his first act, besides introducing characters, acquaints the audience with Hedda Gabler's

surroundings in her new life as Mrs. Tesman. Brought up as a general's daughter

accustomed to travel in aristocratic social circles, Hedda must confront her future as a
housewife in a middle-class household. The fact that she is pregnant reinforces her
potential role as homemaker. The nature of her doom is underscored by the character of
Miss Juliana Tesman, who represents the older generation of domestic womanhood who
has devoted her life to the care of others.

George Tesman, good natured and sentimental, assumes that the duty of a husband is
merely to satisfy the domestic requirements of his wife so that she can be happy in the
confines of her home. With this in mind, he agrees that they shall keep an open house —
in Hedda's chosen home — and maintain the luxuries important to proper entertaining.
Believing that a woman naturally falls into household routines once she is married,
George has no further insight into Hedda's temperament. George's research into the
"domestic industries of medieval Brabant" is an ironic symbol of his conservative,
simple-minded views of married life, as well as a symbol that indicates his inability to
encompass other than material details.

As to his heroine, Ibsen establishes her main symptoms of disaffection with life: a
profound emotional coldness, an incapacity to interest herself in anything besides social
pleasures, and a destructlive desire to control the lives of others. Hedda cannot respond to
the warmth of Aunt Julia, she cannot abide the idea of expecting a child, and was totally
bored during her wedding trip.

To further express her emotional sterility, Ibsen shows how Hedda is unable to
reciprocate in a relationship. Like a young child, she can only receive without knowing
how to give in return. Without reciprocating, she accepts George's love and support; by
pretending friendship, she learns all about Thea's personal life yet reveals no confidences
of her own. Later on, when Lövborg recalls his previous relationship with Hedda, he
describes how she extracted detailed confessions from him yet withheld her own self-
revelations. This intense, almost morbid interest in the lives of others is another aspect of
her empty emotional life. At the same time that investigating and analyzing other people's
lives is one way for Hedda to gain some understanding of her own unsatisfied nature, she
reveals her personal frigidity and adolescent self-centeredness.

This first act also demonstrates a pathological quality in Hedda's personality. Cruelly
insulting Aunt Julia by complaining that it is the servant's bonnet lying in the chair,
Hedda tries to undermine Miss Tesman's sense of worth. Compelling Thea to reveal her
innermost feelings, she seems to search for Mrs. Elvsted's weaknesses so she can later use
this knowledge for her own selfish purposes. Having established that his heroine is
emotionally empty yet eager to learn how other people face life's experiences, Ibsen
shows how the imperious and unsubmissive Hedda tries to destroy the personal values of
those whose satisfactions she cannot attain

Read more: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/literature/Hedda-Gabler-Summary-

Analysis-and-Original-Text-Act-I.id-86,pageNum-9.html#ixzz1AufUiQBg
The analysis of Hedda Gabler proceeds page by page, rather than by topic,
such as the symbolism of the guns or Hedda's character. I have tried to parallel
the reading process, so that you can read the analysis and easily refer to the
play or even read the analysis as you read the play, if you wish.

Recommendation: Read the act through, so that the characters and situation
reveal themselves to you as Ibsen intended. Then re-read the act with the
online analysis. Your view of the earlier acts may change after you finish the
play, and you may have different answers to many of my questions. The
online lessons are not intended to replace reading the assigned text.

Act I
Stage Directions

In reading Hedda Gabler, you must pay attention to more than just the
characters' words, actions, and gestures. Ibsen gives detailed stage
directions about the lighting, the props, the appearance of the characters,
and the placement of the characters on the stage to achieve his effects, to
develop character, and to further his ideas. This means that you must read
the stage directions carefully.

The drawing room. The entire action takes place in this room, in the
space of thirty-six hours. Just as the action is confined to this room, so
Hedda Gabler is restrained by her acceptance of society's values, by the
narrowness of her social circle, and by her limited interests. The room is
like Hedda in its elegance and aristocratic refinement. It reflects Hedda's
aristocratic lifestyle and social class, rather than those of the bourgeois
Tesmans; note Miss Tesman's surprise at Hedda's having had the chintz
furniture covers removed. Hedda comes from a class which takes luxury
for granted; the Tesmans from a class which "saves" luxuries for special
occasions.

Ibsen uses the smaller inner room and the larger drawing room to parallel
the action and reflect Hedda's relationship to the other characters. General
Gabler's portrait is hung in the inner room, and Hedda's piano is moved
into it by Act II, so that this space is associated with Hedda from the
beginning. Does the movement of people in and out of the inner room
reflect the meaning of the action as well as contribute to the meaning?

Hedda several times goes to the door or drums her fingers on the glass;
when and why does she do this?

Note: The answers to questions like these may not be clear to you at a
first reading; you may need to read the entire play to see the
significance of some of them, to decide whether or how they reveal
character and prepare for the final catastrophe.

The lighting. Ibsen carefully describes the light coming into or being
excluded from the room. Notice how the characters react to the light.
What might a characters's reaction suggest about that person's character?
Might there be a connection between the light and the action? For
example, one of Miss Tesman's first actions upon entering the drawing
room is to open the glass doors to let in the sunlight. Hedda has a
different reaction to the light shortly after entering the room; she objects
to the "flood of sunlight." Light is often used to represent life and
aliveness. Do their reactions to the light suggest anything about their
natures and their responses to life? As you read the play, consider the
significance of Hedda's wanting the curtains drawn, so that the light will
be "softer" but not excluded?

The props. Hedda's inheritance from General Gabler seems to consist of

his portrait, his guns, and the piano; they are from her pre-Tesman life.
All three acquire significant meanings as the play progresses.

• General Gabler's portrait is a prominent feature in the set; in

many, if not most productions of the play, it dominates the set. His
social status and values are implicit in his uniform because
generals in Norwegian society are members of the aristocracy. Is
Hedda's relationship to her father a significant factor in the way
Hedda regards herself and the way the other characters regard
her? Does she want to continue to be General Gabler's daughter as
well as George Tesman's wife? or does she want to be only
General Gabler's daughter? Is either option possible? Must she be
only a wife? and a soon-to-be mother? Another question to
consider is, why has Ibsen called this play Hedda Gabler rather
than Hedda Tesman?
• General Gabler's guns acquire increasing importance as the play
goes on. They represent her aristocratic heritage; they serve as her
 playthings, as her defense, and as a release; also they suggest
violence. Like Hedda, they have a cold exterior and a fiery
interior. Hedda's use of the guns and the reaction of others to her
guns are meaningful. In a Freudian reading, the guns are obvious
phallic symbols.
• The piano does not "fit" in the drawing room, just as Hedda and
her artistocratic lifestyle/values doesn't "fit" into the Tesman
family and its bourgeois lifestyle/values. George and Hedda make
different assumptions about remedying the problem of the piano.
George assumes they will trade it in for a new piano and is startled
by Hedda's extravagant assumption they will keep it and buy a
new one.

The room is filled with flowers, which Hedda finds stifling. By Act II,
most of the flowers have been removed. What do the flowers represent,
and why are they distasteful to Hedda?

The stove becomes significant later in the play. Notice Hedda's

movements toward and away from the stove, whereby Ibsen visually
suggests a connection between her and the stove. The connection begins
when Hedda forces Thea to sit in a chair by the stove (p. 15), and after
Thea leaves, she herself sits by the stove as Tesman and Brack discuss
Lovborg (p. 21).

The characters' appearance. Hedda and Thea are opposites in

appearance. Hedda has brown hair and grey eyes; Thea has "remarkably
light" hair and large blue eyes. Ibsen uses hair to symbolize their natures.
Hedda's hair is attractive but "not particularly abundant." In contrast,
Thea's is "unusually abundant." Hair is often associated with
creativity/fertility and with potency (think of Samson and his hair). Does
either of these possibilities have relevance to this play? Interestingly, the
one physical detail we are given about Mademoiselle Diana, the "singing-
woman" (a polite phrase for "prostitute"), is the color of her hair (p. 19).

The characters can be grouped by complexion. The bourgeois Thea, Miss

Tesman, and George are all fair. The aristocratic Hedda, Brack, and
Lovborg all have darker coloring. Thus, their coloring visually
distinguishes the two groups, as do the values and social class they share.

Pages 1-7

The opening lines establish the relationship among the Tesmans,

including the servant Berta, and prepare for Hedda's entrance.
TheTesmans form a tightly knit group with bourgeois values (e.g.,
domestic pleasures and family ties). Just as Hedda physically enters the
drawing room of the house the Tesmans bought, so the aristocratic Hedda
Gabler is socially, financially, and emotionally entering the bourgeois
Tesman family and world.

Miss Tesman and Berta have a close mistress-servant relationship. Miss

Tesman discusses family matters with Berta, who is on "the verge of
weeping" because of their separation after "all the blessed years I've been
with you and Miss Rina" (p. 2). Self-sacrifice characterizes the Tesman
women. Miss Tesman admits to Berta, "Heaven knows it was a wrench to
me to part with you" (p. 2), a sacrifice she willingly makes for the
beloved George. Berta worries about the welfare of the invalid Aunt Rina
without Berta's help. What other evidences of their closeness do you see?

Miss Tesman and her nephew George have a close, loving relationship.
The two aunts dote on him and are willing to make any sacrifice for him,
and he accepts their sacrifices appreciatively. Initially George is taken
aback when he learns that his aunts have taken a loan on their annuity,
their only income, to enable him to buy the house. After his aunt assures
him doing this was "nothing but a pleasure to us," George accepts in
terms that indicate a long pattern of sacrifice by his aunts, "Oh, Auntie--
will you never be tired of making sacrifices for me!" (p. 7).

In these opening pages, what kind of man does George seem to be? Think
of his accepting his aunts' sacrifices. In what spirit does he accept them--
selfishly as a right, appreciatively, lovingly? Is it significant that he was
willing to let his elderly aunt get home on her own rather than displace
Hedda's boxes in the carriage to give her a ride the previous night? (What
does this inconsiderate action suggest about Hedda?) What does his
missing Miss Tesman's hints about a possible pregnancy tell us about
George? What is the effect of his joy over the slippers? You will notice
he habitually uses two phrases, "eh?" and "fancy that." Does his verbal
habit affect your assessment of him?

Miss Tesman seems a kind, self-sacrificing woman. How does the

pleasure she takes in the fall of George's rivals, particularly Lovborg, fit
this image (p. 7)? Does her self-sacrifice keep George gratefully
dependent? Is there a darker or shadow aspect to the admittedly admirable
family values of the Tesmans?

The exchange among the Tesman contingent also prepares for Hedda's
appearance. Berta and Miss Tesman whisper not to disturb Hedda. The
class difference appears immediately with Berta's fear that her new
mistress will be "terribly grand in her ways" (p. 2). Both Miss Tesman
and Berta are impressed with Hedda's superior social status and see
George's winning her as a coup; neither woman imagined that she might
marry George. Miss Tesman gives us a glimpse of Hedda's previous life,
her riding with the General; is it significant that she refers to him as "the
General" rather than as Hedda's father? Even in talking with George, Miss
Tesman expresses her wonder at the marriage,

And that you should be the one to carry off Hedda Gabler--The beautiful
Hedda Gabler! Only think of it--she, that was so beset with admirers! (p.
4)
Does her comment reflect her opinion of George or of Hedda's status?
What does George's response to her indicate about his view of Hedda's
marrying him? Is there irony in describing George as being masterful
enough to carry off Hedda?

Is Hedda a person or an object/status symbol to them? Is she, in any

sense, a trophy wife for the Tesmans?

George has the virtues and the limitations of the bourgeoisie. In valuing
the domestic, the bourgeoisie also value the ordinary and are, therefore,
dull; they exclude the heroic, the poetic, the creative, the transcendent.
George is the bourgeois scholar. His gift is "collecting and arranging" (p.
7), not creating; his topic--the domestic industries of Brabant during the
Middle Ages--is dull, looks to the past, and is narrow.

Pages 7-11

Hedda resists being drawn into the Tesman family. Because Ibsen wanted
this aspect of the play to be clear, he advised a director of the play how to
present it:
Jorgen Tesman, his old aunts, and the elderly serving-maid Berte together
form a whole and a unity. They have a common way of thinking;
common memories, and a common attitude to life. For Hedda they appear
as an inimical and alien power directed against her fundamental nature.
For this reason there must be harmony between them [the Tesmans] in
performance. (letter, 1891)
The Tesmans seem quite satisfied with one another; what, if anything,
does Hedda seem to be satisfied with? Hedda expresses her resistance to
the Tesmans with her first speech. To Miss Tesman's personal greeting
and warm welcome into the family, "my dear Hedda!" and "a hearty
welcome" (p. 7), Hedda holds out a hand, thereby preventing an embrace,
and addresses her formally as "Miss Tesman" (p. 8). There is a subtext in
her reference to Miss Tesman's kindness in calling early; she is pointing
out that Miss Tesman is intruding with her impolitely early call. Her
response contasts with Tesman's; he saw his aunt's calling early as an
expression of love and concern. Miss Tesman gets Hedda's message and
is embarrassed. Are there any other expressions of Hedda's rejection of
the Tesmans? Is the incident of the hat relevant? Does the way she speaks
to George indicate fondness or something else?
George's domesticity is shown in his joy at getting his worn-out slippers.
His aunt's thinking to bring them shows how important even the smallest
detail of his life is to her. Hedda has no interest at all in them. George
talked about the slippers on their honeymoon. Does this reveal anything
about him? Do you imagine talking about your spouse's old slippers on
your honeymoon?

George is unaware that Hedda is filling out because she is pregnant, but
his aunt immediately understands. Instead of leaving, as had been her
intention after the humiliation of the hat, Miss Tesman stays long enough
to kiss Hedda's hair and bless Hedda, "God bless and preserve Hedda
Tesman--for George's sake" (p. 9). This is one of the few references to
Hedda as Tesman; almost all the other references are to Hedda Gabler,
including the title. Is this significant? What is Hedda's response to the
kiss? How do you imagine she feels at Miss Tesman's promise to visit her
every day?

What do Hedda's "raising her arms and clenching her hands as if in

desperation" (p. 10) reveal about her? Is Hedda cold or even frigid, as
many readers have asserted, or is she a passionate woman who controls
her emotions and does not allow them to show? What in the exchange
with the Tesmans provokes this response? Or you might prefer the
question, what in her situation with the Tesmans provokes this response?

When Tesman returns from seeing his aunt out, Hedda is looking out the
window. She sees the dying, withered leaves. She hesitates at naming the
month, "Already in--in September" (p. 10). Hedda resents her pregnancy
and the prospect of motherhood; is she counting the months, in dread?
She rejects every reference George unknowingly makes to her physical
appearance/pregnancy.

During the discussion of Mrs. Elvsted, Hedda says, "isn't it somewhere

near there that he--that--Eilert Lovborg is living?" Does this phrasing
prepare the audience for some connection between Lovborg and Hedda?

Pages 12-19

Thea is a character foil to Hedda. Both women are in unhappy marriages,

and both married for economic reasons; however, Thea is inexpensive to
maintain, and Hedda is expensive. Both had "comrade"-relationships of
different kinds with Lovborg, and Thea had a brief romance with Tesman.

Hedda initially characterizes Thea as "The girl with the irritating hair, that
she was always showing off" (p. 11). Does her childhood threat to burn
off Thea's hair hint at the possibility of violence in Hedda?

Does it come as something of a surprise that Hedda receives Thea

"warmly" (p. 12), particularly in view of Hedda's generally cold
demeanor and her treatment of Aunt Julia? She refused George's request
to address his Aunt Julia with the familiar pronoun "du" but uses that
form with Thea. And she pretends they were friends in school although
she doesn't remember Thea's name. What information does she want to
get out of Thea by pretending to be friends?

What in Hedda's behavior and questions indicates her assumption that

Thea and Lovborg were lovers? What in her attitude toward Thea is based
on this assumption? Does this reaction indicate someone who lives life
directly or vicariously (i.e., through other people)? Is Hedda quick at
picking up sexual implications?

Hedda reacts with shock to Thea's leaving her husband, "But then--to take
flight so openly" and "But what do you think people will say of you,
Thea?" (p. 18). Hedda objects to openly violating society's laws, for she
cares very much about society's judgments and acceptance. Hedda's
desire for surface conventionality and fear of scandal are important
motives and affect her behavior throughout the play. It is possible to see
her conventionality earlier in this act, when she says of Miss Tesman's
placing her hat on a chair, "No one does that sort of thing" (p. 10).

A hint of Hedda's moral and emotional bankruptcy occurs with Hedda's

"involuntary smile of scorn" at Thea's having reformed or saved Lovborg
(p. 18). She has no interest in reclaiming Lovborg from alcoholism to a
productive life. Nor does she value Thea's transformation as a result of
her relationship with Lovborg, who "has made a real human being of
me--taught me to think, and to understand so many things" (p. 18).

Why does Hedda ask George to invite Lovborg and send him out of the
room to write the letter? Why does she encourage him to write "a good
long" letter? Isn't Hedda being manipulative, that is, trying to get her way
covertly, rather than directly? (Remember her manipulative pretense of
friendship with Thea.)

Pages 20-24

Brack appears as a family friend. Once Thea leaves, Hedda openly

expresses her contempt for her husband and separates herself from him
and his interests. What differences between Tesman and Hedda are
indicated by her saying, "Tesman is for ever worrying about how people
are to make their living" (p. 21)? (Why does she call him "Tesman" rather
 than his first name?) Tesman married on the expectation of being
appointed to a professorship and receiving a large income, so Brack's
news that the appointment may be delayed is a serious setback. How does
George's reaction differ from Hedda's at Brack's news that Lovborg may
be a rival for the professorship?

Lovborg is a character foil to Tesman. Both are attracted to Hedda, both

have had a connection with Thea, and their professional specialties are
the same. There are significanat differences between them, however.
Lovborg is creative, expansive, and willing to take risks, as the subject of
his book indicates, "the march of civilization--in broad outline" (p. 13).
Contrast it with the subject of George's projected book.

Is the marriage of Tesman and Hedda a love match or a marriage of

convenience? or is there some other basis for their marriage? Consider the
reference to their "compact" or agreement about their entertaining, the
footman, and the saddle-horse (p. 23).

How does Hedda react to the prospect of a reduced lifestyle? Why does
she refer to the guns as "General Gabler's pistols" rather than my pistols
or my father's pistols? Is it relevant to my question that Ibsen said that
Hedda "is to be understood as her father's daughter rather than her
husband's wife"? As you read the play, note the ways that Ibsen makes
this fact clear to us. Does the rest of the play support John Northam's
assertion, "She is what she is because she is her father's daughter"?
Ibsen's comment raises another question; is it significant that Hedda is
identified in terms of her relationship with men, her father and her
husband?

(A large number of Ibsen's notes for Hedda Gabler and a draft version of
the play survive. Some of his notes refer to dialogue, ideas, and actions
that were cut from the final version of the play; others are relevant to the
final version and clarify it. I quote these notes when a comment
illuminates an element in the play.)

Guns have a destructive purpose, particularly for the military. Why does
Hedda turn to the guns? What does George's response to her
announcement about the guns reveal about him? What adjectives describe
Tesman, for instance, heroic, brilliant, creative, dull, naive, childlike,
masterful, weak, comic, evil, threatening, unscrupulous, wimpy?

Act II
Continue to read the stage directions carefully; the details are often significant. In this act,
the piano has been moved into the inner room, which increasingly becomes Hedda's
space. It reflects her self-containment and her separateness.
General Gabler's portrait keeps him present throughout the play, as do the guns and
Hedda's insistence on being his daughter rather than Tesman's wife. Does the General
symbolize the aristocratic social class which shaped Hedda and dominates her still? As
Act I established, class differences are a crucial element in this play.

If you took Core Studies 3 or 4, you are familiar with the history of the rise of the
bourgeoisie (middle class) and the decline of the aristocracy politically and economically,
if not socially. You probably also discussed the hostility and conflicts among the classes,
which Marx called class warfare.

In a sense, class warfare has taken the form of Hedda's resisting the Tesmans' intrusions
and claims on her. Even though she rebuffs them, she remains for the Tesmans an
admired, superior being. Would it be accurate to say that she is a valuable possession
who enhances their status and sense of self-worth and achievement?

Pages 25-29

Act II begins with General Gabler's guns, with which Act I ended. What is the difference
between Tesman's reaction to Hedda's merely talking about shooting the guns and Brack's
reaction to actually being shot at? Does Brack take her seriously? His taking her gun
allows him to look at it closely; his familiarity with the appearance of the gun is
important later. His taking control of her and the situation foreshadows later events.

Brack reveals another aspect of himself. Under the cover of family friend, he wants to
have an affair with Hedda. Hedda's reference to his coming the "back way" refers not
only to his using the back entrance to the house but to his being sneaky and underhanded.
Though Hedda rejects his sexual overtures, she is willing to engage in the titillation of a
flirtation with sexual undercurrents and no physical involvement. Hedda enjoys Brack's
company; she engages in a verbal duel with him, even jokes with him ("jestingly," p. 28)
and laughs (p. 27) for the first time in the play. Her rejecting Brack has caused her to be
called frigid or sexually repressed. Is she? Under her cold manner and eyes, is there
passion, intense in not having an outlet? or is there only more ice? If she is repressed,
what kinds of feelings are being suppressed--love, lust, rage, frustration, fear, etc.? Is it
possible that some of her unexpressed feelings come out in hostile statements and actions,
like her deliberate insult regarding Miss Tesman's hat?

The sexual play between Brack and Hedda starts subtly. At the beginning of their
conversation, he bends "a little forward" and she withdraws, "leaning further back in the
sofa" (p. 26). Then there is the little tug of war over the use of "night" vs. "everlasting"
(p. 27). Hedda rejects Brack's referring to "night" with its remote suggestion of sexual
intimacy with Tesman (Hedda continues to be quick at picking up sexual implications).
Then in the conversation she forgets and uses the term "night" herself, since it is a natural
way of phrasing the idea. Brack immediately turns her previous objection against her and
scores a point in their verbal game or struggle for dominance.
Using the analogy of riding on a railway carriage, Brack propositions her by suggesting,
"the passengers jump out and move about a little" (he means, Hedda should jump out of
her marriage). She emphatically rejects any sexual relationship, "I never jump out" (p.
28). He makes a counter offer of flirtation, "suppose a third person were to jump in and
join the couple"; she accepts this relationship, "Yes, that would be a relief indeed" (p.
29). Tesman enters to the line, "The triangle is completed." Brack accepts her terms--for
now. Hedda feels in control of the triangle and Brack. The alliance which Hedda and
Brack have just cemented is seen by the audience when they "exchange a confidential
smile," but George sees nothing.

This scene answers the question almost every reader of this play asks, why did Hedda
Gabler ever marry George Tesman? Hedda states the reasons bluntly--she was getting
older, no one else asked, and, as we already know, she could not maintain the lifestyle
she enjoyed as General Gabler's daughter. In other words, she sold herself ("he was bent,
at all hazards, on being allowed to provide for me," p. 28). Compensating for George's
lack of social status was her expectation that he would attain, as Brack expresses it, "the
highest achievement" (p.28). A little later in this act, her hopes that Tesman might
achieve political success are squelched by Brack, for Tesman has neither the talents nor
the wealth to succeed in politics. She did not accept Tesman for personal reasons, as she
neither likes nor respects Tesman; her question makes this clear, "And I don't see
anything absolutely ridiculous about him.--Do you?" (p. 28). She implies that Tesman is
ridiculous though not absolutely or unacceptably ridiculous.

How narrow her view of the world is and how limited her values are emerge clearly in
her conversation with Brack. Though she has been home less than a day, she is bored
because "our set are still out of town" (p. 26). [I have added italics to the quotations in
this paragraph to emphasize how restricted Hedda's interests are.] Lacking the resources
to occupy herself in a productive or satisfying way, she shoots her father's pistol at
nothing, with no real purpose. Although she spent nearly six months traveling on her
honeymoon, she could not enjoy the culture and learning of any country they visited. She
was bored, "To go for six whole months without meeting a soul that knew anything of
our circle, or could talk about the things we are interested in" (p. 27). Unlike Thea, she is
uninterested in exploring the unfamiliar and in expanding her knowledge and
understanding. Intellectually, culturally, and spiritually, Hedda is barren or sterile.

Pages 29-33

George praises Lovborg's book and confirms Thea's influence, "He never wrote like that
before" (p. 29). Because Tesman is a scholar himself, his praise establishes Lovborg's
abilities for the audience. Unlike Thea, Hedda has no interest in Eilert's book. She wants
vicarious experience from Lovborg, not enlightenment. This is yet one more way that
Thea serves as a foil for Hedda.

Tesman's concern about his Aunt Rina's ill health may not be the real or, perhaps, the
only cause of Hedda's outburst, "Oh, those everlasting aunts!" (p. 30). It pushes away
George's reference to her gaining weight, i.e., to her pregnancy. Not once in this play is
Hedda able to acknowledge her pregnancy explicitly, and references to it anger her.
Hedda rejects the roles expected of women: she is the dominant partner in her marriage;
she has no use for love, "that sickening word" (p. 27) and has "no turn" for motherhood
(p. 32). It has been suggested that Hedda is seeking an outlet for her life, for a freedom of
expression and being, which neither her class in particular nor her society in general
allows women. Do you see evidence to support this theory? What else might be
motivating her behavior?

Pages 33-40

Does Eilert Lovborg's appearance reflect the dissipated life he has led? what about the red
patches on his cheeks? His new suit suggests his recent conversion to respectability. He
approaches Hedda hesitantly, "Will you too shake hands with me, Mrs. Tesman?" (p. 34).
What in his past behavior in general or in their relationship in particular might make him
hesitant in speaking to her?

The differences between Tesman and Lovborg become clearer. Lovborg is an artist--
creative, filled with the life force, and lacking in control. His next book will express his
"true self" (p. 34); it projects into the future, which has to be lived. In contrast, Tesman is,
as Hedda called him, a specialist. His planned work on the domestic arts of the Middle
Ages in the Middle East is narrow, safe, and irrelevant; the past is dead, and the Middle
East is certainly remote from Norway. Nothing about his project expresses individuality
and a "self." Lovborg took as his topic for the book which has been published, the "march
of civilization in broad outline" (p. 13).

Lovborg assures Tesman that he does not plan to compete for the professorship and will
not publish his book until Tesman has been appointed to the professorship. Lovborg cares
not for position but "the moral victory." Tesman, on the other hand, cares for the position
and the money. He jubilantly exclaims to Hedda that Lovborg won't "stand in our way"
(p. 36). Hedda rejects the "our" which associates her and Tesman; as she speaks these
words, she moves towards the inner room, a visual expression of her separateness.

Brack and Tesman withdraw into the inner room, leaving Lovborg and Hedda alone.
Their conversation, conducted with Tesman in possible earshot, reveals an unsuspected
intimacy. Lovborg insists on calling and referring to her as Hedda Gabler and addressing
her with the familiar form of "you"; she squashes these expressions of closeness, "What?
I can't allow this!" (p. 37). At the same time that she rejects these expressions of
closeness, she continues their former intimacy by discussing the past and her feelings.
She acknowledges to yet another man that she does not love her husband while warning
that she will not "hear of any sort of unfaithfulness!" (p. 38). She evades Lovborg's
question whether she felt any love, even just a spark, for him. Is her response calculated
to discourage Lovborg and end their past relationship or to keep him interested in her, to
keep him hooked? Does Hedda project a sexual attraction, since all three men in this play
are interested in her sexually?
Her conversation with Lovborg also reveals her skill at hiding socially unacceptable
interests under socially correct behavior. When he visited her in the past, they discussed
his sexual life while pretending to read the newspaper; General Gabler, representing
society's restrictions on young ladies, dozed nearby. In this scene, they pretend to look at
the photograph album while conducting a highly improper conversation. In fact, secrecy
itself appeals to Hedda and gives her pleasure, "I think there was really something
beautiful, something fascinating--something daring--in--in that secret intimacy--that
comradeship which no living creature so much as dreamed of" (p. 38). Hedda was able to
fulfill safely desires which were forbidden to respectable women. She vicariously gained
sexual knowledge without any damage to her reputation or loss of control over her life,
and she is able to break society's rules and express, however indirectly, her essential self.

Lovborg makes conventional assumptions about Hedda's interest in his wild life, that she
loved him and that she wanted to "save" him. But Hedda has contempt for the
"reclaimed" or socially conforming Lovborg and immediately lets him know her motive,
the desire of a young woman to peep into the world of male experience "which she is
forbidden to know anything about" (p. 39). Then Hedda hedges, by saying this was
"partly" her motive. Hedda is reluctant to be straightforward; she makes partial
statements or partially retracts statements. For instance, her questions about Lovborg's
life were asked "in roundabout terms" (p. 39). Thus, she consistently holds back or hides
part of herself. This trait is one reason why she seems contradictory and has puzzled so
many audiences and readers.

Pages 39 and 40 are worth studying closely, because they give us insight into Hedda's
motives and desires.

Lovborg twice attributes to her a passionate desire to know life, "the thirst of life" (p. 39)
and "your craving for life" (p.40). This thought stimulates Lovborg's imagination; it is a
passion he knows and has lived without restraints. But Hedda is ambivalent about
experiencing life. In this conversation, she warns him, "Take care! Believe nothing of the
sort!" (p. 40). In their past intimacy, Lovborg, encouraged by her questions, asked her to
have sex; she responded violently, warning him off with General Gabler's pistols. Why
was she so threatened? Did she fear sex? losing her status in society? losing control of
their relationship and being reduced to a mere love object? Or did she fear involvement
with life, of being overwhelmed by experience and passion and losing her essential self?
If she had an affair, would she lose what sense of freedom and/or control she had? Other
explanations are certainly possible; my questions are meant to stimulate your thinking
about Hedda's response, not to limit you to these choices.

According to Hedda, her behavior is partly determined by her "dread of scandal" (p. 40).
You have seen already evidence of her conventionality and conformity to society's rules.
In the Aunt Julia hat incident, she exclaims, "But what an idea, to pitch her bonnet about
in the drawing-room! No one does that sort of thing" (p. 10). Her response to Thea's
leaving her husband focuses on the public perception and scandal, "to take flight so
openly" and "But what do you think people will say of you, Thea?" (p. 18). Both Lovborg
and Hedda agree that she is a coward. As Ibsen noted, "Hedda is fundamentally
conventional," and one form her conventionality takes is cowardice, her avoiding the
possibility of scandal.

Then Hedda confesses that she committed a worse cowardice that evening, without
identifying it. This leaves Lovborg--and the audience-- to assume her cowardice was not
having an affair with him. This implication has caused many to see her as sexually frigid,
for she refuses to sleep with Brack and with Lovborg, both of whom she is attracted to.
What do you think she means with the reference to her cowardice in rejecting Lovborg's
advances? Is it evidence of sexual frigidity?

Ibsen writes of Hedda, "She really wants to live the whole life of a man. But then come
her reservations. Things inherited and acquired." By "things inherited and acquired,"
Ibsen means the values, beliefs, and behavior patterns expected of General Gabler's
daughter, i.e., she is a member of the aristocracy and the daughter of a man with high
status in his community. These values, beliefs, and behavior patterns were imposed on
her by society ("inherited"), and they were internalized or accepted by her ("acquired").
What does "to live the whole life of a man" mean? Do you think this accurately describes
Hedda?

The last point I want to make about this conversation involves Thea. Hedda naturally
wants to know whether he has told Thea anything about their relationship. Lovborg
responds rather brutally, "She is too stupid to understand anything of that sort" (p. 40).
By "stupid," he means naive, and this raises another contrast between the two women,
Hedda with her quickness to see sexual undercurrents and Thea with her blindness.

Pages 40-45

When Thea enters, Hedda greets Thea warmly, encouragingly, even though earlier she
forgot that Thea was coming (p. 38). Hedda uses Thea's good will to manipulate Thea
into sitting next to her on the sofa, rather than in a chair by Lovborg; Lovborg then sits on
the other side of Hedda. This seating arrangement places her in the center; the other two
have to talk to her or through her. It enables her to function as a go-between and
vicariously participate in the relationship of Lovborg and Thea.

This conversation has a level hidden from Thea; Lovborg and Hedda use Thea to talk to
each other. Hedda's using Thea as an object is reflected in her stroking Thea's hair. To
Lovborg's question "Is not she lovely to look at?" Hedda replies with a question
suggesting that their relationship was sexual. Lovborg's praise of his true comradeship
with Thea is really a put-down of Hedda; it implies that his relationship with Hedda was
of a lesser quality. He even uses the term "comrade," which was how he described his
relationship with Hedda, for his relationship with Thea. Lovborg's referring to Thea's
courage is a clear attack on Hedda; when Hedda murmurs, "If one only had that!" (40),
she means "If I only had courage!"

What are Lovborg's feelings for Hedda and Thea? The conventional answer to this
question would be that only one of the women is his real or true love, because an
individual can truly love only one person. Ibsen, however, did not hold this view. He
jotted down this fragment, "The traditional error that one man is made for one woman."
In another note, Ibsen applies this generalization explicitly to Lovborg,

Ejlert Lovborg is a double nature. It is a fiction that one only loves one person. He loves
two--or more--(speaking frivolously) by turns. But how to explain his own situation. Mrs.
Elfsted, who forces him into respectability, runs away from her husband. Hedda, who
eggs him on beyond the limits, flinches from the thought of scandal.
(Note how ironically Ibsen describes the women and how Thea serves as a foil for
Hedda.) What do you think his feelings are for the two women?

There is another undercurrent in this conversation. Hedda is competing with Thea for
control over Lovborg. When Lovborg refuses Hedda's offer of a drink and Thea supports
his not drinking, Hedda laughs, "Then I, poor creature, have no sort of power over you?"
(p. 41). If he drinks, Hedda would have evidence of her power over him and have
defeated Thea. To achieve this end, she reveals Thea's lack of trust in her comrade; angry
and disillusioned, Lovborg drinks and ironically toasts Thea.

Hedda explicitly acknowledges her desire, "I want for once in my life to have power to
mould a human destiny." The destiny she wants to mold is Eilert's. Ibsen several times
calls Hedda's desire demonic, "The demonic thing about Hedda is that she wants to exert
an influence over another person." His use of "demonic," with its powerful negative
meanings, indicates how strongly Ibsen feels about Hedda's behavior in this matter. The
distinction must be kept in mind that he is not necessarily calling Hedda demonic, just
one aspect of her character.

Lovborg shows signs of excess once he starts drinking; he stops because of Hedda not his
own self-control. Although he acknowledges Thea as his inspiration, he ignores her pleas
not to go to Brack's all-male party.

Hedda contiues to show a tendency to violence; she pinches Thea's arm and threatens to
burn Thea's hair, behavior which prepares for subsequent actions. Her warnings to Thea
not to reveal her feelings for Lovborg show her conventionality, just as her wanting to be
present at Brack's party "unseen" shows her desire for forbidden knowledge and her
liking of secrecy (p. 44).

Hedda's conversation with Thea introduces the vine-leaves, a major symbol which
expresses her desire for freedom. Hedda has idealized Lovborg's drinking and sexual
excesses into a rejection of society's restrictions. His overindulgence seems to her an act
of courage, which she equates with beauty. The vine-leaves and the riotous behavior
connect this image to Dionysus or Bacchus. Ibsen was interested in myth, drew on
Scandinavian myth in several plays, and certainly knew about Dionysus/Bacchus and the
association of vine leaves. The symbol of the vine-leaves, which expresses her highest
aspirations, reveals her lack of culture, intellectual values, and spiritual depth. Her ideal
is shoddy (i.e., trashy) because the reality it refers to is destructive and futile. Her class
has failed her by not providing her with higher ideals and values. The aristocracy--as can
be seen in the lives of Hedda, Brack, and Lovborg--is morally corrupt and spiritually
bankrupt. The values of the bourgeoisie, as represented by the Tesmans, promote decent
enough behavior but do not allow for higher aspirations; this class, too, is spiritually and
intellectually lacking.

The connection among the vine-leaves, freedom, and courage is clearly stated. Hedda
expects him to return "fearless." For Hedda, the reformed Lovborg lost his love of life,
his courage, and his freedom; therefore, by resuming his former lifestyle, "he will have
regained control over himself. Then he will be a free man all his days" (p. 44).

Act III
Pages 46-48

Act III opens with the room completely enclosed; the curtains are drawn both over the
door to the middle room and over the glass door leading outside. The contrast between
Hedda and Thea continues: Hedda sleeps peacefully, Thea has been awake all night and
is upset; Thea refuses the maid's offer of a fire, Hedda calls the servant to light a fire.

Because Berta identifies with the Tesman's interests, she is hostile to Lovborg, whom she
knows as Tesman's former rival. She calls him "a certain person" and continues "we've
heard enough about that gentleman before now" (p. 47).

Hedda awakens energized and happy and throws open the windows to let in the broad
sunlight. Contrast her behavior in Act I: she claimed she had slept badly, and she wanted
the curtain drawn so that the broad sunlight would not stream into the room. Now she
feels a sense of power and aliveness because she inspired Lovborg to return to his
dissipated life, which she has idealized into a courageous, free life. She expects him to
return crowned with vine-leaves, symbolizing his victory over society's restraints and an
assertion of the heroism lacking in her society and in herself. Furthermore, she has
defeated Thea in the struggle to influence Lovborg. With total self-confidence, she
brushes aside Thea's anxieties and expresses contempt for her, "You really are a little
blockhead, Thea" (p. 48).

Hedda sends Thea to her bedroom to rest. Her action is natural since Thea has not slept; it
is also dramatically necessary. Thea cannot be allowed to know that Tesman and Hedda
have Lovborg's manuscript, yet she must be nearby when Lovborg returns. And Hedda
must be present when he rejects Thea, a scene which makes the full significance of the
manuscript in their relationship clear to her. Having Hedda, Thea, and Lovborg close
enables Ibsen to move the action quickly and to build tension steadily; the fast-paced
action rivets the audience's attention. A skillful dramatist, Ibsen naturally motivates
Thea's absence, her presence, and Hedda's presence on the stage at critical moments.

Another skillful piece of stagecraft: Aunt Julia and Lovborg are never on stage at the
same time. Why? Are they and/or the values they represent incompatible?
 Pages 49-51

Tesman admits that he had "a horrid feeling" while listening to Eilert read his book, that
he "felt jealous" of Eilert's genius (p. 49). Immediately he exclaims, "how pitiful to think
that he--with all his gifts--should be irreclaimable, after all" (p. 49). Tesman's statements
and actions about the manuscript are important in evaluating Tesman. Do we take his
statements and action at face value, or do they reveal a darker, less admirable side to
Tesman? Herman J. Weigand believes, "...the insincerity lurking under his naive and
comical guise eludes all but the keenest scrutiny." Weigand goes on to say, however, that
"Tesman is every bit as honorable as the average run of commonplace people." Is Tesman
an honorable man? a dishonorable man? merely an ordinary man? You might want to
consider these questions in assessing Tesman:

• He tells Hedda, about having the manuscript, "I am almost ashamed--on Eilert's
account--to tell you." Is he really ashamed of his own "horrid" feelings and/or
unacknowledged destructive desires?
• Does Tesman find satisfaction in Lovborg's being irreclaimable because Lovborg
cannot control himself? Tesman, of course, has no wild impulses or
uncontrollable urges and can feel superior morally to Lovborg.
• Does he subconsciously want to harm Lovborg? to destroy the manuscript? When
he finds the manuscript, why doesn't he immediately return the manuscript to
Lovborg? Even Hedda asks him this. Why does he tell no one he has the
manuscript? Why doesn't he leave a note about the manuscript at Lovborg's
residence? Is it significant that he doesn't tell a distraught Thea about the
manuscript when he encounters her in the street (Act IV)?
• Why does he leave the manuscript with Hedda rather than drop it off on his way
to see his Aunt Rina?
• Do his words and action prepare for his later complicity in Hedda's burning the
manuscript?

Underneath his decent, ordinary exterior, are there darker feelings and motives operating?
Is there a discrepancy between Tesman's social self and his essential self? If so, is that
discrepancy "commonplace," i.e., is that the way most of us are? Is suppressing darker
motives and impulses (often called the shadow) characteristic of most of us?

The exchange between Tesman and Hedda raises another question. Is Hedda thinking
about the possibility of destroying the manuscript? She asks whether Lovborg could
rewrite it. Tesman's reply about Thea's inspiration would be particularly offensive to
Hedda. It is Hedda, not Tesman, who thinks of and hides the manuscript when Brack
appears.

Hedda's vision of Lovborg's dissipation as heroic and noble prompts her reference to
vine-leaves and her question, "I suppose you mean that he has more courage than the
rest?" (p. 49). Hedda idealizes Lovborg's weaknesses but is unmoved by his genius.
Hedda never reads any of Lovborg's book; when Tesman praises its brilliance, she curtly
replies, "Yes, yes; I don't care about that--" (p. 49). What do these facts reveal about
Hedda morally, spiritually, or intellectually? Ibsen often used the individual to make
revelations about society; do Hedda's behavior and values reveal anything about her class
or her society?

Pages 52-55

Brack visits at the earliest acceptable time; aware of the threat Lovborg poses to his
triangle, he is eager to disparage Lovborg to Hedda. He presents the concrete reality, the
sordidness of Lovborg's behavior. Why does his portrayal of reality affect Hedda so
profoundly? Why does it cause her to lose faith in her idealization of Lovborg's wild
lifestyle? What fear does his description of Lovborg's scandalous behavior stir in Hedda?

Hedda also becomes aware that Brack, with his desire for control, can be dangerous, "I
am exceedingly glad to think--that you have no sort of hold over me" (p. 55). Does her
statement prepare for the ending?

Pages 56-59

Hedda, who is quick at picking up sexual implications and fears scandal, makes Lovborg
aware ("suddenly understanding," p. 56) that he is ruining Thea's reputation.

When Lovborg announces he and Thea must part, why does Hedda involuntarily say, "I
knew it!" (p. 56)? Is she feeling triumphant? Does she see herself as controlling or having
power over Lovborg's life?

What does this scene reveal about Thea and her relationship to Lovborg? Why does she
cry, despairingly, "Then what am I to do with my life?" (p. 56). She leaves saying, "I see
nothing but darkness before me" (p. 58). Is Thea concerned with Lovborg, the book,
herself, or some combination of them? Think about her statements after you finish the
play; do they relate to the ending?

Creativity/sterility/destructiveness is a major theme. Hedda is pregnant or physically

creative, and Thea is physically barren. However, Ibsen implies visually that Thea is a
creative force with her abundant hair and that Hedda is not with her skimpy hair. In what
way(s) is Thea creative? In what way(s) is Hedda not creative?

The manuscript is symbolically the child that Thea and Lovborg created. What is Thea's
contribution to the book, which is the product of Lovborg's genius? With Lovborg, the
theme of creativity is extended to include the artist or writer. Lovborg, the artist, needs
Thea to create. Why? Why doesn't he rewrite the book without her or go on to write other
books? Does he need the order and discipline she provides to use his genius
productively? On his own, he wastes his life in riotous living. Lovborg is a typical Ibsen
artist--a man who has unlimited energy and genius but lacks self-control; he needs a
woman for inspiration and control. However, in civilizing the artist, she ultimately
inhibits his lust for life and so his ability to create. This is what we would call a catch-22
situation.
The theme of creativity extends to Lovborg and Tesman. Contrast the kinds of topics
which they write about and the fact that Lovborg produces books and Tesman collects
notes which he has yet to arrange. There is a minor parallel between them; Tesman has a
suitcase full of notes from his honeymoon, and Thea has the notes Lovborg used in
writing the lost manuscript.

In Act II, Hedda realizes she will not be able to live out her ambitions through George;
Brack squelches the possibility of a political career, and she has no interest in academic
matters. So she turns her energies to Lovborg. In trying to control Lovborg, Hedda wants
to give meaning and beauty to life; she wants to rise above the narrow conventionality of
her own class and the smothering domesticity of the Tesmans and to experience
freedom-- vicariously. A coward herself, she wants to experience courage through
Lovborg. Lovborg too associates wild living with courage when he considers returning to
his Dionysian lifestyle, "And the thing is that now I have no taste for that sort of life
either. I won't begin it anew. She has broken my courage and my power of braving life
out" (p. 58).

Hedda wants to have the kind of power over Lovborg that Thea had, "So that pretty little
fool has had her fingers in a man's destiny" (p. 58). Hedda looks for power and freedom
through another, rather than in herself. But can the individual achieve a sense of power or
freedom in this way? James W. McFarlane calls her efforts "interference in other people's
lives"; ironically, such interference poses a threat to the essential self by making the
individual dependent on others and places the individual in an "essentially humiliating
reliance" on others to provide what the essential self should supply but can't. Does his
analysis apply to Hedda? Why is she unable to achieve power? Why is she unable to
actualize her ideal? These two questions may be easier to answer after you have read Act
IV.

Though Hedda no longer believes in vine-leaves, she still believes in the possibility of
beauty, heroism, and freedom. What irony is there in her giving Lovborg a gun to commit
suicide "beautifully" (p. 59)? How "beautiful" is a shot through the temple in reality? Is
Hedda interested in Lovborg as a person, or is she merely using him?

The guns are symbolically complex and can be interpreted in a number of ways:

• They are her defense.

• They represent freedom and release.
• They are cold and hard outside, violent and deadly in action, like Hedda.
• They are modern and contrast with the classical symbol of the vine-leaves. One is
a symbol of war and aggression, the other of peace and pleasure.
• They suggest the fulility and purposelessness of her life. Guns have a deadly
function, and presumably a general would be able to use them effectively. But for
Hedda the guns are a toy, a diversion in her boredom.
• General Gabler's guns represent a military and an aristocratic tradition. How
much relevance does military tradition have for women in general or for Hedda in
particular? What does her inheriting this gun and this tradition suggest about the
 values of her class? Raised by her father, the general, what values might she have
learned from him? Might any of them be inappropriate for a woman of her class
and time? If so, what would be the effect on her? The nineteenth century Danish
critic George Brandes suggests that General Gabler's guns are ironic; he claims
"that a Norwegian general is a cavalry officer, who as a rule, has never smelt
powder,and whose pistols are innocent of bloodshed." If he is correct, the
aristocratic class represented by the general appears even more futile and useless.

Is Hedda a woman who lacks purpose in life? Is she distorted by the demands of a society
that offers limited roles to women? All the other women in the play either serve others
(Thea, Miss Tesman, Diana, and Berta) or are taken care of (the invalid Aunt Rina). And
even the incapacitated Rina embroiders slippers and willingly risks her income for
George. Except for Diana and Hedda, the women are self-sacrificing. Hedda, who wants
to live her life for herself, refuses the conventional woman's lot of service and/or
sacrifice.

What opportunities are there for a woman with larger aspirations, like Hedda? Ibsen
noted of Hedda: "Hedda's desperation is a conviction that life must offer so many
possibilities of happiness, but that she can't catch sight of them. It is the want of a goal in
life that torments her." Do you think this is true of Hedda? As a woman, is Hedda denied
the identity and purpose the men have in their professions? They express themselves
through their work and receive recognition through their professions. Brack is referred to
and addressed as "judge." Lovborg has achieved acclaim and success with his book, and
Tesman is waiting for the reward of a professorship. In contrast, Thea loses her sense of
purpose and identity when she believes Lovborg destroyed their book. Aunt Julia has
purpose and identity as long as she has someone to care for.

Despite her refusal to accept a traditional role assigned women, Hedda does accept
society's values of proper and improper behavior. Propriety (rigid rules of what is proper)
is a potent force in her life; it is also a destructive force, as John Northam explains:

The propriety cuts her off, but it breeds the depraved interest. Hedda is not a woman
disinterested in life; her interest in life is vivid but depraved by the constraints that
forbade her to engage directly in it. Depraved is not too strong a word for Hedda's
behaviour; it is justified not merely by reference to her love of the unsavoury, but even
more by the strangely vicarious way in which she has chosen to indulge it. She has used
Lovborg to do her living for her while she sheltered behind a curtain, peered at the world
outside.
Hedda is fully aware of how much the manuscript means to Lovborg and Thea, that it is
brilliant, and that it is irreplaceable. Then why does Hedda burn the manuscript? Why
does she call it their child while she does this? Why does she call Thea "curly-locks" at
this time (p. 50)? Is it only their child that she wants to destroy? Does Hedda experience
triumph and a sense of power as she burns the manuscript?

For the first time in this play, Hedda takes direct action; she burns the manuscript and
gives Lovborg a gun to commit suicide beautifully. Hitherto she has been an observer,
has acted indirectly through manipulation and innuendo, or has lived vicariously through
the lives of others. What kind of action does she finally take--e.g., positive, negative,
mixed, creative, heroic, destructive, compassionate, self-centered, self-sacrificing,
violent?

Greek Theory of Tragedy: Aristotle's Poetics

The classic discussion of Greek tragedy is Aristotle's Poetics. He defines tragedy as

"the imitation of an action that is serious and also as having magnitude, complete in
itself." He continues, "Tragedy is a form of drama exciting the emotions of pity and fear.
Its action should be single and complete, presenting a reversal of fortune, involving
persons renowned and of superior attainments,and it should be written in poetry
embellished with every kind of artistic expression." The writer presents "incidents
arousing pity and fear, wherewith to interpet its catharsis of such of such emotions" (by
catharsis, Aristotle means a purging or sweeping away of the pity and fear aroused by the
tragic action).

The basic difference Aristotle draws between tragedy and other genres, such as
comedy and the epic, is the "tragic pleasure of pity and fear" the audience feel watching a
tragedy. In order for the tragic hero to arouse these feelings in the audience, he cannot be
either all good or all evil but must be someone the audience can identify with; however, if
he is superior in some way(s), the tragic pleasure is intensified. His disastrous end results
from a mistaken action, which in turn arises from a tragic flaw or from a tragic error in
judgment. Often the tragic flaw is hubris, an excessive pride that causes the hero to
ignore a divine warning or to break a moral law. It has been suggested that because the
tragic hero's suffering is greater than his offense, the audience feels pity; because the
audience members perceive that they could behave similarly, they feel pity. Click here
for excerpts from Aristotle's Poetics.

Medieval Tragedy and The Wheel of Fortune

The medieval tagedy is a prose or poetic narrative, not a drama. Tragedy was
perceived as a reversal of fortune, a fall from a high position. This view of tragedy
derives from the Medieval concept of fortune, which was personified as Dame Fortune, a
blindfolded woman who turned a wheel at whim; men were stationed at various places on
the wheel--the top of the wheel represented the best fortune, being under the wheel the
worst fortune. However, the wheel could turn suddenly and the man on top could
suddenly be under the wheel, without warning.

Elizabethan and Shakespearean Tragedy

A distinctly English form of tragedy begins with the Elizabethans. The translation of
Seneca and the reading of Aristotle's Poetics were major influences. Many critics and
playwrights, such as Ben Jonson, insisted on observing the classical unities of action,
time and place (the action should be one whole and take place in one day and in one
place). However, it was romantic tragedy, which Shakespeare wrote in Richard II,
Macbeth, Hamlet, and King Lear, which prevailed. Romantic tragedy disregarded the
unities (as in the use of subplots), mixed tragedy and comedy, and emphasized action,
spectacle, and--increasingly--sensation. Shakespeare violated the the unities in these
ways and also in mixing poetry and prose and using the device of a play-within-a-play, as
in Hamlet. The Elizabethans and their Jacobean successsors acted on stage the violence
that the Greek dramatists reported. The Elizabethan and later the Jacobean playwright
had a diverse audience to please, ranging from Queen Elizabeth and King James I and
their courtiers to the lowest classes.

Christopher Marlowe's tragedies showed the resources of the English language with
his magnificent blank verse, as in the Tragedy of Dr. Faustus, and the powerful effects
that could be achieved by focusing on a towering protagonist, as in Tamburlaine. In
Elizabethan tragedy, the individual leads to violence and conflict. A distinctly non-
Aristotelian form of tragedy developed during this period was the tragicomedy. In a
tragicomedy, the action and subject matter seem to require a tragic ending, but it is
avoided by a reversal which leads to a happy ending; sometimes the tragicomedy
alternates serious and comic actions throughout the play. Because it blends tragedy and
comedy, the tragicomedy is sometimes referred to as a "mixed" kind.

The Problem Play or Drama of Ideas

The problem play or play of ideas usually has a tragic ending. The
driving force behind the play is the exploration of some social
problem, like alcoholism or prostitution; the characters are used as
examples of the general problem. Frequently the playwright views
the problem and its solution in a way that defies or rejects the
conventional view; not surprisingly, some problem plays have
aroused anger and controversy in audiences and critics. Henrik
Ibsen, who helped to revive tragedy from its artistic decline in the
nineteenth century, wrote problem plays. A Doll's House, for
example, shows the exploitation and denigration of middle class
women by society and in marriage. The tragedy frequently springs
from the individual's conflict with the laws, values, traditions, and
representatives of soThe New Woman

The New Woman was the term used at the end of the nineteenth century to describe
women who were pushing against the limits which society imposed on women. Today
she might be called a liberated woman or feminist. Gail Finney gives a concise
description of her:
The New Woman typically values self-fulfillment and independence rather than the
stereotypically feminine ideal of self-sacrifice; believes in legal and sexual equality; often
remains single because of the difficulty of combining such equality with marriage; is
more open about her sexuality than the 'Old Woman'; is well-educated and reads a great
deal; has a job; is athletic or otherwise physically vigorous and, accordingly, prefers
comfortable clothes (sometimes male attire) to traditional female garb.
Ibsen supported greater freedom for women and expressed his belief in his
plays. In his notes for A Doll's House, he asserted, "A woman cannot
be herself in contemporary society, it is an exclusively male society
with laws drafted by men, and with counsel and judges who judge
feminine conduct from the male point of view." Ibsen's
contemporaries associated him with the New Woman and women's
rights. In 1898, the Norwegian Women's Rights League gave a
banquet to honor him for his support of women's rights. How
identified he was with this issue is suggested by Max Beerbohm's
exaggerated, if witty statement, "The New Woman sprang fully
armed from Ibsen's brain." ciety. Is Hedda Gabler a Tragedy?

Lou Salome believes Hedda Gabler's death is tragic and that Hedda Gabler is a tragedy.
Carolyn W. Mayerson doesn't. What do you think of their interpretations? Do you think
this play is a tragedy?

Lou Salome:

For it is an act of self renunciation, in a dark and ironic sense, through which Hedda rings
down her life; she does not die for another person. . . and she does not live for another
person. . . she dies for herself as she had lived for herself. In that she dies, she proves
herself to be among those free born, untamed creatures; for in the necessity of her death,
there first is revealed the whole tragedy of the uncanny contradiction of Hedda Gabler:
the tragic aspect is that Hedda may only prove to herself the true existence of her inner
freedom by cancelling herself out. She extinguishes the life of the tame and false Hedda,
caught in the meshes of her own weakness, who while still living would not have found
bearable the verdict now intoned by Counselor Brack over the deceased: "People don't do
such things!"

Caroline W. Mayerson:

Hedda is incapable of making the distinction between an exhibitionistic gesture which

inflates the ego, and the tragic death, in which the ego is sublimated in order that the
values of life may be extended and reborn. Her inability to perceive the difference
between melodrama and tragedy accounts for the disparity between Hedda's presumptive
view of her own suicide and our evaluation of its significance. Ibsen with diabolical irony
arranged a situation which bears close superficial resemblance to the traditional tragic
end. Symbolically withdrawing herself from the bourgeois environment into the inner
chamber which contains the reliques of her earlier life, Hedda plays a "wild dance" upon
her piano and, beneath her father's portrait, shoots herself "beautifully" through the
temple with her father's pistol. She dies to vindicate her heritage of independence. . . And
we, having the opportunity to judge the act with relation to its full context, may properly
interpret it as the final self-dramatization of the consistently sterile protagonist. Hedda
gains no insight; her death affirms nothing of importance. She never understands why, at
her touch, everything becomes "ludicrous and mean." She dies to escape a sordid
situation that is largely of her own making; she will not face reality nor assume
responsibility for the consequences of her acts. The pistols, having descended to a coward
and a cheat, bring only death without honor.

Act IV

Death dominates this act, from the beginning to the end. Death is suggested visually in
the beginning with the dark living room, Hedda's black dress, Berta's black ribbons, and
Miss Tesman's black dress. The first lines spoken explicitly refer to death.

Pages 60-64

Why is it ironic that Miss Tesman calls Hedda's home "the house of life" (p. 60)? Think
of Hedda's actions in Act III and what news Hedda is expecting about Lovborg. Another
ironic note sounds when Miss Tesman calls Aunt Rina's end "beautiful" (p. 60), and we
remember Hedda's refusal to make a last visit because "I will not look upon sickness and
death. I loathe all sorts of ugliness" (p. 51). Certainly, Miss Tesman rejoices in Hedda's
pregnancy. Hedda, on the other hand, turns away all references to it, including Miss
Tesman's in this scene. Even when Hedda is manipulating Tesman to cover up her real
reason for burning Lovborg's manuscript, she can't bring herself to say that she is
pregnant. Tesman continues oblivious to his aunt's hints about Hedda's pregnancy.

Miss Tesman acknowledges her need to have a purpose, "it's such an absolute necessity
for me to have some one to live for" (p. 61). Like Thea and Berta, she finds purpose in
caring and sacrificing for others and looks forward to finding a needy occupant for Rina's
room. Hedda finds Miss Tesman's need to serve incomprehensible, "Would you really
take such a burden upon you again?" (p. 61). To her, it would be a "burden." Hedda
herself has no purpose, and the only meaning in her life is the affirmation of values
(beauty, heroism, courage, and freedom) she expects from Lovborg's suicide. Both Hedda
and Miss Tesman find affirmation of life in death and an expression of the life force in
death; Miss Tesman finds them in the peace, beauty, and release of her sister's death and
in the new life Hedda carries; Hedda finds them in the prospect of Lovborg's suicide and
her role in that suicide.

Is Tesman's worrying about Lovborg an expression of his fundamental decency? Or does

he feel guilty at having taken the manuscript? Does he perhaps fear public exposure?
Tesman's fundamental decency and love of his aunt move him to begin to suggest that
she come to live with him and Hedda, "Yes, just fancy what a nice time we three might
have had together, if--?" (p. 61). Hedda cuts him off, rejecting his idea "If--?" (p. 62).
Tesman backs down and leaves the suggestion unspoken. Why doesn't he insist?

Another consideration in analyzing Tesman is his response to the news that Hedda has
burned the manuscript. Initially he expresses "a violent movement of terror" (p. 62). But
at the news she did it for him, he has "an outburst of mingled doubt and joy" (p. 63).
Once he believes that she loves him, he laughs "in irrepressible glee" (p. 63). After some
expression of happiness, he thinks of Lovborg, "Great God! it is terrible to think what
will become of poor Eilert now" (p. 64). Does he make himself an accomplice in Hedda's
crime by agreeing to secrecy? What else could he have done? What do his response and
acquiescence show about Tesman morally and emotionally? Is he morally corrupt or
merely weak? Or is he, as Weigand suggests, "every bit as honorable as the average run
of commonplace people"? Is he indeed like most of us in his behavior, his morality, and
his moral decisions--an ordinary man who is neither better nor worse than most of us?

Does his conversation with Hedda show his naivete and immaturity regarding male-
female relations?

Throughout this scene, Hedda warns Tesman to be quiet so that Berta won't hear; she
wants to avoid scandal and to maintain her privacy. Why does Hedda find it ridiculous
that Tesman wants to tell Berta that Hedda loves him or that she is pregnant? This
prospect makes her clench "her hands together in desperation" and cry out, "Oh, it is
killing me,--it is killing me, all this!" (p. 63). What is so offensive to her in Tesman, his
response, and her situation?

Pages 64-68

Hedda betrays her eagerness to hear about Lovborg's suicide; she seizes Thea's arm and
asks if she thinks something has happened to him. At the same time, she repeatedly
expresses her fear of scandal and her acceptance of society's rules: she responds to Thea's
(very improperly) going to Lovborg's lodgings, "You could make up your mind to that"
(p. 64); she whispers a warning not to reveal herself to Brack, "Thea--Thea--be careful!"
(p. 65); also, she orders Tesman not to get involved.

Hedda's response to Lovborg's death confirms Brack's suspicions of Hedda's involvement

with Lovborg. Though she is at first disappointed with his shooting himself in the breast,
she still believes that his suicide is a beautiful death. Her statements make clear the
significance for her of his dying "beautifully":

• "At last a deed worth doing!" (p. 66).

• "I say there is beauty in this" (p. 66).
• "Eilert Lovborg has made up his account with life. He had the courage to do--the
one right thing" (p. 66).
• "It gives me a sense of freedom to know that a deed of deliberate courage is still
possible in this world,--a deed of spontaneous beauty" (p. 67).
• "I only know that Eilert Lovborg has had the courage to live his life after his own
fashion. And then--the last great act, with its beauty! Ah! that he should have the
will and the strength to turn away from the banquet of life--so early" (p. 68).

Lovborg's choosing to die affirms free will for Hedda; in other words, the free Lovborg
shapes his own destiny and life. She sees in his suicide proof that freedom, beauty, and
heroism do exist. Also, because Lovborg used her gun, does she feel that she participated
in his choice to die? and so, symbolically, is she also free?
The reality of Lovborg's death turns out to be a far cry from her vision of a heroic death.
Lovborg died ingloriously, in a brawl with a prostitute and of an undignified bullet to the
bowels. She is revolted and looks at Brack "with an expression of loathing" (p. 68). An
overwhelming sense of life as unheroic and absurd causes her to exclaim, "Oh, what
curse is it that makes everything I touch turn ludicrous and mean?" (p. 68). Note: she is
using "mean" in the sense of ignoble, base, inferior, having little value. Why do Hedda's
ideals fail? Is it because of the nature of life, the nature of her society, the nature of the
ideals themselves, her own character, or some combination of these factors?

With Lovborg's death, Mlle. Diana's role as a foil for Hedda continues. With the first
reference to Diana in Act I, she is confused with Hedda as the woman who threatened
Lovborg with a gun. She, like Hedda, carries a gun. Both have just returned to town.
Hedda avidly listens to Lovborg's stories of orgies; Diana takes part in these orgies.
Lovborg accuses Diana of killing his child; Hedda destroyed his child-manuscript.
Lovborg is shot in Diana's boudoir with Hedda's gun, and Hedda is appalled at the
possibility of having to testify in court with her. Both women sell themselves, though in
different ways.

Thea, the other foil for Hedda, begins to resume her role as inspirer of men. She sees the
possibility of recreating Lovborg's work. Tesman's willingness to dedicate himself to this
task sounds like an effort to atone for the destruction of the manuscript, a noble gesture of
self-sacrifice. But is it? Might he be trying to quiet his conscience? Is he motivated by
self-interest in furthering his own career? Recreating Lovborg's book would make his
career; he would be riding to success on Lovborg's creativity; as Tesman says, "And
arranging other people's papers is just the work for me" (p. 69).

When Tesman and Thea move into the inner room to begin their work and their alliance,
Hedda is displaced from the space that was identified with her, just as she is being
displaced in Tesman's life by Thea and Lovborg's book. They reject the inner room as
having insufficient light and take over Hedda's writing table, again appropriating her
space. Hedda at this point moves the remaining gun into the inner room.

Thea has again found a purpose for her life. Ibsen called Thea "the type of conventional
sentimental, hysterical petty bourgeoisie." Is Thea as soft and vulnerable as she appears?
She does abandon her husband, her home, and her stepchildren regardless of
consequences. She defies society in showing her attachment to the disreputable Lovborg.
Now, having just learned of Lovborg's death, she starts to work on recreating the
manuscript without a moment's hesitation. Her quickly attaching herself to Tesman
upsets some readers, who feel she should mourn the man she loved longer. Does she love
Lovborg, or does she love what Lovborg did for her in enlarging her life? Is she
motivated by loyalty to and a romantic love for Lovborg, or is she seeking her own
fulfillment and satisfaction? Is she determined to hang on to the purpose and sense of self
Lovborg gave her? What do you think of Kirsten Shepherd-Barr's description of Thea?
Beneath that fragile blond exterior lies a manipulative, iron will and a definite agenda
that will let nothing stand in its way, not even Hedda; this is shown brilliantly in her
winning-over of Tesman in the end, driving the last nail into Hedda's coffin.
Will Thea fit in with the Tesmans--George, Aunt Julia, and Berta? Will the desires of the
Tesman circle be fulfilled? Will Tesman work out his guilt over the manuscript's
destruction, establish his reputation with Lovborg's book, and get his professorship? Will
Thea find meaning and identity in inspiring a great work? Will Aunt Julia find Thea an
acceptable replacement for Aunt Rina?

Pages 69-72

How does Brack gain control over Hedda through the guns and her fear of scandal? Why
does Hedda refuse to lie about Lovborg's stealing the gun?

Tesman and Thea return to the living room, leaving the inner room for Hedda to reclaim.
That space becomes the symbol of her isolation from the others.

• She is excluded by Tesman and Thea; she clearly recognizes that Thea will
displace her influence over Tesman. Is it significant that she twice runs her hand
over Thea's hair--"gently ruffling her hair" (p. 69) and "Passes her hands softly
through Mrs. Elvsted's hair" (p. 71)?
• She rejects Brack's sexual affair and control over her life, "I am in your power
none the less. Subject to your will and your demands. A slave, a slave then!
(Rises impetuously.) No, I cannot endure the thought of that! Never!" (p. 71).

Hedda has indeed lost control of her life--caught in the bourgeois Tesman circle and
values, trapped by her own pregnancy and impending motherhood, and enslaved by
Brack. What is she feeling? Are her feelings expressed by the wild music she plays?

The ending is filled with dramatic irony. Why are the following statements ironic for the
audience?

• Tesman: "Oh, I daresay Judge Brack will be so kind as to look in now and then,
even though I am out" (p. 72).
• Brack: "Every blessed evening, with all the pleasure in life, Mrs. Tesman! We
shall get on capitally together, we two!" (p. 72).
• Brack: "Good God!--people don't do such things" (p. 72).

Brack has the last words of the play; do they show his limitations? Through Brack, is
Ibsen making a comment about society and/or the values and limitations of Brack's class,
Hedda's aristocratic set? Is it significant that Hedda dies isolated in the inner room
surrounded by her inheritance--or heritage--from General Gabler? She dies playing the
piano, shoots herself with the gun, and dies under the portrait, all of which she inherited
from General Gabler

Hedda's Death
Ibsen wrote, "With Hedda, there is deep poetry at bottom. But her surroundings frighten
her. Think of it, to make oneself ridiculous!" Her "deep poetry" is expressed in her
yearning for beauty, for heroism; but her society, her class, her upbringing, and her
circumstances do not offer an outlet for her deep poetry. Not even a male genius like
Lovborg finds support from this society. Consequently, her poetry is repressed and takes
the form of distorted idealizations, such as the vine leaves and Lovborg's beautiful
suicide.

In death, has Hedda successfully expressed her ideals? Has she at last found an outlet for
her poetry? Has she transcended (risen above) her personal weakness and the limits
imposed by her society? Is her death a courageous act which affirms her free will? Does
she find freedom through her death? Or is she avoiding responsibility for her actions and
their consequences? Would courage be facing scandal and defying Brack? Is her death
beautiful? or heroic? Or is it merely shocking or appalling? If you see her death as
beautiful, does that mean you also have to accept her values?

At the end, who remains to carry on society or civilization? Is it significant that only
Hedda and Lovborg were creative (she with her baby, he with his books)? Is Hedda's
scorn for the Tesman circle/values justified? Does she scorn society? Does Ibsen scorn
the society he portrays in this play? The bloody ending reminds the critic Stein Haugom
Olsen of the ending of Hamlet. Because we read and discussed Hamlet in this class, you
may find Olsen's statement about the two plays interesting:

As in Hamlet, there is a bloody stage when the curtain falls. But in Hedda Gabler there is
no Fortinbras, no principle to bring in a new order. Nor is there here an Horatio who, for
love, would sacrifice his life for the dead hero. Not here an Horatio who shall tell a tale of
woe.

Hedda Gabler and Tragedy

Olsen raises another issue, a controversial one. Is Hedda's death tragic and is the play a
tragedy? Critical opinion is divided. Ibsen said of the ending, "Life is not tragic.--Life is
ridiculous--And that cannot be borne." Do you think that this statement applies to the
entire ending or just to Hedda's views at the end? To answer these questions, you must
first define tragedy and the tragic experience and identify the tragic hero's characteristics.

We will not pursue in class the issue raised in the preceding paragraph, nor will I ask a
question on the final based on it. However, you should be aware of this issue. If you
would like to pursue this question and perhaps write a paper on it, background reading
materials exist online. Just click on the following links.

Definition of tragedy.

The Tragic Vision

The seven interrelated elements traditionally regarded as elements of tragedy: (1) a
catastrophic conclusion, (2) that will seem inevitable, and (3) that occurs, ultimately,
because of the human limitations of the protagonist, (4) who suffers terribly, and (5)
whose suffering often seems disproportionate to his or her culpability. Yet (6) the
suffering is usually redemptive, bringing out the noblest of human capacities for learning,
and (7) for accepting moral
Kinds of Tragedy.
Greek tragedy, medieval tragedy and the wheel of fortune, Elizabethan and
Shakespearean tragedy, and the problem play or play of ideas.
Two Modern Views.
The critics Lou Salome and Caroline W. Mayerson offer opposite answers the questions,
"Is Hedda Gabler's death tragic?" and "Is Hedda Gabler a tragedy?"

WORLD LITERATURE II (ENG 252)

Hedda Gabler Study Guide

Dr. Diane Thompson, NVCC, ELI

IBSEN

Ibsen was born in Norway in 1828. His family was poor and he was sent off at sixteen to work as
a pharmacist's apprentice. At twenty-two he went to Oslo and entered the university for a short
while and then went to Bergen, where he was a playwright and assistant stage manager at the
newly founded Norwegian Theater.

At twenty-six, disgusted with Norway's politics, Ibsen left for near permanent exile. He wandered
around Europe for most of the rest of his life, writing intensely Norwegian plays while in exile. He
did not return to Norway permanently until 1891, the year after he completed Hedda Gabler.

In his time, Ibsen was a radical critic of middle class society. According to Lyon, Ibsen's
"discussions of incest, venereal disease, sexual exploitation, and illegitimacy... shocked his
audiences and made him an infamous international celebrity. (Lyons, 8)

top

DRAMATIC REALISM

Dramatic realism was rooted in the late nineteenth century's fascination with examining human
behavior as a story of cause and effect, analogous to scientific studies of cause and effect. The
basic idea was to understand how the effects of the past--heredity and experience--as well as the
social and economic conditions of the present, affected the behavior of the individual and the
group. These social and psychological "causes" replaced the roles of the gods and fates in
classical theater.

Dramatic realism was, above all, familiar. The settings and actions on stage looked just like the
lives of the contemporary audience. The details of furnishings, dress, speech and action were all
familiar, making the events seem intensely "real" to the audience.
 top

CLASS

The characters in Hedda Gabler represent the upper and middle European bourgeoisie in the late
nineteenth century. Brack, Hedda and Eilert Lovborg are from the upper bourgeoisie while the
other characters are from the middle bourgeoisie. (Lyons, 63) This bourgeoisie was quite different
from our ideas about the middle class in America; their wealth was inherited and their social
customs extremely restricted.

Hedda and Eilert have both lost their status in the upper bourgeoisie, Hedda, because she had no
money, while Eilert destroyed his reputation through unacceptable social behavior and throwing
away his money on debauchery. (Lyons, 63)

Although poor, Hedda clearly considers herself a member of the upper bourgeoisie, and feels
she's married into a lower social class which she despises. (Lyons, 62-63)

Despite the pretensions of both the upper and middle bourgeoisie, all of the characters in the play
except Brack are at risk of poverty. Hedda and Thea both married for financial security. Thea
risks both her social and financial security when she leaves her husband to follow Eilert Lovborg.
Tesman's finances are threatened by the prospect of not getting the professorship, and his aunts
have mortgaged their annuity to help him buy his new house. So we see that this apparently rock-
solid bourgeoisie is actually fragile and vulnerable to loss of wealth and status.

top

SOCIAL CONTROL/REPRESSION

The restricted social behavior of the upper bourgeoisie provided serious penalties for any
individuality or creativity. The life of a non-conformist was difficult, if not impossible in this social
class. The restrictions this behavior placed on the freedom, integrity and fulfillment of the
individual provide a major issue in Ibsen's dramas. (Lowenthal, 149)

top

OPTIONS FOR WOMEN

A woman of Hedda's social class can not really understand what freedom and fulfillment might be
or how to attain them. This is understandable, since she is a member of a very restrictive class,
and a woman. Women of this class and time could only be wives, mothers or daughters, not
separate human beings. Hedda clings to the glamour of being General Gabler's daughter, but she
is a coward, not a heroic soldier. She thinks Eilert Lovborg dying with "vine leaves" in his hair is
romantic and does not understand or care about the creative, healing possibilities of genius at
work. (Mayerson, 132)

Hedda is a coward about any action that could cause a scandal. She clearly desired Eilert
Lovborg, but rejected him because she would not break a social taboo. She is wretched and
destructive because she refuses to live according to her own feelings, and chooses to live
according to the rigid forms of a dull, stagnant social order. (Clurman, 165-6)
 top

THE STORY

Act I. The play opens in the drawing room of Hedda and George Tesman's house. Aunt Juliana
and the maid, Bertha, talk about Hedda and George who have just returned from a six month
honeymoon trip.

George enters and admires his aunt's new hat, which he places on the sofa. They discuss invalid
Aunt Rena, George's researches while abroad, and the house, which had been acquired while he
and Hedda were abroad; the aunts had mortgaged their annuity to help finance it.

They also mention that Eilert Lovborg has recently published a book.

Enter Hedda. She is cool and remarks meanly about the maid's hat on the sofa, knowing it
belongs to Aunt Juliana. The contrast between the warm affection of George and his aunt and the
cool meanness of Hedda is clear right from the start.

Innuendos about Hedda being pregnant are made by Aunt Juliana, but George is oblivious to,
and Hedda is repelled by the suggestions.

Thea Elvsted comes calling. She is a former girlfriend of George's and an ex-schoolmate of
Hedda's. She has been living for some years in the north, married to a much older man who hired
Eilert Lovborg as a tutor to his children from a former marriage.

Thea is upset and explains that Eilert has come to town; she is worried about him and begs
George to keep an eye on him. Hedda sends George into the other room to write a note to Eilert,
and she then grills Thea. Thea is afraid of Hedda, who had been cruel to her in school.

Thea has left her husband and followed Eilert into the city. Hedda is amazed by Thea's boldness
and clearly jealous of the nurturing, creative relationship Thea had developed with Eilert. Thea
says only one thing stands between her and Eilert, a woman "he's never been able to forget."
Thea does not know who the woman is, only that "when he left her she tried to shoot him with a
pistol."

Hedda's response is "What nonsense. People don't do such things. The kind of people we know."
[But this is exactly what Hedda does at the end, shooting herself. And of course, she was the
woman who tried to shoot Eilert years ago, but she doesn't admit it.]

Judge Brack enters. Brack tells George that there will be a competition with Eilert Lovborg for the
Professorship George had been counting on to finance his life with Hedda. George had promised
Hedda they could enter society and entertain lavishly, but now they will not be able to, at least not
right away. Hedda says that at least she still has "one thing left to amuse myself with....My
pistols....General Gabler's pistols."

top

Act II. Again, the drawing room. Hedda is loading a revolver as Judge Brack approaches through
the back garden. She threatens to shoot him and fires the revolver in the air. He tells her to "Stop
playing these silly tricks."
Hedda and Brack discuss the emptiness of her life. She does not care for George, only married
for convenience, and does not even care for the house she is living in. Hedda and Brack come to
an understanding that the two of them and George will form some kind of discreet triangle with
George, of course, unaware of what is going on. Hedda says that her only "natural talent" is "For
boring myself to death."

Eilert Lovborg enters with the manuscript of his new book which is about the future of civilization.
He wants to read parts of it to George, who is going to Brack's bachelor party that evening. Brack
invites Eilert to come along and read to George there, but Hedda at this point says that Eilert will
visit with her and Thea instead.

While Brack and George have a drink in the next room, Hedda and Eilert talk. He reminds Hedda
of their past comradeship where they "told each other everything." Eilert thought that Hedda
wanted a more intimate relationship with him, but Hedda says that what she really wanted was
knowledge of the forbidden world of male freedom and wildness. When Eilert tried to increase the
intimacy of their relationship, Hedda broke it off, threatening to shoot him dead. But, because she
was a coward, she refrained.

Thea enters and Hedda sits between Eilert and Thea who talk of the collaborative work they had
done to write Eilert's new book. Hedda, evidently jealous now, taunts Eilert that he is afraid to
have a drink, afraid to go to Brack's party, that the men scorn him for his cowardice, and Thea
does not trust him to stay out of trouble. Eilert, stung, takes two drinks and then goes off with
George and Brack to the bachelor party. Eilert is supposed to return at ten in the evening to
escort Thea home. Thea is upset, but Hedda assures her that Eilert will return "With a crown of
vine-leaves in his hair. Burning and unashamed!"

top

ACT III. The next morning. Thea and Hedda have waited all night, but Eilert has not returned.
Hedda sends Thea to her bedroom to sleep a while. George arrives and tells Hedda that Eilert
had been so drunk the night before that he dropped his precious manuscript. George had picked
it up and brought it home. He intends to return it to Eilert, but before he can, a letter comes telling
him that Aunt Rena is dying. He hurries off, leaving the manuscript with Hedda, who hides it.

Brack arrives and tells Hedda that Eilert had not only gotten drunk, but made a "bloodthirsty
scene" and gotten arrested at Mademoiselle Danielle's disreputable quarters. Brack tells Hedda
he would hate to see her allow Eilert into her home (and into his triangle) in the future.

Eilert arrives and tells Thea "I have no further use for you." He says that he tore the manuscript
into pieces and scattered them over the water. Thea accuses him of killing their child and she
leaves.

Hedda accuses Eilert of being heartless, and he tells her the truth--he didn't destroy the
manuscript; he lost it, which he thinks is even more irresponsible. He now wants to die, and
Hedda encourages him "Do it--beautifully!" She gives him one of General Gabler's revolvers and
he leaves.

Hedda then burns Eilert and Thea's manuscript, saying "I'm burning your child, Thea! You with
your beautiful wavy hair....The child Eilert Loevborg gave you....I'm burning it! I'm burning your
child.!"

top
Act IV. Again, the drawing room, the same evening. Aunt Rena has died and Hedda is dressed in
black. Aunt Juliana comes with more hints about Hedda's pregnancy. She leaves and Hedda tells
George that she has burned Eilert's manuscript "for your sake, George." George is horrified at
what she has done, but delighted that she loves him so much that she would break the law for his
sake. Hedda finally lets George know, still roundabout, that she is pregnant. He is thrilled and she
is in despair.

Thea enters, looking for news of Eilert. Then Brack enters with the news that Eilert shot himself
and is dying. Hedda says "there's beauty in what he has done....Eilert Loevborg has settled his
account with life. He's had the courage to do what--what he had to do."

Thea suggests that the manuscript may be reconstructed from her notes and George jumps on
this as a way to assuage his bad conscience. They go off to work on the notes.

Brack tells Hedda the truth about Eilert's death, robbing her of her "charming illusion." Eilert's
death was an accident, he "was found shot in Mademoiselle Danielle's boudoir." And the shot
was not suicide, nobly done in the chest, but a messy accidental shot in the stomach. Further,
Brack recognized the gun as one of Hedda's revolvers. But he assures her that no one will know
"as long as I hold my tongue." Now he's got Hedda where he wants her, firmly in his triangle, with
the threat of a scandal, what she most fears, if she does not cooperate.

Hedda goes into the rear room, plays a wild melody on her piano, and then shoots herself. The
last line is Brack's: "But, good God! People don't do such things!"

top

HEDDA'S CHARACTER

In the 1950s, Joseph Wood Krutch thought that Hedda Gabler was an evil woman. However,
more recent critics explain her behavior in terms of the restrictive social conditions of nineteenth
century Norway.

This view is well presented by Caroline Mayerson:

"...Hedda is a woman, not a monster; neurotic, but not psychotic. Thus she may be held
accountable for her behavior. But she is spiritually sterile. Her yearning for self-realization
through exercise of her natural endowments is in conflict with her enslavement to a
narrow standard of conduct."(132)

Unfortunately, Hedda never does understand the reality of her situation, nor does her death
"prove" anything. Mayerson goes on to explain that Hedda:

"...dies to escape a sordid situation that is largely of her own making; she will not face
reality nor assume responsibility for the consequences of her acts. The pistols, having
descended to a coward and a cheat, bring only death without honor."(137)

We realize how cowardly Hedda is by her contrast to Thea, who is a brave woman and is willing
to be cast out by respectable society in order to follow the man she loves and the dictates of her
conscience.
 top

HEDDA/THEA

Hedda and Thea are presented as not only opponents for the soul and genius of Eilert Lovborg,
but as contrasts in sterility and fertility. Although Hedda is pregnant and Thea has no children,
Thea is fertile and Hedda is sterile. Hedda rejects even the idea of her own pregnancy, while
Thea works with Eilert Lovborg, and later with George Tesman, to bring the book "child" of Eilert
and herself to birth.

Mayerson points out that:

"Ibsen uses Thea...to indicate a way to freedom which Hedda never apprehends.
Through her ability to extend herself in comradeship with Lovborg, Thea not only brings
about the rebirth of his creative powers, but merges her own best self with his to produce
a prophecy of the future." (132-3)

This notion of a woman fulfilling herself by inspiring a man is rather dated, but Ibsen clearly
approved of Thea's nurturing femininity.

Thea, despite her totally feminine nature, is able to break with the social standards of her culture
to leave her husband and follow Eilert Lovborg. Of all the characters in Hedda Gabler, Thea is the
most able to act from her own conscience and convictions, despite the disapproval of society.

top

SYMBOLS IN HEDDA GABLER

Mayerson points out that three items in the play are especially developed as symbols:

• Lovborg's manuscript about the future as the "child" of himself and Thea;
• Thea's hair and the fertility it represents;
• General Gabler's pistols. (131)

top

Manuscript/Child/Hair:

Mayerson comments that:

"The manuscript is Lovborg's and Thea's 'child,' the idea of progress born of a union
between individuals who have freed themselves from the preconceptions of their
environment. This manuscript the sterile Hedda throws into the fire at the climax of her
vindictive passion. Her impulse to annihilate by burning is directed both toward Thea's
"child" and toward Thea's hair and calls attention to the relationship between
them....Ibsen was using hair as a symbol of fertility ..." (133)
According to the Ibsen's stage directions, Hedda has "not especially abundant" auburn hair, while
Thea's "hair is...exceptionally wavy and abundant." Hedda has evidently been jealous of it since
their days at school. Thea remembers that she was frightened of Hedda in school, because:

Whenever you met me on the staircase you used to pull my hair.

Hedda. No, did I?
Thea. Yes. And once you said you'd burn it all off.

Hedda is jealous of Thea's hair which represents both her femininity and her fertility.

Consequently, Hedda attacks both Thea's femininity and her fertility, destroying her relationship
with Eilert Lovborg and destroying the manuscript, the "child" of Thea and Eilert. However, Thea's
abundant fertility conquers even this, and as the play draws to an end, she is working with
Tesman to reconstruct the manuscript/child.

While Thea is able to create and recreate, brilliant Hedda can only destroy. She destroys the
manuscript, destroys Eilert Lovborg, and finally, destroys herself. She is, ultimately, an ignorant,
highly romantic woman, trapped in the rigid bourgeois society of 19th century Norway.

top

Pistols/General/Sexual Dishonesty

The other major symbol in the play is the pistols of General Gabler, which, along with his portrait,
seem to be all Hedda has inherited from him. Hedda uses the pistols throughout the play to
assert her identity as her father's daughter. (Mayerson, 135) This role is the most glamorous one
available to Hedda in her limited world.

Such pistols traditionally belong to an officer who cherishes a code of bravery and honor. Hedda's
trifling use of them mocks this traditional role. She threatened Eilert Lovborg with her pistols
before he left town years ago, and she playfully shoots at Judge Brack as he approaches her
house through the back door. This is a mockery of protecting her "honor," especially since she is
so dishonest in her sexual relationships with the men in her life. She sent away Lovborg, whom
she evidently desired, married George Tesman whom she does not like, let alone love, in order to
be supported comfortably, and flirts with Brack, despite her marriage. (Mayerson, 136)

top

WOMEN

Modern criticism of Hedda Gabler rests on the idea that a male dominated society repressed and
limited Hedda's brilliance. (Lyons, 19)

Ibsen studied the repressed conditions of women in many of his plays; however his own view of
women was limited by his "celebration of their primary role as the nurturing mothers whose
mission is to educate the young." (Lyons, 24) No wonder there is no solution for Hedda but
suicide. She clearly would never make a good mother, and there was nothing else for such a
woman to do unless she could nurture a man's genius, as Thea did. Nurturing genius, however,
was clearly not Hedda's gift. General Gabler's pistols were, finally, the only option for his
daughter.
Hedda Gabler is set about thirty years earlier than when it was written. Clurman writes that:

"It was a period, Ibsen once remarked, when women were not allowed to play any role
apart from marriage and motherhood. The "protection" they enjoyed separated them from
the realities of life. Hedda shuns everything painful and ugly; she cannot tolerate the sight
of sickness or death. She is already pregnant when the play opens, but mention of it is
abhorrent to her....Small wonder then that she admits that all she is good for is boring
herself to death."(164)

And yet Thea breaks out of this sheltered life. Hedda is a victim, but she is also a coward.

Both George Tesman and Eilert Lovborg develop their identities through their professions. They
compete for fame and position through training, effort and intellect. Hedda, however, has no
profession, nor does she care about anything. She has no interest in what Eilert writes, only in his
potential fame and glamour, and in his rivalry with her husband. She can only compete with Thea
for control of a man, not to develop a personal identity. Worse, Hedda's control is destructive,
while Thea's is healing and creative. Hedda married George Tesman to establish a social life as
the wife of a professor; she wanted to control Eilert Lovborg destructively to rival Thea's
constructive control as the inspiring force behind his genius.

Hedda's only stable identity is as General Gabler's daughter. She has no life of her own, no
projects of her own. Although she envies Eilert Lovborg's freedom and wildness, she shows no
interest at all in the content of his writing, nor is she willing to risk scandal personally. She
cooperates, in short, with the extremely limited role offered by her social condition (Lyons, 20)

Both the play and Hedda herself are limited to what can be said and done around a lady. As
Lyons points out, The world beyond Hedda's house includes:

"...drunkenness, prostitution, financial recklessness...the exploitation of women, and the

threat of poverty....[Lovborg]...dies from an accidental gunshot wound in an apartment
that functions, at least temporarily, as a brothel...." (128)

The respectable Judge Brack is obviously familiar with Mademoiselle Danielle, the prostitute in
whose rooms Eilert died. Further, Brack tries to use his knowledge that Eilert used Hedda's
revolver to blackmail Hedda into having an adulterous affair with him. Brack has evidently
enjoyed a series of such adulterous relationships with other respectable women. Even the
respectable, scandal-fearing Hedda, is clearly fascinated by hearing about the disreputable
goings-on at Mademoiselle Danielle's. (Lyons, 128-9)

Hedda's fascination with the forbidden male world of freedom and excess draws her to both
Lovborg and Brack, and finally leads to her destruction. (Lyons, 128-129)

Hedda's gender, class, and loathing of everything ugly limit what she is able or willing to hear
about the outside world. Events are reported to the house, but only in terms acceptable to Hedda.
Such restraint is imposed by society, as well as by Hedda's wishes.

Her lack of knowledge of the outside world probably is a major factor in her romantic idealization
of Lovborg's wildness and lack of self-control. She has never seen him drunk or in sordid
surroundings; she only heard his stories about his escapades and imagines him carousing as a
Dionysian god with vine-leaves in his hair instead of as a stumbling drunk frequenting brothels.
Hedda does not even understand the concept of Dionysios correctly. She just is aware of the
carousing and freedom of the god, not of his creative inspiration and potential for creating social
cohesion.
Her questioning of Lovborg years earlier showed her desire for information about this forbidden
male world. But, ultimately, Hedda is determined not to break the taboos of her society and when
she felt she had to choose between Lovborg and following the rules, she chose the rules and a
loveless marriage to Tesman. (Lyons, 129-130)

Ultimately, Hedda never does understand the creative genius which Thea is able to nurture in
Eilert Lovborg. Hedda romanticizes his weaknesses, confusing his lack of self-control with god-
like courage. She idealizes his death as noble instead of a sordid accident, and when she is
trapped by Brack's blackmail, she chooses the coward's way out--suicide--to escape from a
situation largely of her own making. (Mayerson, 136-7)

I would like to believe that Hedda is a creature of the nineteenth century, and that her romantic
ignorance of what matters and what is real would not occur today. However, it would be foolish to
deny that there are plenty of people, now and always, who dislike the petty limitations of real life
and take refuge in their fantasies, confusing rebellion with creativity, self-indulgence with freedom
and destruction with fulfillment.

top

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Erich Auerbach. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Translated by

Willard R. Trask. Princeton New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1974.

Clurman, Harold. Ibsen. Masters of World Literature Series. Louis Kronenberger, General Editor.
New York: Collier Books, 1977.

Krutch, Joseph Wood. "Modernism" in Modern Drama: A Definition and an Estimate. Ithaca, N.
Y.: Cornell University Press, 1953. Rpt. by Cornell University Paperbacks, 1966.

Lowenthal, Leo. "Henrik Ibsen: Motifs in the Realistic Plays." In Rolf Fjelde, Ed. Ibsen: A
Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1965, 139-157.

Lyons, Charles R. Hedda Gabler: Gender, Role and World. Twayne's Masterwork Studies, Robert
Lecker, General Editor. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991.

Mack, Maynard, General Editor. The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Fifth Continental
Edition. New York: Norton, 1987.

Mayerson, Caroline W. "Thematic Symbols in Hedda Gabler." In Rolf Fjelde, Ed. Ibsen: A
Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1965, 131-138.

Thomson, David. Europe Since Napoleon. New York: Al Well Made Play
Hedda Gabler has certain characteristics that are easily associated with the 19th Century
structure of the ‘Well Made Play.’

A well made play is defined by certain elements:

 • The play involves a secret, which is essential in the plot (for example, Hedda’s
possible pregnancy)

• Exposition (when the audience is informed of background information, by the use

of dialogue between the characters or action, for example with the opening
dialogue between Berta and Aunt Julia)

• The audience discovers the secret (or has a very good idea of what it could be, for
example, Hedda’s Pregnancy is implied)

• The characters try to find out the secret by use of questions and answer sessions
(dramatic irony for the audience as they know the secret, this adds to the tension)

• Secret is revealed to characters

• Denouncement (resolution, very usually a happy ending, unlike in Hedda Gabler)

• Plays usually set in the same place throughout, with a chronological time span
(with Hedda Gabler being set in the house throughout)

• A Hero character, with flaws in their character, reaches their demise during the
play (As Hedda Gabler)

However, Ibsen does not follow exact outline. He uses a variation of his own:

• No happy ending

• Combined with elements of Tragic Greek Theatre

• Far less farcical

Ibsen almost uses his own structure to mock the structure of the ‘Well Made Pay’. He
disliked the farcical nature of these plays, and that would not be appropriate for the
serious sub-texts present in Hedda Gabler. Ibsen was interested in social realism of
characters, and wanted to show what they were thinking in the most realistic way
possible.

Greek Tragedy
The Greek Tragic structure encompasses many features, some of which can be found in
Hedda Gabler:
 • There is a tragic protagonist, who brings misfortune on themselves

• There is normally a horrific ending

• Dramatic Irony is used

• The play follows a set structure (in Hedda Gabler’s case a 4 act play)

• The plot remains chronological (As in Hedda Gabler)

However, unlike virtually all Greek Tragedies, the plot isn’t based on a religious story. It
could be argued however that characters such as Tesman take the roles of the Gods while
Brack takes the role of the devil character. Brack’s obvious connotations with evil, with
him chasing an affair with Hedda and using blackmail against her qualify him for this,
while Tesman’s generous and pure character qualify him as a God. Hedda would play the
role of the mortal attempting to increase her power to immortal form, a very common
story found in Greek Theatre, and as is common place in productions of this kind, her
arrogance eventually becomes her demise.

The term ‘Problem Plays’ is also well associated with Ibsen, a form of theatre with which
he is well known for.

Hedda Gabler follows the main principles of the ‘Problem Play’, with social issues being
shown to the audience by the use of the characters on stage. In Hedda Gabler’s case, the
social issue is woman’s oppression, with Hedda being forced to stay at home.

Another feature of the ‘Problem Play’ form is that it is in a realistic context. In the case of
Hedda Gabler this is true, having a very believable setting of a loveless marriage, along
with the social norms and values that were around at the period the play is set in. This
realism helps to convey the messages that Ibsen wants, in this case, women’s oppression.

Use of language
Ibsen’s aim with Hedda Gabler was to make the dialogue as realistic as possible, by the
use of very naturalistic language and words suited to the period and the characters. For
example, Berta uses more simplistic language than Hedda, who uses quite sophisticated
and polite language, as would be expected of her at the time.
References to Greek Theatre

There are references to Greek Theatre in the language itself as well as in Hedda Gabler’s
form and structure. The are mentions in the text of ‘Vine leaves’ in Eilert Lovburg’s hair.
This is a reference to Dionysus, the Greek God of sex and intoxication. The reference to
the Gods has large connotations with the idea of Greek Tragedy plots, and the mortal and
immortal characters. In this case, the vine leaves are there to represent Lovburg’s
alcoholism, which is a point of focus for Hedda’s manipulation of him.

Repetition

There is a lot of repetition throughout Hedda Gabler. Repetition of phrases such as ‘Vine
leaves in his hair’ emphasise the comparison with Greek Theatre, and also Hedda’s
manipulation of Mrs Elvested and Lovburg.

There is also heavy repetition of the word ‘trust’. This is an underlying theme throughout
the play, and is repeated heavily by Hedda, Lovburg and Brack. This is ironic, as all three
intend to have an affair behind Tesman’s back. Furthermore, Hedda’s lack of honesty
adds to the irony even more so.

Tesman also uses a lot of repetition. This is to represent how boring and predictable he is.
Especially compared to Lovburg, Tesman is shown to be passive and unexciting. This is
portrayed best through the vast differences in their books (domestic crafts in the 14th
century, compared to a book about the future).

Tesman also repeats phrases used by Hedda. This portrays how she has very considerable
influence and power over him, and how Tesman may be worried as to what Hedda thinks
about what he says. It shows a lack of confidence in his character, and lack of
imagination.

Imagery

There are large amounts of imagery used in Hedda Gabler, particularly during scenes
with Brack and Hedda. The best example of this is the train metaphor in Act Two. The
train journey is used to represent their lives, and getting out and ‘stretching one’s legs’
refers to the affair which both seem to want to have.

The fact that they are using this metaphor is fitting to the time. To discuss matters such as
adultery would have been completely outrageous. By hiding the fact they are doing this
by the use of a metaphor, they can consider an affair without breaking the social codes.

Tension

There is a lot of tension involved in Hedda Gabler. This is most evident when Hedda’s
secret is becoming unravelled. Brack uses short, sharp interrogating questions to gain
information from Hedda. She replies with short sentences which in turn builds tension.
This also adds to the dramatic irony of the scene, as the audience know what Brack is
attempting to confirm.

Stichomythia

This is particularly apparent when Brack and Hedda speak about the ‘train’. They
constantly finish each others sentences and treads of thought. This is a way they can show
each other that they agree without having to openly say it, and risk rejection and breaking
moral codes.

It also shows how well they understand each other, and the other’s situation. It also
implies that Brack has the ability to manipulate Hedda; however, this doesn’t become
fully evident until Act 4, where the language is of a complete contrast.

Social and Historical Context

Ibsen was born in 1828, in a small port town in Norway into a reasonably financially
comfortable family. He was the descendant of some major Norwegian families, and his
early education was very privileged. However, his family’s business took a turn for the
worse and he suffered a spell of poverty. This is the reason why many financial issues are
confronted in his plays, for example, in Hedda Gabler; Tesman is struggling to get his
professorship in order to support Hedda and the house. During his family’s depression he
grew a doubt over how society worked, and wanted to break out of it. These ideas of
freedom can be seen in Hedda Gabler, with Hedda being trapped in a loveless marriage.

Ibsen also relates the play to a marked change in society in the 19th century, with the
apparent beginning of feminism. Ibsen had a definite interest in feminism, and the issues
related to it such as women’s oppression. This is evident is some of his other works such
as ‘The Dolls House’. In the case of Hedda Gabler, the framework of the ‘Problem Play’
is used to convey the social issue of feminism, with Hedda being trapped in the house,
and unable to take a position in society.

The characters in the play are consistent with the stereotypical ones of the period.
Women were expected to get married and stay at home, being seen as fragile and
unintelligent. Of course, Hedda is neither of things, thus emphasising Ibsen’s point of
female oppression in the 19th century. The idea that women were supposed to have
children early in a marriage is also discussed, with Hedda’s possible pregnancy. The male
role was expected to be dominance over the woman, and to be the ‘bread winner’.
Tesman breaks this stereotype too, by having to be reliant on Hedda to get his
professorship and it being made obvious that Hedda is the more powerful one in the
relationship. This adds irony, because despite Hedda being more dominant, she is still
made to stay at home.

To a modern audience, the play may be interpreted differently, due to the stereotypes and
social issues being present at the time no longer being so pungent. With the advent of
things such as ‘house husbands’, women’s oppression is no longer as much of an issue as
it was a century ago. In a class activity, we discussed how it would be possible to address
this issue:

• The instance in which Hedda feels trapped could be changed. Possibly, Hedda
could be trapped in an abusive relationship, which occurs more often today or
perhaps in a forced marriage from a different culture (for example, the Asian
community)

• How the actors flirt could also be brought up to modern day. More outrageous
flirting could be used in sections of the script, for example, between Brack and
Hedda when Tesman leaves the room.

These alterations represent change in our society since then, and would possibly give the
play more impact than with social themes tailored to suit a 19th century audience.

Ibsen’s move later on in his career to the more personal and physiological side of
presenting his ideas is evident in Hedda Gabler. In his earlier works, Ibsen uses far more
stereotypical characters, and focuses mainly on their social context. However, as can be
seen in Hedda Gabler, he began to focus more on the characters interactions with one
another and mind games that are played. This is most evident with Hedda herself, whose
thoughts and physiological state are of interest to the audience all the way through, and
help Ibsen to transmit his ideas and themes of female oppression.
 fred A. Knopf, 1960. EDDA GABLER, PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE
SPACE OF (THE) PLAY

by Nigel Hand

Amazon US | UK

The established view of Hedda Gabler sees the play as a study of the
frustration and despair engendered in the exceptional individual by a
conventionalised society. In this paper I present a psychoanalytic re-
interpretation of the play which in certain respects inverts this
received reading. Insofar as it does so, however, my interpretation is
intended not to cancel the received view but to play against it. The
first section of the paper is predominantly Freudian in approach. The
second section takes up certain Kleinian ideas which are broached in
the first, and explores them more fully. The third section exploits some
of Winnicott's key concepts, especially as they have been elaborated
by Christopher Bollas. The paper seeks to enlarge our understanding of
the nature of Hedda Gabler's alienation and despair through a fresh
study of the dynamic structure of the play as a whole. I am also
suggesting that Ibsen should be seen as a major precursor both of
Freud and the object-relations tradition in psychoanalysis.

SECTION I - THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET

INTRODUCTION - IBSEN AND PSYCHOANALYSIS

'Ibsen did not write or think as a Freudian,' writes Robin Young in the
Preface to his study of the dramatist (1989, p.12). As a scholar of the
Norwegian language and its literature Young writes with at least one
kind of indisputable authority. Unsurprisingly he asserts that Ibsen can
only be understood in the context of the Norwegian literary culture he
grew up with - and in this respect Young's book makes interesting
reading, especially in its provocative contention that Ibsen was in
many respects an anti-Romantic. But if there is one truth which has
emerged clearly from the age of theory it is that no text can be finally
enclosed in a single defining and exclusive context, and of this truth
Robin Young's book provides striking illustration, for in reality both his
general approach to Ibsen's plays and his detailed interpretations of
them would be unthinkable had Freud never written. Young
consistently reads Ibsen's symbolism as pointing to early experiences
which have left his major characters emotionally crippled: Young's
Ibsen, like Freud, is an archaeologist of the psyche. It is in fact
something of a regular feature of critical writing on Ibsen that where
the critic feels impelled to distance himself from psychoanalysis (as
several do), the Freudian infection will nevertheless be seen to have
invaded his text in one surreptitious fashion or another. (Clurman,
1977, and Gray, 1977, are notable examples.)

Critical writing on a given author will frequently reproduce the field of

forces which animate the author's work. In my view psychoanalysis
features as the 'other' of Ibsen criticism because the conception, birth
and development of psychoanalysis are in fact profoundly
foreshadowed in Ibsen's major plays. In this paper I argue, indeed, that
Ibsen writes and thinks not only as a Freudian, but that in Hedda
Gabler in particular he is a major precursor of both Melanie Klein and
D.W.Winnicott. Moreover among contemporary analytic writers one of
the most interesting of the successors of Klein and Winnicott is
Christopher Bollas. I shall suggest that the argument is strikingly
confirmed, therefore, when we find that Bollas's work on the
'unthought known', the 'first human aesthetic' and the 'destiny drive'
resonates uncannily with Ibsen's play (Bollas, 1978, 1987, and 1989)
and in particular with the heroine's characteristic preoccupation with
the 'beautiful'. As I attempt to substantiate these large claims I am also
proposing a radical reorientation of the received understanding of
Hedda Gabler, for in my view the play has been emptied of much of its
originality through a reading which reduces it to a familiar critique of
'bourgeois society' - a reading, that is to say, which is itself shallow and
conventionalised.

PLOT AND THEMES OF THE PLAY

The established reading of Ibsen's play focusses very much on its

central character, who is seen in some qualified sense at least, as an
existential, or romantic, or tragic heroine. Hedda Gabler, it seems,
presents us with a particular version of 'liberal tragedy', that form in
which the claims of an alienated individual are uncompromisingly
asserted against those of a conventional society (Williams, 1966 and
1971). At the age of twenty nine, and having 'danced herself out', the
aristocratic Hedda Gabler has married Jørgen Tesman, an indefatigable
scholar and pedant. If Tesman's world seemed to offer her some sort of
security, in the event she feels that she is suffocating in its
claustrophobically middle class atmosphere. The action of the play is
presided over by the portrait of Hedda's father, General Gabler, which
now hangs in the Tesmans' drawing room. This portrait of Hedda's
dead father serves as the symbol of a moribund military-aristocratic
world which no longer offers his daughter a home. Of her mother we
hear no mention at all, and Hedda's only other remaining connection
with the world she comes from is the pair of pistols which she has
inherited from her father. Her disconcerting habit of firing off these
pistols, from time to time, dramatises the profound dissonance
between herself and her present world, and her frustration with the
emptiness of her life. It seems she can conceive of no future for herself
other than a life of excruciating boredom. During the opening scenes of
the play various hints are thrown out to suggest that Hedda is
pregnant, but the prospect of motherhood is so far from providing her
with a reason for living that it seems to be anathema to her. Certainly
the child would be born into an unpromising environment, for
throughout the play we have the utmost difficulty in thinking of Hedda
and Tesman as a parental couple. Tesman's naïve assumption that
they have everything in common is matched by Hedda's inward belief
that they have nothing. I shall suggest in my later discussion that the
struggle to constitute the parental couple is one of the play's deep
preoccupations.

If Hedda's character has been formed in a military-paternal setting,

Tesman still lives in an atmosphere of motherly concern, brought up as
he has been by a trio of adoring and self-sacrificing women - his two
Aunts, Julle and Rina, and Berte, the maid. During the opening
sequence of the action, with the Tesmans newly returned from a six
month honeymoon trip in Europe, we are given an early indication of
Hedda's hostility to the world in which she finds herself when, on an
impulse, she speaks slightingly of a hat which she knows to be Aunt
Julle's, but which she pretends to believe is 'the maid's'. That she knew
the hat to be Aunt Julle's is revealed to us through a subsequent
passage of dialogue between Hedda and Judge Brack. The latter is a
friend of the family with whom she shares a habit of risqué
conversation; he is as cold-bloodedly cynical as Tesman is naïve and
good-natured, and his one purpose throughout the play is to engineer
an affair with Hedda.
Meanwhile much greater scope for the central character to act upon
her world opens up before her with the arrival on the scene of Thea
Elvsted, a younger colleague of Hedda's during her schooldays. A good
deal of our sense of the play's direction is produced by the interplay
between these two female characters. It can hardly be said, however,
that the initial comparison suggests that Hedda is the more
independent or romantic of the two women. Hedda has married
Tesman apparently for no better reason than that 'he insisted with
might and main on being allowed to support me' (HG, p.300). Thea, on
the other hand, has just walked out of her own marriage of
convenience on account of what now seems to her a higher vocation,
for she has become dedicated to the role of companion and support to
Ejlert Løvborg, a gifted but unstable writer, who might at any moment,
it seems, return to his former drunken habits, but for Thea's loyal
ministrations.

Complications unfold when we learn that Hedda herself has had an

earlier relationship with Løvborg, which broke up when she threatened
to shoot him. It seems that she did so because, for her, Løvborg had in
some undisclosed fashion begun to ask too much of the relationship.
Since that time Løvborg's life has taken another turn, for under the
tutelage of Thea Elvsted he has has written two books - the first, a
general history of society, has been a succès d'estime; the second, a
meditation on the future, exists only in manuscript but promises to
make a considerable stir when it is published. Hedda's complex
feelings about the relationship between Thea and Løvborg fuel the
action of the play. To what extent her apparent belief that Løvborg
should be liberated from the constraints of his relationship with Thea is
a rationalisation of her jealousy it is not easy to discern, but at any rate
she so works upon him that he goes to a bachelor party given by Brack
and gets drunk once again. The consequence is that he loses the
manuscript, which by this time has acquired an intense emotional
value for all concerned - they have come to think of it, in fact, as a
child. When the manuscript comes into Hedda's possession, via
Tesman (who found it by the roadside), she burns it; and when the
distraught Løvborg (who knows only that he has lost the 'child') returns
to her house, she encourages his thoughts of suicide - and puts into his
hands one of her father's pistols. Løvborg makes his way back to the
rooms of 'Mademoiselle Diana', where he believes the manuscript was
stolen from him, and in an unruly scene (reported to Hedda by Judge
Brack) the pistol goes off and Løvborg is killed. Brack attempts to use
these circumstances to play upon Hedda's fear of scandal and so to
blackmail her into a liaison. But in the dénouement, while Thea and
Tesman are beginning to try to reconstruct Løvborg's manuscript from
the notes which Thea kept, Hedda shoots herself. It is left to the
dismayed Brack to pronounce the final speech: 'One doesn't do that
kind of thing.' (HG, p.364)

IMAGINING THE CHILD

As I have indicated I think that Robin Young is correct when he argues

that much of the published commentary on Ibsen's plays gives an over
romantic view of his work. In the case of Hedda Gabler even John
Northam (1973), perhaps the most reliable of Ibsen critics (in English
at any rate) seems to me to give a hugely distorted account of the
play. Like other commentators Northam is preoccupied with the
character of the protagonist, her supposed revolt against 'middle class
society', the authenticity or otherwise of her final action, and hence the
validity of her claims to heroic status. Though these issues routinely
provide the agenda for most discussion of the play, I shall argue that
they are only very partially what Hedda Gabler is about. The
protagonist of Ibsen's play is for all of us a deeply troubling dramatic
creation - outside of Shakespeare and the Greeks, none more so
perhaps. Northam attempts to escape from the challenging perplexity
which Hedda Gabler arouses in our minds by producing a highly
romanticised appraisal of her character and actions. When he
attributes to Ibsen's heroine 'a residually creative sense of human
potentiality' (p.182) Northam undoubtedly points to something which is
at the heart of the play, but his belief that she also displays 'serene
self-confidence' (p.168) is simply astonishing, for what is Hedda Gabler
if not a deeply troubled soul?

In producing his idealized portrait of Ibsen's central character Northam

is responding, albeit wrong-headedly, I believe, to the central dynamic
of Ibsen's play. It seems to me that as we watch Hedda Gabler we feel
that the cast of characters as a whole faces the responsibility of
nurturing the germ of life doubly symbolised by Løvborg's book and
Hedda's unborn child. As the play goes forward it evokes in us a
profound concern and apprehension for the future of this 'child'. The
play works upon us with such gravity and depth of feeling because
from first to last we fear that the human group before us is mortally
near to failure in the 'holding' and nurturance of its 'offspring'. Critical
misreading of the play derives from the obscuring of this very troubling
question of the fate of the 'child' - and the corresponding flight into an
attempt to redeem Hedda Gabler so that, however desperately, she
may be seen not as a destroyer but as the carrier of the life-principle in
the play. These processes of repression and distortion are at work in
Northam's paragraphs on the burning of the book. In describing this
event Northam more or less veils from sight the eerily dreadful
spectacle of the mother-to-be burning a 'child': 'Now I'm burning your
child, Thea - you and your curly hair! Your child and Ejlert Løvborg's.
Now I'm burning - now I'm burning your child.' (HG, p.345) The fearful
ambiguity of that last sentence ('I am burning...') reveals that the
annihilating hatred which is dramatised in this scene is directed as
much against the self as against the object. To refer to this moment as
a 'tremendous fulfilment', as Northam does (p.169), serves not only to
obscure the horror of it, but to prevent us altogether from grasping the
significance of the book-child theme within the play as a whole.

TRIANGULAR PATTERNS

To ignore this theme is to turn aside, understandably perhaps, from

some of the deepest unconscious fears, phantasies and anxieties
which the play arouses: that if we surrender to some of our darkest
impulses, for instance, we may destroy everything that is good in the
world. It is also, at the same time, to miss the way in which the book-
child theme shapes the structure of the play as a whole. Throughout
Hedda Gabler there is a triangular patterning which has been given
remarkably little attention, despite the fact that it is very prominently
highlighted during the scenes between Hedda and Brack:

BRACK. All I want is to have a pleasant intimate circle of friends where

I can be useful, in one

way or another, and can come and go freely - like a trusted friend.

HEDDA. Of the husband, you mean?

BRACK. [Leaning forward] To be quite frank, preferably of the wife. But

of the husband, too,

in the second place, of course. I assure you that sort of - shall I call it

triangular relationship? - is actually a very pleasant thing for everybody

concerned.

(HG, p.300-1)
I shall suggest that in the course of the play this triangular patterning
continually forms and re-forms itself - as if in some shifting magnetic
field - in three distinct but essentially related figurations. The book-
child theme is embedded in the more overt drama of sexual liaisons
and rivalries, for example, in that the various couplings suggest a
range of possibilities as to the parentage of the 'child'. And because
the play generates so many different 'subject positions', in this and
other ways, we come to feel that it is being staged in some figurative
space in which the potentialities of human nature are being very
profoundly explored.

(i) SEXUAL JEALOUSIES

If, as I shall go on to show, the book-child motif is truly the figure in the
carpet, it is the play of adult sexual relationships which provides as it
were the setting for the more subliminal modulations of the theme. All
of the major characters are most obviously defined of course by the
parts they play in the kind of triangular situations which are of such
absorbing interest to Hedda and Brack. The two female characters
(three if we include the non-appearing Mademoiselle Diana) are
combined with the three males (four if we include Thea Elvsted's
husband) to produce almost every possible coupling. Thea is married
to Elvsted, but devoted to their children's tutor, Løvborg; at the close
she will form a relationship with Tesman to resurrect the 'child' she
created with Løvborg. Hedda is married but not commited to Tesman.
Earlier in her life she feared to commit herself to her affair with
Løvborg, and now she toys dangerously with Judge Brack. Thea Elvsted
is jocularly refered to as an old flame of Tesman's. Now respectably
married, however, this complacent husband has no thought that he
might have rivals - though in fact Løvborg is jealous of him and Brack
is determined to outflank them both. Finally, the two women are also
involved in a complex pattern of rivalry. Hedda is jealous of Thea's
relationship with Løvborg and of the latter's connection with Mlle
Diana, while Thea is jealous of the 'other' woman of Løvborg's
imagination - who may again be Mlle Diana but is most probably Hedda
herself.

The ways in which sexuality figures in human life are further

dramatised in the play through such varying manifestations as the off-
stage world of Mlle Diana, which shadows the bourgeois
respectabilities, on the one hand, to Aunt Julie's domestic rejoicing in
Hedda's pregnancy, on the other. In fact it is only the relationship
between Hedda and Brack - a sterile and destructive sparring between
egotisms - which has no reference at all to the theme of the 'child'.
From Hedda's marriage to Tesman, to the relationship formed during
the closing scene by Tesman and Mrs Elvsted (with a view to their
resurrecting Løvborg's book-child) each liaison is shaped by this
second 'triangular' theme - that is to say, the parental couple with their
embryonic offspring. At the level of social themes Ibsen's supposed
preoccupation with individual fulfilment is inseparable in this play from
the equally powerful theme of responsibility. If it is obvious that Hedda
Gabler reworks the plot and themes of A Doll's House one of the major
differences is that, unlike the earlier play, Hedda Gabler does not
sidestep the question of the children, or child. On the contrary, so
intensely is the theme of the child-book imbricated in the sexual
relationships that the play does not allow us to think of freedom,
fulfilment and responsibility as separable concepts. Conventional
readings and some of Ibsen's polemical utterances notwithstanding,
this play, as a whole, is so far from proposing an isolated individualism
as an ideal that it presents the theme of human potentiality in terms of
the creative/destructive couple and moreover makes the fate of the
child-book within that setting an essential measure of the relationship
itself. So central is this motif that, in my view, the struggle within the
play to constitute a realm within which the child-book might survive is
the play.

(ii) THE PARENTS-AND-CHILD TRIANGLE - KLEIN, WINNICOTT

AND CREATIVITY

In her chapter on 'Art and the depressive position' in Dream, Phantasy

and Art Hannah Segal refers to the familiar notion that the 'work of art
is often felt by the artist as a symbolic baby' (1991, p.95). In Kleinian
terms symbol-making is linked, of course, with the idea of 'reparation'.
While the rage and frustrations of infancy are vented, in imagination,
against the frustrating object (the breast/mother), the 'depressive
position' is reached when the infant becomes able to deal with
ambivalent feelings of love and hate towards the frustrating object, to
experience guilt and depression about his/her own destructiveness,
and to wish to 'restore' the maternal object which has been
'destroyed'. For Hannah Segal this line of thought leads to an
important Kleinian paradox, namely that 'the artist's work is new and
yet arises from an urge to recreate or restore'. Insofar as creative work
is a restoration of lost objects in the internal world it generates a sense
of re-discovery; but insofar as the process is necessarily symbolic, the
subject 'has the freedom of its use - it is something created anew'.
Hannah Segal goes on to capture this Kleinian paradox in a sentence
which resonates extraordinarily, I believe, with Ibsen's Hedda Gabler.
Of the dual process of restoration/creation she writes: 'It is a restoring
in one's internal world of a parental couple creating a new baby.' (p.95)

In my view this is a beautifully succinct statement of the dynamic

which engages us so deeply in Hedda Gabler. The reason why we are
so actively engaged in Ibsen's play is that we are drawn into a realm of
potentiality - by the means which I have outlined. The world of the play
is not given - it is not there in the list of dramatis personae, in an
account of the plot, or even in the action on the stage insofar as this
might be the object of a spectator's attention. The work which Ibsen
has given us is there only as we participate in the play of effects
whereby the existence of a realm in which the 'baby' might have a life
is always in question: throughout the play this realm is always being
created - and destroyed.

The play concerns itself with the making and unmaking of the human
world. The sense of some fundamental breakdown within the
community of the play is dramatised in the strange duality of the book-
child theme. In 'Living Creatively' Winnicott writes:

... it has to be remembered that a baby may be conceived uncreatively

- that is without being conceived of, without having been arrived at as
an idea in the mind. On the other hand, a baby may start up just at the
right moment when it is wanted by both parties. In Who's Afraid of
Virginia Woolf? Edward Albee studies the fate of a baby that is
conceived of, but without taking flesh. What a remarkable study in
both play and film! (1970, p.48)

Albee's play has striking affinities with Hedda Gabler. The unborn child
of the Tesmans' marriage has been conceived but not conceived of,
while the book-child of Thea and Løvborg (like George and Martha's
imaginary son in the later play) has been conceived of, but is not a
fleshly child. Like Albee's play, Hedda Gabler uses the intriguingly
subtle theme of the imaginary child to explore what it means to live
creatively, and more particularly, what it means when one is unable to
find the clue to doing so. For Ibsen, as for Winnicott, there is no more
fundamental theme. In Hedda Gabler Ibsen's most memorable
character wages a life and death struggle to overcome her sense of
futility, to escape from her despair at being unable to live creatively.
For Hedda is no more able to create a living conception of her own life
than she is to conceive of a life for the child she has conceived with
Tesman.

In 'Living Creatively' Winnicott summarises much of his thinking on this

subject when he says that 'Creativity... is the retention throughout life
of something that belongs properly to the infant experience: the ability
to create the world.' He goes on to say that, 'for the baby this is not
difficult, because if the mother is able to adapt to the baby's needs,
the baby has no initial appreciation of the fact that the world was there
before he or she was conceived or conceived of.' (p.40) In a later
paragraph he outlines the process whereby creativity is retained as the
'reality principle' makes itself felt:

The infant becomes ready to find a world of objects and ideas, and, at
the same pace of growth of this aspect of the baby, the mother is
presenting the world to the baby. In this way, by her degree of
adaptation at the beginning, the mother enables the baby to
experience omnipotence, to actually find what he creates, to create
and link up with what is actual. The nett result is that each baby starts
up with a new creation of the world. (p.49)

When 'what we create' and 'what we find' are 'linked up' we are of
course in the realm of the transitional object, that 'third area' or
'potential space' in which play and symbol-making begin, and continue
throughout life (Winnicott, 1971). In the world of Hedda Gabler it is as
if there has been some tear in the fabric of things whereby she is
denied access to this realm of experience. For her the actual is no
more than the actual. At a loss to find the gesture which would effect
the transformation she yearns for, Hedda will seek to animate her
existence through manipulation of the lives others.

(iii) THE PRIMAL SCENE

What are the obstacles to the creative realisation of the powerful

energies embodied in the heroine of Hedda Gabler and those around
her? How is it that the birth and survival of the child-book, bound up as
they are with the gestation of the play itself, are attended by so much
anxiety and apprehension? An initial part of the answer to this question
concerns the way in which Freud's 'primal scene' figures in the play -
haunts it indeed, from beginning to end. The opening exchange of the
play, between Tesman's Aunt Julle, and his servant Berte, notify us that
the young couple, Jørgen Tesman and Hedda Gabler, having returned
the previous evening from a six month honeymoon trip, are still in bed,
though it seems to be quite late in the morning. These events,
especially as they are spoken of by these two good-hearted and
motherly women, are natural enough in themselves, but everything
which subsequently happens in the play serves to make the nature of
the sexual relationship between the off-stage couple (which is of
course variously constituted) a source of great perplexity for the
'spectator' both on and off the stage, this of course being the essence
of the primal scene experience. Here then we have the third variation
of the triangular figure which structures the play. The primal scene, in
Ibsen's play at least, is the troubling shadow of the process outlined by
Hannah Segal. 'The restoration...of the parental couple creating a new
baby' constitutes a set of good object relations in the 'inner world', but
the primal scene engenders jealousy and, as Melanie Klein suggests,
envy. The one promotes a secure relationship between self and world,
the other a disturbing confusion between reality and fantasy: the
benign autonomy of the inner stage on the one hand, and the anxious
fascination of the peep-show - with the voyeur as victim, on the other.

Projected for us by Aunt Julle and Berte, our initial impression of the
sexual couple is, it seems, perfectly wholesome. In every aspect of the
play, however, benign impressions rapidly give way to a sense of
unease, anxiety and menace. If the primal scene effects are complex
and multi-layered, however, one reason for this is that while Hedda
Gabler features as the female partner in that opening sequence, for
much of the play she figures as the child-spectator. Her intimacy with
Judge Brack, for instance, is constituted not so much by any mutual
passion but by his feeding her sexual curiosity with gossip about the
goings on in circles which are closed to her:

BRACK. And so the procession starts, gentleman. I hope we shall have

a gay time, as a certain charming lady puts it.

HEDDA. Ah, if only that charming lady could be there, invisible -

BRACK. Why invisible?

HEDDA. So as to hear a little of your gaiety - uncensored, Mr Brack.

(HG, p.323)

On the following morning Brack describes to Hedda how Løvborg

'fetched up at a party at Mademoiselle Diana's rooms', and how - when
Løvborg created a scene about the disappearance of his pocket-book,
the result was 'a general fight in which both the ladies and the
gentlemen were involved' (HG, p.336). And all this comes to a climax
when Brack later reveals to Hedda that Løvborg did not die in hospital
but was actually 'found shot in - in Mademoiselle Diana's boudoir' (HG,
p.358. Though the nuance of Ibsen's text is apparently untranslatable,
we are to understand that the bullet destroys Løvborg's sexual organ.
See Durbach, p.47.) During the course of the play the scene of sexual
coupling, which remains pretty constantly before the mind's eye, is
transformed from the domestic picture of the newly-weds asleep in
bed, to that of an indiscriminate and deadly combat taking place in a
house of ill-repute. Freud noted that the primal scene is felt by the
child to be sadistic in nature, but he did not explain this finding.
Melanie Klein holds that the child projects its own envious hatred into
the scene - and into the phantasy of the 'combined parent figure' -
which both denies the parents' sexuality and embodies the child's
hostility ('a general fight in which both the ladies and the gentlemen
were all involved'). The processes of splitting, doubling and inversion in
the play are beyond anything like exhaustive analysis, but perhaps the
most important version of the primal triangle is that constituted by
Løvborg and Thea - with Hedda as 'spectator'. In my view Hedda's
notion that she breaks up the Løvborg-Thea relationship in order to
'liberate' Løvborg is a transparent rationalisation of the ruthless envy
which impels her to destroy this creatively parental liaison. In the end
it seems that the only staging of the primal scene which Hedda will be
prepared as it were to live with is the dreadful inversion of it which is
constituted by the scene of her own death - where she turns the
paternal pistol-phallus against herself and seeks an astonishingly
paradoxical affirmation of selfhood through the psychic erasure of any
trace of her own origin.

SECTION II -'THE WORST SYNNE THAT IS'

CREATIVITY, ENVY AND DESTRUCTIVENESS

The restoration within the play of a realm embodied in 'the parental

couple creating a new baby' is menaced, as I've said, by its shadow - in
the form of primal scene anxieties, and more obviously by the drama
of sexual conflict and rivalry. The dramatis personae in Hedda Gabler
can rather crudely be classified in two categories - the concerned
(Thea Elvsted, Tesman, Aunt Julie, Berte) and the demonic (Løvborg,
Brack, Hedda). If the play is viewed in this way then the theme which I
have explored might be expressed as a search for a profoundly elusive
sense of integration. But if it is the case that creativity would be
realised in the marriage of imagination and concern, then this union
seems to be (almost) beyond the play's conceiving, for within the
collective psyche of the play imaginative energy seems to be entirely
dissociated from concern and inseparably linked with ruthlessness. It is
clear in fact that the sense of creative potentiality which the play
generates is matched, if not overborne, by a will to destruction which
threatens to leave us with nothing but its own epitaph to contemplate.

ENVY IN CHAUCER AND DAVID FINCHER'S SEVEN

In my view the treatment of human destructiveness in Hedda Gabler

presents us with a remarkable anticipation of Melanie Klein's writings
on the theme of envy. In everyday speech the word envy carries no
very sinister vibration perhaps, but there is nevertheless a variety of
testimony to the effect that this sin is the most deadly aberration of
which human nature is capable. In Chaucer's 'Parson's Tale', for
instance, we are told that 'Envye... is the worst synne that is', for two
very similar reasons: one is that envy is the malicious enemy of
'bountee' - which is the quality which characterises the 'Hooly Goost'
itself; and the second is that envy is 'ageyns alle vertues and alle
goodnesses'. Envy, we are told, is the only sin which does not have
'som delit in itself' but only 'angwissh and sorwe' (Chaucer, 1957,
pp.242-3). The medieval theme of the seven deadly sins is re-
examined in David Fincher's horrifically gruesome but highly intelligent
film with the laconic title Seven. What is of particular interest here is
that while the sins come up in more than one order as the action
proceeds, the traditional list is in the end re-arranged so that envy
features, very dramatically, as the final one - underwriting, as it were,
all the others. In the course of the film the psychotic character refered
to as 'John Doe' (Kevin Spacey) stages a series of seven murders, each
of which revolves around one of the seven sins, each of his victims
being guilty of one of them. John Doe's project is to preach a shattering
sermon on the condition of the times: his view of their grim corruption
links him, ironically, with one of the two detectives who are pursuing
him - the humane but very disillusioned Detective Lieutenant played
by Morgan Freeman. In the dénouement of the film John Doe contrives
so to work upon the irascible temperament of Morgan Freeman's
younger colleague, Detective Mills (Brad Pitt), that the latter shoots
John Doe himself, as Doe had always intended that he should. This final
episode dramatises the last two sins on John Doe's list - wrath and
envy - for John Doe has revealed that this latter is his own sin: 'I wish I
could have lived like you', he says to Mills, 'I envy your normal life.'
While no summary can evoke the appalling grimness of this
dénouement, and all that has led up to it, the logic of the final
revelation is clear enough. As we are told in the 'Parson's Tale', envy is
different from and worse than the other sins, and, as understood here -
as the envy not merely of the other's possessions (covetousness) but
of the quality of his life - it is the most consuming and destructive of
those seven sins. This view of the matter is also exactly in keeping with
René Girard's analysis, as he summarises it in the introduction to A
Theater of Envy: William Shakespeare: 'Envy involuntarily testifies to a
lack of being that puts the envious to shame... that is why envy is the
hardest sin to acknowledge.' (1991, p.6)

IAGO, 'JOHN DOE', AND HEDDA GABLER

Mention of Shakespeare in this context will not necessarily bring to

mind Othello, but I shall suggest that both this play and Hedda Gabler
are dramas of jealousy - each of which masks a more rooted tale of
envy. Hedda and Iago are compulsively driven to destroy that which
puts them to shame - the creative being of the other. One of the
metaphors which animate the speeches of Iago is the notion of riches
and poverty as a figure for the individual's sense of himself and his
relationship with the other:

...Poor and content is rich, and rich enough,

But riches, fineless, is as poor as winter

To him that fears he shall be poor... (III iii 176-8)

Like many of Iago's speeches which are apparently calculated to create

a certain effect upon others, these lines are in reality expressive of
something in Iago's own nature. Hedda Gabler is also a calculatingly
ruthless manipulator of other people's lives, and in a transitory
moment of self-revelation she gives expression to the link between her
desire to control and her own poverty of being in similar terms:

HEDDA... I want, for once in my life, to have power over a human

being's fate.

MRS ELVSTED. But haven't you got that?

HEDDA. I have not. I 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 you are, offered such riches!
[Throwing her arms passionately round

her.] I think I shall burn your hair off, after all. (HG, p.324)

There is, then, a certain affinity between Iago, 'John Doe', and Hedda
Gabler - a gnawing life-emptiness which drives on to extreme
solutions. If it is obvious enough that each of these three characters is
a manipulator of other people's lives, what is so revealing is that none
of them has in view any object which might be classified as worldly
gain. (Iago is ostensibly put out over Cassio's promotion, but this no
more explains Iago than his fantastical notion that Othello has
cuckolded him does so.) Frighteningly unable to find the experience of
guilt, still less the impulse to make reparation, each of them seeks to
fill the void of his or her own being through control of the lives of
others. What is then above all so strikingly similar is that each of these
characters is driven to stage a scene, or scenes, of appalling human
destruction; for envy, of the kind we are dealing with here, emerges as
the most dramatic - or rather the most dramaturgical - of the seven
deadly sins. Envy in Hedda Gabler presents us with the antithesis of
the 'restoring in one's internal world of a parental couple creating a
baby'. It stages the destruction of the parental couple and the
abortion/murder of the life of the baby. Once the exposition is
complete this dynamic shapes the action of the play: Hedda
undermines the relationship between Løvborg and Thea; she burns the
manuscript which they created; she incites Løvborg to commit suicide,
providing him with one of her pistols so that he may do so; and with
the other pistol she shoots herself, thereby ending the life of the child
she has conceived with Tesman.

'The capacity to give and to preserve life,' writes Melanie Klein, 'is felt
as the greatest gift and therefore creativeness becomes the deepest
cause for envy' (1957, p.40). Observations such as these are grounded
of course in Klein's reading of the relationship between infant and
mother in some of its earliest phases. The 'good breast' - the mother's
life-giving nurturance of the child - is experienced as the first, the
primal 'good object'. While identification with this good object provides
a first 'impetus to creativeness', these processes are always complex:
envy and aggression may also be engendered against the magical but
at times frustrating powers of the good object, and while these
primitive dynamics will as a rule be more or less overcome when, in
the 'depressive position', the capacity to live with ambivalence begins
to develop, envy of creativeness will (like the Oedipus complex) remain
in varying degrees as a component of the individual psyche.

From a Kleinian point of view the choice of alcoholism as the weakness

of character which Hedda is able to exploit - in order to wreak havoc
upon the relationship between Løvborg and Thea - is by no means an
arbitrary one. If it is obvious enough that Thea Elvsted plays the part of
the good mother who literally weans Løvborg, lovingly, from his
addiction, how is Hedda Gabler's cruel exploitation of that addiction to
be understood? Like a number of other accounts of her motives which
she puts forward, Hedda's claim that in driving Løvborg back to drink
she is liberating him clearly lacks authenticity. Like Iago's more or less
fantastic rationalisations, and indeed John Doe's claim that for him to
carry out a series of psychotic murders is to preach a sermon to
humanity, her assertion bears all the signs of a perverse
rationalisation. Gnawed by her emptiness Hedda gives herself the
phantasy 'satisfaction', through her identification with Løvborg, of both
greedily consuming and wreaking vengeance upon the frustrating good
object.

HEDDA GABLER, JØRGEN TESMAN AND THE MASKS OF ENVY

The stereotypical reading of Hedda Gabler, which sees Tesman, with

his relatives and household, as representing a claustrophobically
bourgeois complacency - and Hedda, by a simple antithesis, as the
imprisoned spirit of authentic protest - makes the real complexities of
Ibsen's play impossible to discern. Within the terms of this
conventional opposition Hedda's marriage, for example, can only
remain an unaccountable riddle. Her own explanation - 'I had simply
danced myself out...' (HG, p.299) - is patently inadequate, another
characteristic rationalisation. Are we not invited to ponder the idea
that in some very much unacknowledged fashion Hedda Gabler is
actually drawn to Jørgen Tesman and what he represents for her? A
powerful insight of Melanie Klein's seems to me to make clear how this
might be so:

A particular cause of envy is the absence of it in others. The envied

person is felt to possess what is at bottom most prized and most
desired - and this is a good object, which also implies a good character
and sanity. Moreover the person who can ungrudgingly enjoy other
people's creative work and happiness is spared the torments of envy,
grievance and persecution. Whereas envy is a source of great
unhappiness, a relative freedom from it is felt to underlie contented
and peaceful states of mind - ultimately sanity. (p.41)

The subject of envy comes up at a crucial moment in one of the scenes

between Hedda and Tesman, when Tesman is about to reveal that he
has Løvborg's manuscript in his possession. Before revealing this he
makes clear in his own way how much the book has impressed him:

TESMAN. You can't think what a book that's going to be. I should think
it's going to be one of

the most remarkable things that's ever been written. Just think!

HEDDA. No doubt. That doesn't interest me.

HEDDA. I must admit one thing Hedda. When I read it, a perfectly
detestable feeling came over me.

TESMAN. Detestable?

TESMAN. There I was envying Ejlert for having been able to write a
thing like that. Just think, Hedda.

HEDDA. Yes, yes. I am. (HG, pp 330-1)

The ironies which arise from this interchange are by no means what
might be expected. To begin with let us note that it is Tesman who is
stirred by the book, and Hedda who is too self-enclosed to take any
interest in it, even though the play leads us to believe that she is one
of its begetters, and the critics would have us believe that she is the
poetic-imaginative spirit of the play. At the same time, if the kind of
innocence which Tesman displays in this passage makes him
frequently appear comically naïve in the eyes of the audience and
tediously limited in Hedda's, the 'relative freedom' from discontent
which very much goes with it, is also itself enviable.

That Hedda should despise what she is drawn to is a not unfamiliar

trait in human nature. In my view she is not only drawn to Tesman's
good nature in itself, but to the atmosphere of motherly concern which
has given him a sense of well-being not always distinguishable, it's
true, from the self-centredeness of the spoilt child. Nor is Aunt Julle's
affectionate concern for those around her merely shallow or
sentimental. Her care for her sister is uncomplaining and long-
suffering, and whether Hedda Gabler's dealings with death are any
more 'authentic' is, I would suggest, at least debateable. At any rate
Hedda's irrational attacks on Tesman's world, as exemplified by the
episode with Aunt Julle's new hat, can clearly be read as expressions of
her destructive envy.

HEDDA GABLER AND HER WORLD OF OBJECTS

If the play gives us many indications of the benign experiences which

Tesman has incorporated in his psyche, what does duty for the good
object in Hedda's inner world is the pair of pistols previously belonging
to her father. The inner poverty of which she speaks to Thea is
highlighted by the fact that the pistols are indeed the only objects,
animate or inanimate, real or imaginary, with which she has what
might be refered to as positive relationship. It is an obvious feature of
the play that whereas Tesman's world is a maternal one, it appears
that for Hedda the only available identifications are with paternal
objects. What is equally obvious from a Kleinian point of view is that
the phallic pistols substitute as good object for the maternal breast. If
the portrait of Hedda's father presides over the action of the play and
his pistols figure so significantly within it, of course it is conspicuously
the case that no reference is made to Hedda's mother. That the
mother figures as absence is highlighted, I think, when Hedda explains
to Brack in Act III how she and Tesman have come to be living in 'the
very home [she] wished for'. Hedda recalls that once when Tesman
was at a loss for something to talk about, and feeling sorry for him, she
said - 'quite casually - that I should like to live here in this villa.' This
'thoughtlessness', she goes on, 'had its consequences', for it led to
their marrying:

HEDDA. ...You see, it was through this passion for the villa of the late
Mrs Falk that Jørgen Tesman and I found our way to an understanding.
That led to our engagement and marriage and wedding trip and
everything. Well, well. As one make's one's bed one

must lie on it, I was going to say.

BRACK. This is delightful! And all the time, it seems, you weren't
interested in the least?

HEDDA. No. Heaven knows, I wasn't.

BRACK. Well, but now? Now that we have made it more or less
comfortable for you?

HEDDA. Oh! I seem to smell lavender and dried roses in all the rooms.
But perhaps Aunt Julle brought the smell with her.

BRACK [laughing]. No, I should think it's more likely the late Mrs Falk
bequeathed it to you!

HEDDA. It reminds one of the departed, all right. Like one's bouquet,
the day after a ball... My friend you can't imagine how horribly bored
I'm going to be out here.

BRACK. But won't there be some object or other in life for you to work
for, like other people, Madam Hedda?

HEDDA. An object ... that would have something fascinating about it?

BRACK. Preferably, of course.

HEDDA. Lord knows what kind of an object it could be... (HG, pp 304-5)

According to Hedda's account her interest in the house of the late Mrs
Falk is as casually motivated as her marrying Tesman, but the intensity
of the play of effects in this passage again gives the lie to Hedda's
dismissive rationalisations. The house is not only that of a dead
woman, but is linked by sensuous association with the world of Aunt
Julle, who represents loving concern on the one hand, but is linked with
the dying Aunt Rina on the other. It reminds Hedda of 'the departed',
and like 'one's bouquet the day after a ball', it seems to be associated
with absence and loss, with a bliss which is gone forever.

In her conversation with Brack, Hedda goes on to toy with the notion
that Tesman might go into politics, but, having pointed out why this is
an unlikely development, Brack hints broadly that before long she
might have another kind of responsibility to live for, whereupon Hedda
declares that she has 'no gift for that kind of thing', and that indeed
the only thing she does have a gift for 'is boring [herself] to death.'
(HG, pp 306-7) A sequence is established here which will be repeated
later in the play. It is in Act III that the book-child comes into Hedda's
possession, and it is at the end of the act that, bloodcurdlingly, she
burns it. Meanwhile, when Tesman has told Hedda how he came to find
the manuscript and has confirmed that such an 'inspired' production
could not be re-written, she hands him - 'casually', as the stage
direction says - a note in which, as he quickly informs Hedda, Aunt Julle
tells him that her sister is dying. At certain moments, when Hedda
faces the prospect of motherhood, it is as if she finds herself haunted
by the shadow of a dead or dying mother figure; and her impulse at
this moment is to erase the existence, real or imagined, of any
offspring she herself might have. That is to say, it is as if she seeks to
destroy the creative at the very roots of her own being.

SECTION III - FATE OR DESTINY?

Why is Hedda Gabler so preoccupied with style? Why is the aesthetic of

suicide of such importance to her? And how are we to judge this final
action of hers? If Hedda is bidding for the full tragic effect, does the
setting of her action after all render it grotesque, absurd, overblown? Is
she in the wrong play - a tragic heroine framed by the elements of
farce? When the curtain falls, has the play's heroine brought about a
transformation of her life, or been mocked in the attempt? Imposed her
own poetic shape upon her life and circumstances, or lent herself, in
the endeavour, to scandal and derision - or mere incomprehension?

TRANSITION AND TRANSFORMATION

This familiar array of unresolvable questions indicates that the

dénouement of the play is the climax of the oscillating relationship
between Hedda and her environment which has been apparent from
the earliest scenes. I have already suggested that, in spite of herself,
Hedda is drawn to Tesman's world on account of the enviably benign
object-relations which it appears to embody. In the final section of this
paper I extend the argument by calling on Winnicott's thinking about
'the use of an object' (Winnicott, 1969), especially as it has beeen
elaborated by Christopher Bollas, through the concepts of the
'transformational object' and the 'destiny drive'. I suggest,
paradoxically enough, that in throwing in her lot with Jørgen Tesman,
Hedda Gabler is seeking an environment in which she might
experience a transformation of her life. In the event she is unable to
use the objects in her internal and external worlds to give shape to her
belief in the 'beautiful', or what Northam calls her 'residually creative
sense of human potentiality'. At the end of everything what she stages
is a dramatisation of her strange illusion that only through destruction
can her world come into being - that destruction is creation.
The audience is alerted to the problematic relationship between Hedda
and the setting in which she finds herself even as the play begins.
Almost her first words are: 'One has to get used to anything new. By
degrees.' (HG, p. 273) During the next few moments she appears
concerned about the open veranda door, the sunlight pouring in, and
the flowers which fill the room. It is then that Aunt Julle presents
Tesman with a package containing the old pair of slippers to which she
knows he is attached. 'Aunt Rina embroidered them for me in bed,
lying ill like that. Just imagine how many memories are worked into
them', he says to Hedda. 'Not for me, particularly', she replies. For
readers of Winnicott it must be evident that the slippers are for
Tesman a transitional object; they belong to a mode of experience in
which past and present, self and other are interwoven to create a
fabric which is always in the making and therefore gives point to life.
Moreover we sense that his preoccupation with 'domestic crafts' in
Brabant in the middle ages is a continuation of the same theme - which
has carried him little further into adult life. It is precisely because
Tesman remains caught up in his early attachments of this kind that
Hedda is drawn to him in spite of herself. Tantalisingly, for Hedda,
Tesman and his slippers represent the baffling clue to the way in which
'objects' are used to create a world.

Several moments of related significance follow the exchange about the

slippers, in an interesting series. Hedda's unconscionable behaviour
over the hat dramatises her immediate response to this initial episode.
Though she later tells Brack that such behaviour 'just comes over [her]'
and she has no idea 'how to explain it' (HG, p.303), her impulse in this
case is clearly to desecrate the signifier of her deprivation. A moment
later, when Tesman invites his Aunt to notice how 'plump' Hedda has
grown, Miss Tesman is overjoyed to think that she is pregnant. Hedda's
reaction during the subsequent exchange gives the first indication of
the way she recoils from the prospect of motherhood. There is no
potential space in her life for a child to come into; she cannot, as I've
argued, conceive of the idea. If Tesman can scarcely conceive of it
either, the reason is that he himself is still in the place of the child.
From this point of view, then, there is an oddly inverted mirror
relationship between Hedda and her husband.

When Miss Tesman has departed we see Hedda, alone on the stage,
'raising her arms and clenching her hands, as if in fury' (HG, p.276). On
Tesman's return she remarks to him how withered the flowers look,
and goes on to reject her husband's appeal to her to behave a little
more like one of the family. There follows a brief discussion on the
question of her piano. It is a conversation which shows how different is
Hedda's life-world from Tesman's. What we would like to feel at this
point is that the piano suggests one way in which Hedda might be
accustomed to express her potentia, to elaborate a personal aesthetic,
and to acquire a sense of 'living creatively'. But the turn of the
conversation oddly undermines any such expectation. For Hedda's
concern is simply that this 'old piano' of hers 'doesn't go with these
other things' (HG, p. 277). She wishes to see it moved to 'the back
room' and a new one purchased for the drawing room. The result is
that we see the piano, after all, as a mere physical object occupying a
physical space in the house. We do not feel that two pianos would fill
up the absences in Hedda's life any more than one.

If the first act of the play is among other things a remarkable study of
the life-worlds of Hedda and Tesman through their relationships with a
range of environmental objects, then of course the two most
dramatically significant of these objects are the portrait of Hedda's
father, and the pair of pistols. Each of these emphasises the dissonant
relationship between Hedda and her new environment - the portrait
because it is a presence which, hauntingly, is never refered to directly
throughout the play; the pistols because, somewhat similarly, they
create the impression of a potential detonation which would destroy
this world at a stroke. In psychoanalytic terms the portrait and the
pistols are signifiers of Hedda's 'object-relations' (as are the slippers in
Tesman's case). Hedda's desire is to articulate her inner world (her
object-relations) in a way which would promote a sense of living
creatively, but the way in which the portrait and the pistols figure in
her world suggests that she is caught up in the repetition of a ghost-
filled past rather than engaged in the creation of a future.

'THE FIRST HUMAN AESTHETIC'

In my view certain developments in Winnicott's thought which have

been introduced by Christopher Bollas illuminate, and are illuminated
by, Ibsen's presentation of Hedda's quest to realise her life in terms of
her own dramatic idiom. In The Shadow of the Object Christopher
Bollas summmarises his thought about 'the first human aesthetic' in
the following way:
The mother's idiom of care and the infant's experience of this handling
is one of the first if not the earliest human aesthetic. It is the most
profound occasion when the nature of the self is formed and
transformed by the environment. The uncanny pleasure of being held
by a poem, a composition, a painting, or, for that matter, any object,
rests on those moments when the infant's internal world is partly given
form by the mother since he cannot shape them or link them together
without her coverage. (1987, p.32)

The first aesthetic moment belongs to a phase of experience which is

pre-cognitive and certainly pre-verbal. At the same time it remains
beyond the subject's cognitive grasp or verbal articulation; it is 'neither
social nor moral; it is curiously impersonal and even ruthless.' What is
also to be noted is that 'transformation does not mean gratification...
[and], likewise, aesthetic moments are not always beautiful or
wonderful - many are ugly and terrifying but nonetheless profoundly
moving because of the existential memory tapped.' (p.29) While 'the
search for symbolic equivalents to the transformational object, and the
experience with which it is identified, continues in adult life', the quest
may be pursued 'to the utter shock or indifference of the person's
subjective experience of his own desire. A gambler is compelled to
gamble. Subjectively he may wish he did not gamble, even hate his
compulsion to do so.' (p.27) Bollas concludes the second chapter of his
book with this statement: 'Transformational object-seeking is an
endless memorial search for something in the future that resides in the
past. I believe that if we investigate many types of object relating we
will discover that the subject is seeking the transformational object and
aspiring to be matched in symbiotic harmony within an aesthetic frame
that promises to metamorphose the self.' (p.40) I am suggesting of
course that Hedda Gabler is seeking just such a transformation of the
self.

Aware that the spectre of 'reductionism' haunts such accounts of

human experience, Bollas observes: 'It is possible to see how the
reduction of spiritual experiences to the discrete administration of the
mother always strikes us as somehow an insult to the integrity of
uncanny experience, as the sacred precedes the maternal. Our earliest
experience is prior to our knowing of the mother as an object in her
own right.' (p.39) What seems to me more important than this
ingenious observation, however, is that in introducing the category of
the aesthetic he makes it possible to think the relationship between
psychoanalysis and art in a way which does not 'privilege' the one
against the other, or 'insult' the experience of being a person.
Considered from this point of view Ibsen and Freud are alike in that
they think of becoming a person as the struggle to shape a style out of
an inheritance. Winnicott's contribution can then be taken to suggest a
revised formulation to the effect that becoming a person is the process
of staging our inheritance in the space of (the) play.

FATE AND DESTINY

Embedded in this metaphor is the issue which haunts our thinking

about psychoanalysis and literature. Does psychoanalytic
interpretation commit us to the idea that literary characters (and real
human beings) are to be seen, necessarily, as acting out a script which
is always already written? In my view the issue has been greatly
clarified by certain formulations which Christopher Bollas has
developed in Forces of Destiny (1989) and Being a Character (1993).
The essence of the matter is the distinction he makes between 'fate'
and 'destiny'. In the earlier book he writes:

A person who is fated, who is fundamentally interred in an internal

world of self and object representations that endlessly repeat the same
scenarios, has very little sense of a future that is at all different from
the environment they carry around with them. The sense of fate is a
feeling of despair to influence the course of one's life. A sense of
destiny, however, is a different state, when the person feels he is
moving in a personality progression that gives him a sense of steering
his course. (1989, p.41)

The first two sentences give us an extraordinarily apposite description

of the haunted world which Hedda Gabler inhabits during most of the
play. The third sentence encapsulates the mode of existence she is
reaching for - in which the 'spontaneous gesture' would open up the
sense of a living future. It is the difference between conforming to a
blueprint and fulfilling a potentiality; between living out time and
creating one's own arc in time. In an earlier chapter of the book Bollas
formulates the 'sense of destiny' in a passage which, again, might have
been composed with Hedda Gabler in mind:

The fashioning of life is something like an aesthetic: a form revealed

through one's way of being. I think there is a particular urge to fashion
a life, and this destiny drive is the ceaseless effort to select and use
objects in order to give lived expression to one's true self. Perhaps the
creativity of a human lifetime is the talent in articulating one's idiom. If
the person continues to be and feel true to himself (not living
compliantly) and is surprised by the continuing elaboration of his self,
then he is fulfilling his destiny. (1989, p.110)
My suggestion is that Hedda's despair arises from the fact that she is
not able 'to use objects in order to give expression to [her] true self'.
She is not able to do so because, from a Winnicottian point of view, she
scarcely lives in a world of objects at all. Bollas takes up the obvious
question:

What does it mean to 'live a life in the world of objects'? Do we not all
live in a world of objects'? Do we know of anyone who does not? The
issue Winnicott addresses can only be understood if we grasp that he
does not assume that we all 'live' a life. We may construct the
semblance of such and certainly the false self attests to this. But to live
a life, to come alive, a person must be able to use objects in a way that
assumes such objects survive hate and do not require undue
reparative work. (p.26)

The word 'object' is of course laden with ambiguities, and very usefully
so, I think. In the first place it may refer to a physical object, or, in
'object-relations' theory, to a human figure; but in the second place it
may also refer to external or to internal objects, that is, internalised
figures or 'part-objects' (the breast, the phallus). As we know, it is the
question of the relationship between the subjective and objective
which energises a great deal of Winnicott's thinking. In 'The Use of an
Object' he makes a remarkable contribution to our understanding of
the way in which the subjective/objective distinction is established in
the course of individual development. It is in assigning a positive value
to aggression within this process that, as Adam Phillips writes,
Winnicott 'makes his final, and in some ways decisive, revision of the
work of Freud and Klein'. Phillips goes on to summarise the
Winnicottian argument as follows: 'If, in Winnicott's terms, the self is
first made real through recognition, the object is first made real
through aggressive destruction, and this, of course, makes experience
of the object feel real to the self. The object, Winnicott says, is placed
outside omnipotent control by being destroyed while, in fact, surviving
the destruction.' (1988, p.131) In other words the object acquires a
quality of 'out-thereness' as a result of surviving (repeatedly) its
destruction in phantasy. Consequently, as Winnicott himself writes,
'the subject may now have started to live a life in the world of objects,
and so the subject gains immeasurably...' (1969, p.90) The gains are
those that have been extensively elaborated upon by Christopher
Bollas in his discussion of the way we 'select and use objects' to give
expression to an individual idiom or 'aesthetic'.

My reading of Ibsen's play can now be stated in a very few words. The
figure of the book-child is a wonderfully imagined device for exploring
the theme of 'the use of an object'. Within the play as a whole this
object is, firstly, both human and non-human; secondly, both internal
and external; and thirdly, both literal and metaphoric. Thus we may
think of the book-child as the play's transitional object and we can go
on to say that the reason why Hedda Gabler is unable to 'fashion a life'
is that, in her personal world, objects (for the most part) do not
survive. That is to say in the realm where it matters they do not
survive her envious hate and destructiveness, and are therefore not
available to be used creatively.

Why does Hedda Gabler commit suicide? It is a moment of astonishing

complexity. She has been trapped by Judge Brack and the humiliation
of it is too much for her to live with perhaps. At the same time she is in
despair at the failure of Løvborg's suicide to ennoble his life, or hers.
Yet, almost concealed by the superficial ironies, a greater despair
haunts the following exchange:

HEDDA ...Doesn't it feel strange to you, Thea? Here you are sitting with
Jørgen Tesman just as

you once sat with Ejlert Løvborg.

MRS ELVSTED. Well, if only I could inspire your husband too -

HEDDA. Oh, that will come out all right - in time.

TESMAN. Yes, do you know, Hedda, I really think I am beginning to feel

something of the kind.

But you go back and sit down with Judge Brack again.

HEDDA. Is there nothing here I can help you two with?

TESMAN. Not a thing in the world... (HG, p.362)

How ironic that Tesman should have the unwitting power so to exclude
Hedda Gabler from the circle of life, and that the two objects of her
envious scorn, Tesman and Thea, should unite to restore the object
she has destroyed. And how ironic also that they should begin to use
the book-child (however ineptly and improbably) to create a new
future. A moment later, with inevitable dramatic logic, Hedda Gabler
'goes into the inner room...draws the curtain', and sits down at her
instrument: 'Suddenly she is heard playing a wild dance tune on the
piano'. The last nail is hammered home when, on account of Aunt Rina,
and 'Ejlert', Tesman cuts short her first defiant gesture of aesthetic
self-expression. Then, within Hedda's hearing, he goes on to suggest to
Mrs Elvsted that she should move into Aunt Julle's house so that they
can continue their work together. During these moments Hedda Gabler
is thrust back, even more deeply, into the void of her self-experience:
it is as if life has no place for her, whether as begetter or begotten.

In whatever terms we think of it Hedda Gabler's inheritance is death

and despair, absence and loss. Experiencing herself as an uncreated
void her 'unthought' project is to stage the scene of her own
conception. Yet at the same time the play reveals in all its workings
that Hedda has no 'inner image of psychic procreativity.' (Bollas, 1993,
p.84) While the play as a whole is struggling to create such an image
the troubling enigma of the central character is that for her this same
struggle constitutes a maddening aporia: to conceive the
inconceivable. The logic by which the dilemma finds its resolution is
even more strange. It is when she destroys everything - that is to say,
herself and the future (her unborn child) - that Hedda Gabler finally
succeeds in making her own idiomatic gesture. To destroy everything
is to leave nothing left to want, nothing left to envy. If nothing is left to
be reduced to nothing, something may begin to be. 'A terrible beauty
is born', and a destiny is fatefully fulfilled.

EPILOGUE - STAGING THE PLAY

Finally I shall claim that the two best known and most distinguished
productions of Hedda Gabler in recent years lend support to the
reading of the play which I have developed in this paper. I have in
mind Trevor Nunn's version, filmed for television, with Glenda Jackson
in the central role (RSC,1975); and Deborah Warner's production, also
made for television, with Fiona Shaw as the protagonist (BBC,1993). In
many ways these two productions are remarkably different from each
other, above all in the central performances. From moment to moment
Glenda Jackson's Hedda is barely able to conceal her disdain for the
people and the world around her; Fiona Shaw's Hedda, on the other
hand, is almost girlishly unsure of herself. It has to be said that Fiona
Shaw's Hedda is entirely lacking in aristocratic hauteur, and the
production is to that extent unsatisfactory; but in certain other
respects Deborah Warner's interpretation of the play provides some
uncanny insights and effects - which, I shall suggest, go to the heart of
the play.

What the two productions have in common is that in different ways

they are both very carefully conceived explorations of dramatic space,
organised around the shifting relationships between the major
characters, the thematic objects and the setting of the play. Trevor
Nunn's production is based on the triangle. Again and again we see
two characters face to face - and between them we see either the face
of a third character, or one of the thematic objects - slippers, pistols,
fire, or manuscript. The potentialities, both creative and destructive, of
the space between two human beings are fascinatingly explored in this
production. The space we are continually aware of in Deborah Warner's
production, on the other hand, is the total dramatic environment. The
set is a drawing room whose proportions are beyond any ordinarily
domestic scale. Costumes and set are in a range of colours which
merge into each other - grey, green, silver, black. The overall tone
merges in turn with that of the enormous gilt-framed mirror which,
daringly, seems to take the place of the portrait of the General. The
surface of the mirror is not clear, but misted over with an unevenly
opaque grey, so that neither Hedda, who looks searchingly into it from
time to time, nor any of the other characters, is able to see herself or
himself in it. Often the characters speak to each other from an unusual
distance; frequently they stand very close to the wall, mirror, or
curtains, almost losing their identities. Hedda herself makes her first
entry into the room by backing into it, carrying a chair. During the
course of the play she continues to move the furniture about, and, at
dramatic moments, to smash things or throw them across the room. In
short it is as if she can make no sense of the relationship between
herself, her environment, and the objects in it: the relationship remains
beyond both her and the audience's grasp. The dramatic energy of
these two productions is generated, then, through their exploration of
the questions concerning the relationship between internal and
external space which are inscribed in Ibsen's text.

CONCLUSION - IBSEN'S CONTRIBUTION

In my view the nature of Ibsen's contribution to the drama in the late

nineteenth century is inadequately stated in the commonplace notion
that he created a naturalistic drama which represents a fixed
bourgeois world, and that he went on to extend the range of this
theatre by introducing a 'natural' symbolism. As we know Ibsen
inherited what had become a highy conventionalised dramatic
tradition. This petrified object he broke down and recreated in a new
form, fashioning in the process his own poetics of the theatre. The
outcome was not merely the staging of a determinate social reality,
with a later admixture of symbolism. It was, more vitally, the re-
creation, for the modern period, of the potential space of the drama.