasure at being able to
‘help each other’. It is companionship, after all, that is
most desirable to them both. The project is worthy, but
effectively concedes that the creative vision of a dead
man is greater than their own. As Tesman suggests, it
comprises a kind of memorial ‘to Ejlert’s memory’, and such
a goal is entirely consistent with Tesman’s world view: he
prefers to consolidate and preserve an object from the
past rather than create something entirely new and
unpredictable in the future. In this way, the narrowness
of Tesman’s outlook – which is also, by extension, that of
the social class whose values he exemplifies – is exposed:
its focus is inward rather than outward; it attends
Literature for Senior Students © Insight Publications 2006
Use of textual detail
(direct quotes).
Discusses the text’s
wider view of the
social group being
depicted.
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Annotated passages and exam response on Hedda Gabler by Ibsen
methodically to the fine details, but lacks the vision to
comprehensively grasp the wider picture.
Paragraph 5
This paragraph continues the analysis of passage 3. The discussion of how this
passage anticipates the tragic ending addresses the structure of the play, and explains
why this key passage contributes to an interpretation of the text as a whole.
The contrast between the perspectives of Hedda and
Tesman is nowhere more evident than when she challenges
his declaration that he will ‘give [his] life to this’. Hedda
would never say such a thing without meaning to
accomplish it literally, but she knows that Tesman is
incapable of acting in this way. Tesman admits that his
statement is merely a rhetorical flourish, a commitment
that will amount to no more than spending his ‘spare time’
on reconstructing Lövborg’s book. In contrast, Hedda
imagines the devotion of one’s life to a grand cause as
heroic and uplifting, prefiguring her own actions at the
end of the play. Her words for Lövborg’s death – at least
while she still thinks of it as a suicide – convey her
admiration for such a sacrifice: she regards it as
containing an ‘element of beauty’ and displaying great
‘courage’, neither of which qualities she associates with
her husband. However, the more openly Hedda shows her
disdain for Tesman, the more marginalised and isolated
she becomes in her own home. Her romantic idealism is
regarded sceptically by both Mrs Elvsted and Tesman, who
propose ‘madness’ or ‘despair’ as much more rational
explanations for Lövborg’s actions. Indeed, Hedda
increasingly appears prone to her own ‘moment[s] of
madness’; her perverse exclamation ‘Something done, at
last!’ in ‘a ringing voice’ when she learns of Lövborg’s death
reveals how distorted her perspective has become – and
how little she has come to value life.
Moves back in to close
reference to passage 3
to support the
argument that Hedda is
increasingly
marginalised.
Paragraph 6 – conclusion
The conclusion draws together the various concerns of the discussion, including the
idea of thresholds, Hedda’s feeling of being contained and her yearning for beauty
and transcendence. It refers to the end of the play in order to generate a sense of
closure and to affirm the dual sense that Hedda is both victim of her circumstances
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Annotated passages and exam response on Hedda Gabler by Ibsen
and responsible for her own destiny – consolidating the interpretation developed
throughout.
Like Lövborg’s death, Hedda’s suicide is less an act of
courage than ‘done in despair’, the result of a kind of
‘madness’ in which life is regarded as having less intrinsic
value than death. She is trapped in circumstances she has
little capacity to change; she yearns to cross a threshold
into freedom, but knows that the only physical thresholds
available to her are the doorways of her own house,
beyond which there are few prospects for an improved
situation. As limiting as her circumstances are, Hedda’s
longing for ideas and experiences that transcend the
everyday further exacerbates her sense of entrapment.
Finally, the only beauty she can imagine is the pure,
unchanging state of death; Hedda is driven to take her
own life in an effort not merely to be free, but to create
her tragic vision of ‘beauty’ in a scene completely of her
own making. It is also – and this is perhaps the real
tragedy of Hedda Gabler – a vision that no one among her
family or friends is able, or even desires, to share or
understand.
Literature for Senior Students © Insight Publications 2006
Opening sentence of
conclusion links with
ideas and quotes from
previous paragraph to
ensure continuity.
Links back to material
from introduction and
second paragraph.
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Annotated passages and exam response on Hedda Gabler by Ibsen
Assessor comments
This response shows a perceptive understanding of the text and develops a plausible,
detailed and coherent interpretation through reference to the set passages. The
argument unfolds logically throughout the response.
The writing is expressive and sophisticated; vocabulary such as ‘rhetorical
flourish’, ‘exacerbates’ and ‘transcendence’ allows complex ideas to be expressed
succinctly.
The response makes good use of textual details from the passages to support the
interpretation, integrating quotations smoothly and eloquently.
The discussion shows an understanding of how views and values are aligned
with particular characters who are contrasted and/or linked, and of how the text
presents a viewpoint, which is sometimes complex, on these characters.
Features of the text such as characterisation, structure and aspects of staging and
performance are analysed in terms of how they contribute to the play’s meaning.
Stage directions are discussed in addition to dialogue, showing an awareness of the
text’s form and audience.
The response would receive an A to A+ grade.
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