“The play Hedda Gabler is the product of a mind deeply preoccupied with the

nature of power, particularly the power of one mind to influence and impose
itself upon others”. Discuss. (P.U. 2004)

Henrik Ibsen portrays a microcosm of nineteenth century Norwegian society in his play
Hedda Gabler. Hedda, the protagonist, exhibits a mixture of masculine and feminine
traits due to her unique upbringing under General Gabler and the social mores imposed
upon her. However, although this society venerates General Gabler because of his
military status, his daughter Hedda is not tolerated due to her non-conformity to the
accepted gender stereotypes.
Hedda’s gender-inverted marriage to Jorgen Tesman, her desire for power and her use
of General Gabler’s pistols are unacceptable in her society and motif of “One doesn’t do
such a thing!” that is alluded to during the play and expounded upon Hedda’s death that
shows that Hedda’s uncertain stance between masculine and feminine gender roles and
their associated traits is not tolerated by her society.
Reversal of Traditional Gender Roles
Ibsen employs a reversal of traditional gender roles within Hedda and Jorgen Tesman’s
marriage to emphasize Hedda’s masculine traits. Hedda displays no emotion or
affection towards her husband Jorgen. This appearance of indifference is a trait that is
usually common to men:
Tesman:       My old morning shoes. My slippers look!…I missed them dreadfully. Now you should
see them, Hedda.
Hedda:        No thanks, it really doesn’t interest me.
In another gender role reversal, Hedda displays a financial awareness, which her
husband, Jorgen does not posses. Although Brack corresponds with Tesman about his
honeymoon travels, he corresponds with Hedda concerning the financial matters. This
is a role that is usually reserved for men.
Hedda does not only display traits, which are definitively masculine, or feminine, she
also objects to and often defies the conventions established for her gender by society.
She rejects references to her pregnancy as a reminder of her gender:
Tesman:       Have you noticed how plump (Hedda’s) grown, and how well she is? How much she’s
filled out on our travels?
Hedda:        Oh be quiet!
Hedda is reminded not only of her feminine role of mother and nurturer here, but also
as wife and “appendage” to Tesman. As a woman of the haute bourgeoisie, Hedda is
“sought after” and “always had so many admirers” and has been “acquired” by Tesman
as his wife. Hedda resents the gender conventions that dictate that she now “belongs” to
the Tesman family - a situation that would not occur were she a man.
Tesman:       Only it seems to me now that you belong to the family…
Hedda:        Well, I really don’t know…
Although these traits displayed by Hedda are masculine, they are not those, which her
society cannot tolerate. To entertain herself in her “boring” marriage she plays with her
father, General Gabler’s pistols.
Hedda:        Sometimes I think I only have a talent for one thing…boring myself to death! I still have
one thing to kill time with. My pistols, Jorgen. General Gabler’s pistols.
Tesman:       For goodness’ sake! Hedda darling! Don’t touch those dangerous things! For my sake,
Hedda!
 These pistols are a symbol of masculinity and are associated with war, a pastime which
women are excluded from other than in the nurturing role of nurses and are thus not
tolerated by society. Tesman implores Hedda to cease playing with them, but even his
“superior” position as her husband does not dissuade Hedda, who is found to be playing
with them by Brack at the beginning of act two. Brack also reminds Hedda of the
inappropriate nature of her “entertainment” and physically takes the pistols away from
Hedda.
Hedda:        I’m going to shoot you sir!
Brack:          No, no, no!…Now stop this nonsense! (taking the pistol gently out of her hand). If you
don’t mind, my dear lady.…Because we’re not going to play that game any more today.
As a parallel to Hedda’s masculine game of playing with General Gabler’s pistols, Hedda
plays the traditionally female role of a “minx” with Brack.
Hedda:        Doesn’t it feel like a whole eternity since we last talked to each other?
Brack:          Not like this, between ourselves? Alone together, you mean?
Hedda:        Yes, more or less that.
Brack:          Here was I, every blessed day, wishing to goodness you were home again.
Hedda:        And there was I, the whole time, wishing exactly the same.
At the beginning of act two, Hedda encourages Brack’s flirtation with her by telling him
the true nature of her marriage to Tesman that it is a marriage of convenience:
Brack:          But, tell me…I don’t quite see why, in that case…er…
Hedda:        Why Jorgen and I ever made a match of it, you mean? I had simply danced myself out,
my dear sir. My time was up.
Brack is emboldened by Hedda’s seeming availability and pursues the notion of a
“triangular relationship” with Hedda. Not only does Hedda’s “coquettish” behaviour
towards Brack exhibits the feminine side of her nature, it also demonstrates that in
some instances she conforms to society’s expectations of females. Hedda’s reference to
“(her) time (being) up” shows the socially accepted view that women must marry,
because they are not venerated as spinsters. By conforming to this aspect of her society’s
mores and marrying before she becomes a socially unacceptable spinster, Hedda
demonstrates that she is undeniably female and accepts this.
Hedda constantly seeks power over those people she comes in contact with. As a
woman, she has no control over society at large, and thus seeks to influence the
characters she comes into contact with in an emulation of her father’s socially venerated
role as a general. Hedda pretends to have been friends with Thea in order to solicit her
confidence:
Thea:           But that’s the last thing in the world I wanted to talk about!
Hedda:        Not to me, dear? After all, we were at school together.
Thea:           Yes, but you were a class above me. How dreadfully frightened of you I was in those
days!
Once Hedda learns of Thea’s misgivings about Loevborg’s newfound resolve, she uses it
to destroy their “comradeship”.
Hedda:        Now you see for yourself! There’s not the slightest need for you to go about in this
deadly anxiety…
Loevborg:    So it was deadly anxiety …on my behalf.
Thea:           (softly and in misery) Oh, Hedda! How could you!
Loevborg:    So this was my comrade’s absolute faith in me.
Hedda then manipulates Loevborg, by challenging his masculinity, into going to Brack’s
bachelor party and resuming his drunken ways. Hedda’s “reward” for this is to find that
Loevborg’s manuscript, his and Thea’s “child” falls into her hands, where she burns it,
thus destroying the child and also the relationship, both of which Hedda was jealous of.
Similarly, Hedda seeks to push her husband, Jorgen, into politics: “(I was wondering)
whether I could get my husband to go into politics…” This would raise Hedda’s social
standing and allow her to attain and maintain power. Hedda’s manipulation of people in
order to attain power is a trait that is stereotypically predominant in men. The society of
nineteenth century Norway venerates the image of submissive, static passive and pure
women. Roles of power are normally allocated to men in such a society.
The society in Hedda Gabler demonstrates its intolerance of Hedda’s masculine
behavior by contributing to her death. Hedda is found to be playing with her pistols in
act two by Brack. After disgracing himself and returning to his “immoral” ways at
Hedda’s behest, Loevborg is manipulated by Hedda into “taking his life beautifully” and
she gives him one of General Gabler’s pistols. However Loevborg dies from an accidental
wound to the stomach rather than a patrician death from a bullet to the head and Brack,
utilizing his position of power within the judicial system, sees the pistol that he
accidentally killed himself with. Recognizing it as being General Gabler’s pistol, he
returns to Hedda to stake his claim. Hedda refuses to be in the power of Brack, she had
been “heartily thankful that (he had) no power over (her)” however, her fear is realized
as Brack attempts to force his way into a “triangular relationship” with Hedda (and
Tesman) in return for not exposing the scandal that she had provided Loevborg with the
instrument of his death. Hedda is “as fearful of scandal as all that” and takes her life,
ironically avoiding the scandal surrounding Loevborg’s death and yet causing a scandal
concerning her own. Hedda’s masculine preference for the pistols to any feminine task
of housekeeping and her fear of scandal due to not conforming with society’s accepted
gender roles leads her to kill herself, thus demonstrating that things which “one doesn’t
do” are not tolerated by her society of nineteenth century Norway.

Bring out the dramatic significance of the symbols used in Hedda

Gabler. (P.U. 2006)
Hedda and Thea are presented as not only opponents for the soul and genius of Eilert
Loevborg, 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 Loevborg, 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 Loevborg, 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.
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 Loevborg. 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.
 Mayerson comments that:
The manuscript is Loevborg’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 …”
According to the Ibsen’s stage directions, Hedda has “not especially abundant” 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:
Thea:           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 Loevborg 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 Loevborg, and finally, destroys herself. She is,
ultimately, an ignorant, highly romantic woman, trapped in the rigid bourgeois society
of 19th century Norway.
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. 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
Loevborg 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 Loevborg, 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.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Can Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler be considered a tragedy?

Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler is a definitive look at social conditions involving women at
the turn of the Century. His title character is a complex individual who is driven to
destruction by her great desires. Hedda epitomizes women of that time period by their
dependency on social convention, and she is motivated to do so many things but
unfortunately is without the courage to act upon them.
There are many elements used by Ibsen to depict a tragic hero, and therefore a tragic
play. For example, the reader sees a specific worldview, a main character of noble birth,
and both concepts of the hamartia and peripetia which are vital to the tragic plot. This
raises the question of whether this work can be considered a tragedy. Critics have
continuously debated this issue, even since it was written in 1890. Many thought the
character of Hedda to be too unrealistic, thus the play melodramatic rather than tragic.
However, through the elements mentioned above and by using literary techniques such
as symbolism and irony, Ibsen succeeds in creating this timeless tragedy.
Dependency Between Genders:
Firstly, Ibsen creates a specific worldview to his audience, and he does this by
suggesting a mirror dependency between genders. The male characters in this play are
dependant on women, and the women are dependant on social conventions. Jorgen
Tesman, Hedda’s vacant minded husband is dependant on his Aunt Juliane whereas
Hedda is constantly restrained by her reliance on her ‘what would other think/say’
mentality. The female characters of this play are dependent on the fact that others
depend on them, and Rina is a striking symbol of this very fact. She symbolizes the
vulnerability of everyman being the invalid that she is thus projecting Ibsen’s idea that
everybody is dependant in some way. This viewpoint is extremely accurate in describing
women’s roles in European society in both the 1800’s and present day. Men are
generally viewed as the bread winners, who come home after a hard day at work
expecting to be taken care of by their wives. Women on the other hand, are expected to
be seen and not heard, keeping both the house and family name in tact.
Secondly, the author has created a character of noble birth, another important
characteristic of a tragic play. Evidence of Hedda’s nobility is found in the conversation
between Aunt Julie and the servant Bertha. Julie is reminiscing about Hedda riding by
with her father, obviously an important general of some kind. There is a portrait of
General Gabler that hangs above the sofa, and the reference to the guns that he has left
his daughter represent something with a much deeper meaning. The guns are kept in
the back room along with the piano and writing desk, every outlet of energy for her. This
symbolizes the entrapment that Hedda feels in marrying a man that is perhaps in a
lower social class, and it is this background that leads directly to her hamartia, rather
the decision that leads her to a tragic end and perhaps one of the more important factors
in categorizing this play as a tragedy.
Hedda’s Rash Judgments:
Hedda makes quite a few rash judgments throughout the course of this play so it
is difficult to pinpoint which one to be the most detrimental. There is her decision to
hold on to Eilert Loevborg’s manuscript, to give him the gun that would be the cause of
his accidental death, and the final, fatal choice to end her life. However, none of these
errors in judgment seem as harsh as one that the audience doesn’t even witness, that
being her marriage to Tesman. Hedda was nearing her thirtieth birthday and felt
pressured to get married, so she entered into a union with a man she didn’t love. She
thought he was destined for greatness in his becoming a professor, but has merely set
herself up for disappointment when she sees his true nature. As a result we see the
entrapment that Hedda feels, a feeling that leads to her demise.
Use of Peripetia:
Lastly, the audience sees the use of peripetia, the concept that suggests that the
progression of a tragic character will lead them to a reversal: that they get what they
 want, but what they want is destructive. This is perhaps central to this play, for it is this
that truly defines Hedda Gabler as a tragic character. Hedda’s motivation in this play is
to control somebody’s destiny, and preferably male. Hedda wants to live vicariously
through Loevborg, and so to some extent she does get what she wants, but the outcome
is disastrous. The moment that Hedda has control of Eilert is when she gives him the
gun encouraging him to kill himself, without coming out and saying so. This is what
clinches Loevborg for he feels that he is no longer useful, exemplifying his dependence
on women. The peripetia becomes obvious when Brack tells her that Eilert has been
accidentally killed and the audience sees that Hedda truly is a destructive character.
This reversal is extremely ironic in terms that she wanted Loevborg to be a real man (as
opposed to her husband who behaves according to his infantile dependency) and at the
end we discover that Loevborg dies due to an injury that robs him of his every
manliness.
Conclusion:
The complexities of Hedda and the rest of characters in this play are all puppets
of Ibsen’s view and mentality. He creates a vivid picture of a woman who is socially
tortured beyond her control, and she eventually is led to the tragic end of what was
presumably a tragic life. Through his literary techniques and tragic elements, Ibsen
creates a tragic masterpiece of his time, and one that could well be applied to this time.
She portrays women in society so afraid of social scandal, and she was willing to avoid
one at all costs. This is another example of irony because during that time women like
Hedda did not commit suicide, and therefore in choosing to end her life she creates
something to talk about. This is ironic for the simple fact that her death arose out of a
situation that she so desperately tried to avoid.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Hedda Gabler: A Play of Destruction

Loevborg:    Why did you not shoot me then?

Hedda:        Because I have such a dread of scandal.

For Hedda ‘shooting’ and ‘scandal’ are opposite quantities. Her father’s pistols are her
solace and her strength against a world in which scandal and its constituents are
dominant. And Hedda, when she is ‘bored’ is admitting in the only way she can that life
is more inclined towards scandal than towards pistols. The key to Ibsen’s play lies in this
opposition of hers. Ibsen’s intention is to juxtapose in the character of Hedda the two
forces by which her life is ruled, and through the conflict of which, destroyed.
Loevborg and Hedda
The phrase, which Hedda uses to describe Loevborg, has the same romantic
implications as her pistol-shooting: He must have ‘vine leaves in his hair’, and he must
have the courage to keep them there when the entire world knows that he is simply
drunk. For Loevborg, in spite of his gifts, he is a character with weakness, which even
the abstracted academic George Tesman can perceive clearly. But these very weaknesses
make him amenable to Hedda, for they seem to be anti-social, and Hedda is primarily
concerned to reject a society, which makes life too painful, too boring for her. So that
Hedda is drawn to Loevborg whilst he is dissolute, for his dissipation are a protection
and an assertion for her. But if she is drawn to him it must not be thought she loves him
when there relationship promises to become physical, adult, anything beyond the
talking stage, Hedda rejects Loevborg. He might be forcing ‘scandal’ on her; she is not
interested in anything but the ‘rebellion’, which she and Loevborg can talk together.
Hedda’s Idealism
So ‘scandal’ is for Hedda Gabler the physical reality of life, and it is this reality, which
must be subjected to the romanticism of ‘vine leaves’ and pistols. Hedda is rejecting
sexuality, and in this rejection we find one source of her frigidity, her inhumanity, and
her idealism. It is Hedda’s idealism with which Ibsen is most concerned.
The usual public for the play takes Hedda as a femme fatale to be played with
melodramatic verve by the latest serious actress, and Thea, the women whom Loevborg
calls ‘comrade’ when he is sober and reformed; they take to be the idealist. And certainly
Thea is platonic in her regard for Loevborg; she is concerned with soul-saving, with
great ideals with nature sweet-and-pure. But if she is white then so is Hedda, for they
are equi-distant from reality. Hedda because she takes drunken libidinousness to be
romantic, and Thea because she has conquered it as Una conquered the lion. The
woman in both of them is far from the man in Loevborg, and he too is far from his
masculinity for he alternately takes these man-eaters to be authentic women.
Hedda’s Madness
Ibsen takes the extreme case in Hedda Gabler. Hedda is so for gone with the idealist rot
that she cannot for a moment acknowledge reality. Life is continually letting her down,
only her fantasy of life as it ought to be, clear and beautiful—for Thea this become sweet
and pure—remains constant to her. And this degree of idealistic fervor Ibsen considers
madness. Mad, Hedda certainly is. Mad in her insistence upon the rightness of her
vision against all reality, mad in her idealistic meddling in the lives of people sufficiently
tainted with idealism themselves to be quarry for her, mad, finally, in the complete
servility of her fate. For Hedda is proven wrong most drastically in the conclusion of the
play, Judge Brack, the scheming political man has her completely at his disposal. Her
ideals lead to his kind of servility, to be exploited and possessed by a ’smiling sixty-year
old public man’. And to this point she comes by way of the myth of self-sufficiency,
controlling her own and men’s destinies.
Hedda’s Farcical and Abnormal Behavior
In a sense Hedda Gabler is a farce. Hedda is continually made ridiculous by the facts as
Ibsen reveals them. Her favorite romanticism, suicide by shooting, is not spared ridicule
either. Hedda’s victory promises to be the subjection of Loevborg to the destiny which
she has worked out for him—this suicide by shooting. And Loevborg is hypnotically
instructed to shoot himself cleanly through the temple. In point of fact the gun kills him
when it accidentally goes off in his pocket, and Loevborg dies slowly with his bowels
torn to pieces. The death of Loevborg then is the significant crisis in the play. It
represents to Hedda the final obtrusion of reality upon her identity for the final victory
of the fantasy has become dirtied by scandal the too-physical image of Loevborg, her
Pagan god, dying with his bowels spattered about the room. At no point in her history
has the ideal projected upon this or that external reality, justified to Hedda. At no point
has she accepted reality as an adult is forced to accept it, and with its pain and its
conflicts, attempted to negotiate it. Hedda remains a child, and her way out of this
disillusionment is by the deluded way of a child. If reality will not conform to her
pattern then she will escape reality, she will escape scandal, dirt, disillusion. She will
deny herself to reality and to Judge Brack, she will win the empty victory of suicide, and
she will die the death of the hero, a death which will be a gesture of defiance to the dirty
world.
Conclusion
So Hedda fulfilling the logic Ibsen perceives operative in the neurotic life of such a
romantic idealist kills herself. She represents the wastage of a system of thinking and
feeling which places the highest valuation upon the beauty of as opposed to the grimness
of reality. And it is wastage not only of Hedda, but of Loevborg’s genius and masculinity,
of his work, and finally the child Hedda might be carrying. This child can be considered
the final assault of reality ‘scandal’ upon Hedda. She follows out the logic of rejection;
her own sexuality, male sexuality, adult responsibility, conflict, the child, and life are all
made dirt and are destroyed. 

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Is Hedda Gabler a tragedy or a play about the problem of relationship between
the Individual and the society?

The Individual and Society

Ibsen may be seen as a social dramatist in the sense that Hedda Gabler, like many of his
greatest plays, is deeply engaged with the problems of the relationship between the
individual and society. But he is not a social dramatist in the simpler sense that he is
trying to find answers to remediable social ‘problems’. Rather, his great dramas, in
various ways, deal with the major theme of Hedda Gabler, which is simultaneously a
characteristic and tragic dilemma of modern man: how to be oneself, yet at the same
time how to live in society? Because Ibsen sees no easy answer to this impasse or
perhaps no answer at all, he has created one form of modern tragedy. John Northam’s
remarks are apposite:

For a man of Ibsen’s generation the great opponent of man was seen to be society – not
just society in its ‘problem play’ aspect, the source of definable, limitable, and often
remediable misery, but society as a force working through a myriad of obscure agencies
and trivial occasions, but working with a power and mystery comparable to that
displayed by the Greek gods or the Elizabethan universe.

Is Hedda Gabler a Tragic Drama?

Many would object to the view that Hedda Gabler could be considered a tragedy. Such
objections might be based, for example, on a feeling that prose is an inappropriate
medium for the tragic vision, lacking the dignity and loftiness of the verse employed in
Greek and Elizabethan tragedy, and incapable of embodying in language the large
aspiration and greatness of soul associated with the traditional tragic hero. W. B. Yeats,
for example, found in Ibsen only ‘the stale odor of split poetry’. Closely related is a
traditionalist assumption that only certain types of characters are suitable for tragic
treatment: Kings, Princes, those in high places. Hedda may seem ‘aristocratic’ to the
mediocre Tesman, but her brand of aristocracy would not be of the kind to give her
tragic status in the eyes of the traditionalists. Her fate does not involve the fate of
nations; her drama is domestic rather than public and social. However, it can be pointed
out to the traditionalists that to tie the essence of tragedy so firmly to a kind of social
register seems more and more inappropriate in an egalitarian age, and that much
literature of the last two hundred years – in the novel form as well as in the dramatic
medium – has powerfully challenged ‘the assumption that tragic suffering is the somber
privilege’ of the great and high-born, as in Greek and Elizabethan tragedy. It is true that
verse can add immeasurably to the tragic effect, intensifying emotion, deepening our
sense of character and widening the horizons of a drama to give it a quality of university.
But it would be wrong to believe that Ibsen’s deliberate rejection of verse meant that he
was not only committing himself to prose, but to the prosaic. Hedda Gabler (indeed all
of Ibsen’s plays from The Wild Duck onwards) reveals his ability to imbue his realistic
settings, natural and mundane object, and ordinary speech with a persistent and – to
my mind – convincing symbolic resonance. Ultimately it is the power of Ibsen’s
conception which he sees Hedda’s position ensures that we too see not merely a
Norwegian housewife walking about in a drawing-room, but a theatrical image of
trapped spirit in a cage; and the famous pistols and the references to the ‘vine leaves in
the hair’ are only extreme examples of a tendency in all the dialogue to move towards
deeper and ‘symbolic’ significances, as Ibsen strives to give dramatic embodiment not to
the superficial externals but to the inner core of Hedda’s dilemma.
Is Hedda a Tragic Heroine?
It could still be argued that Hedda is not sufficiently sympathetic to be seen as a tragic
heroine. Her contempt for her husband, her meanly destructive treatment of Thea, and
her shocking and predatory interference in Loevborg’s life – none of these things is
likeable. And what do her life and death teach us? Where are the positives in the play?
Behind all this there lies the view that insists that the tragic hero must have nobility of
spirit, and learn something positive from his suffering. R. P. Draper questions these
prescriptions, which, as he says, work well for plays such as Hamlet but perhaps not
quite so well for another kind of play, such as Macbeth:
Criticism which centers on this kind of tragedy (‘heroic tragedy’ like Hamlet, with its
positive emphases) . . . tends to look for triumph in defeat, a tragedy that reassures
rather than depresses. The tragedy which comes from distortion and perversion of the
vital forces sustaining humanity, or the tragedy of bleakness deriving from a
Schopenhauerian sense of the delusiveness of life itself – these are not catered for, or
they are demoted to the level of non-tragedy.
Perhaps, as Draper implies, we need to broaden our notion of the tragic if it is too
narrow to admit Hedda Gabler; we need to appeal to the theatrical experience. 

aturday, November 6, 2010

“The play Hedda Gabler is the product of a mind deeply preoccupied with the
nature of power, particularly the power of one mind to influence and impose
itself upon others”. Discuss. (P.U. 2004)

Henrik Ibsen portrays a microcosm of nineteenth century Norwegian society in his play
Hedda Gabler. Hedda, the protagonist, exhibits a mixture of masculine and feminine
 traits due to her unique upbringing under General Gabler and the social mores imposed
upon her. However, although this society venerates General Gabler because of his
military status, his daughter Hedda is not tolerated due to her non-conformity to the
accepted gender stereotypes.
Hedda’s gender-inverted marriage to Jorgen Tesman, her desire for power and her use
of General Gabler’s pistols are unacceptable in her society and motif of “One doesn’t do
such a thing!” that is alluded to during the play and expounded upon Hedda’s death that
shows that Hedda’s uncertain stance between masculine and feminine gender roles and
their associated traits is not tolerated by her society.
Reversal of Traditional Gender Roles
Ibsen employs a reversal of traditional gender roles within Hedda and Jorgen Tesman’s
marriage to emphasize Hedda’s masculine traits. Hedda displays no emotion or
affection towards her husband Jorgen. This appearance of indifference is a trait that is
usually common to men:
Tesman:       My old morning shoes. My slippers look!…I missed them dreadfully. Now you should
see them, Hedda.
Hedda:        No thanks, it really doesn’t interest me.
In another gender role reversal, Hedda displays a financial awareness, which her
husband, Jorgen does not posses. Although Brack corresponds with Tesman about his
honeymoon travels, he corresponds with Hedda concerning the financial matters. This
is a role that is usually reserved for men.
Hedda does not only display traits, which are definitively masculine, or feminine, she
also objects to and often defies the conventions established for her gender by society.
She rejects references to her pregnancy as a reminder of her gender:
Tesman:       Have you noticed how plump (Hedda’s) grown, and how well she is? How much she’s
filled out on our travels?
Hedda:        Oh be quiet!
Hedda is reminded not only of her feminine role of mother and nurturer here, but also
as wife and “appendage” to Tesman. As a woman of the haute bourgeoisie, Hedda is
“sought after” and “always had so many admirers” and has been “acquired” by Tesman
as his wife. Hedda resents the gender conventions that dictate that she now “belongs” to
the Tesman family - a situation that would not occur were she a man.
Tesman:       Only it seems to me now that you belong to the family…
Hedda:        Well, I really don’t know…
Although these traits displayed by Hedda are masculine, they are not those, which her
society cannot tolerate. To entertain herself in her “boring” marriage she plays with her
father, General Gabler’s pistols.
Hedda:        Sometimes I think I only have a talent for one thing…boring myself to death! I still have
one thing to kill time with. My pistols, Jorgen. General Gabler’s pistols.
Tesman:       For goodness’ sake! Hedda darling! Don’t touch those dangerous things! For my sake,
Hedda!
These pistols are a symbol of masculinity and are associated with war, a pastime which
women are excluded from other than in the nurturing role of nurses and are thus not
tolerated by society. Tesman implores Hedda to cease playing with them, but even his
“superior” position as her husband does not dissuade Hedda, who is found to be playing
with them by Brack at the beginning of act two. Brack also reminds Hedda of the
 inappropriate nature of her “entertainment” and physically takes the pistols away from
Hedda.
Hedda:        I’m going to shoot you sir!
Brack:          No, no, no!…Now stop this nonsense! (taking the pistol gently out of her hand). If you
don’t mind, my dear lady.…Because we’re not going to play that game any more today.
As a parallel to Hedda’s masculine game of playing with General Gabler’s pistols, Hedda
plays the traditionally female role of a “minx” with Brack.
Hedda:        Doesn’t it feel like a whole eternity since we last talked to each other?
Brack:          Not like this, between ourselves? Alone together, you mean?
Hedda:        Yes, more or less that.
Brack:          Here was I, every blessed day, wishing to goodness you were home again.
Hedda:        And there was I, the whole time, wishing exactly the same.
At the beginning of act two, Hedda encourages Brack’s flirtation with her by telling him
the true nature of her marriage to Tesman that it is a marriage of convenience:
Brack:          But, tell me…I don’t quite see why, in that case…er…
Hedda:        Why Jorgen and I ever made a match of it, you mean? I had simply danced myself out,
my dear sir. My time was up.
Brack is emboldened by Hedda’s seeming availability and pursues the notion of a
“triangular relationship” with Hedda. Not only does Hedda’s “coquettish” behaviour
towards Brack exhibits the feminine side of her nature, it also demonstrates that in
some instances she conforms to society’s expectations of females. Hedda’s reference to
“(her) time (being) up” shows the socially accepted view that women must marry,
because they are not venerated as spinsters. By conforming to this aspect of her society’s
mores and marrying before she becomes a socially unacceptable spinster, Hedda
demonstrates that she is undeniably female and accepts this.
Hedda constantly seeks power over those people she comes in contact with. As a
woman, she has no control over society at large, and thus seeks to influence the
characters she comes into contact with in an emulation of her father’s socially venerated
role as a general. Hedda pretends to have been friends with Thea in order to solicit her
confidence:
Thea:           But that’s the last thing in the world I wanted to talk about!
Hedda:        Not to me, dear? After all, we were at school together.
Thea:           Yes, but you were a class above me. How dreadfully frightened of you I was in those
days!
Once Hedda learns of Thea’s misgivings about Loevborg’s newfound resolve, she uses it
to destroy their “comradeship”.
Hedda:        Now you see for yourself! There’s not the slightest need for you to go about in this
deadly anxiety…
Loevborg:    So it was deadly anxiety …on my behalf.
Thea:           (softly and in misery) Oh, Hedda! How could you!
Loevborg:    So this was my comrade’s absolute faith in me.
Hedda then manipulates Loevborg, by challenging his masculinity, into going to Brack’s
bachelor party and resuming his drunken ways. Hedda’s “reward” for this is to find that
Loevborg’s manuscript, his and Thea’s “child” falls into her hands, where she burns it,
thus destroying the child and also the relationship, both of which Hedda was jealous of.
Similarly, Hedda seeks to push her husband, Jorgen, into politics: “(I was wondering)
whether I could get my husband to go into politics…” This would raise Hedda’s social
standing and allow her to attain and maintain power. Hedda’s manipulation of people in
order to attain power is a trait that is stereotypically predominant in men. The society of
nineteenth century Norway venerates the image of submissive, static passive and pure
women. Roles of power are normally allocated to men in such a society.
The society in Hedda Gabler demonstrates its intolerance of Hedda’s masculine
behavior by contributing to her death. Hedda is found to be playing with her pistols in
act two by Brack. After disgracing himself and returning to his “immoral” ways at
Hedda’s behest, Loevborg is manipulated by Hedda into “taking his life beautifully” and
she gives him one of General Gabler’s pistols. However Loevborg dies from an accidental
wound to the stomach rather than a patrician death from a bullet to the head and Brack,
utilizing his position of power within the judicial system, sees the pistol that he
accidentally killed himself with. Recognizing it as being General Gabler’s pistol, he
returns to Hedda to stake his claim. Hedda refuses to be in the power of Brack, she had
been “heartily thankful that (he had) no power over (her)” however, her fear is realized
as Brack attempts to force his way into a “triangular relationship” with Hedda (and
Tesman) in return for not exposing the scandal that she had provided Loevborg with the
instrument of his death. Hedda is “as fearful of scandal as all that” and takes her life,
ironically avoiding the scandal surrounding Loevborg’s death and yet causing a scandal
concerning her own. Hedda’s masculine preference for the pistols to any feminine task
of housekeeping and her fear of scandal due to not conforming with society’s accepted
gender roles leads her to kill herself, thus demonstrating that things which “one doesn’t
do” are not tolerated by her society of nineteenth century Norway. 

Hedda's Struggle Between Mascu

 Word Count: 2205
 Approx Pages: 9
 Has Bibliography


             Hedda Gabler’s Struggle Between Masculinity and Femininity

             Henrik Ibsen portrays Hedda Gabler as a nineteenth century woman in conflict with
herself. Because of her unique upbringing under General Gabler and the social standards
imposed upon her as a woman, Hedda exhibits both masculine and feminine traits that are
characterized by her actions throughout the play. Hedda is faced with the impossible feat of
trying to live with these opposing traits. The male role she embraces in her marriage to Tesman,
her desire for power over Thea and Lovborg, and her use of her father’s pistols conflict with her
role as a perfect wife that Hedda must have in this male-dominated society. Because it is
impossible for Hedda to clearly choose between the male and female sides of her life, she tries to
live a dual role by keeping her male beliefs and actions hidden. Many times, she does not speak
openly, nor does she act in a manner that completely reveals the duality of her life. However, the
final acts of the play reveal that these attempts to work out a compromise between her wish to
behave as a male and her wish to conform to expectations of her as a woman will never work as
she wants it to. Thus, Hedda kills herself rather than live a life that is not truly her own.
             Early in the play Ibsen is able to demonstrate Hedda’s masculinity and the problems that
arise in her associations with her new husband. Hedda displays no emotion or affection towards
this man. This outward show of apathy is a trait that is usually common to men, who must
stoically face any battle that arises. An example of this is when Tesman yelps with joy when
Aunt Julie gives him his old slippers. Though Aunt Rina had made them for Tesman a long time
ago, Hedda, cold and calculated, plays the role as a man and does not take to her husband’s
slippers with any interest. She refuses the offer to see the shoes, telling Tesman, “Thanks, but I
really don‘t care...

to.” (229). Hedda does not feel any emotion towards the old slippers because she does not feel that she
is a part of the Tesman family.
             It is impossible for Hedda to feel that she is a part of the Tesman family because she objects to
the conventions established for her gender by society. She rejects references to her pregnancy as a
reminder of her gender: “Oh, do be quiet!” she snaps to Tesman when he remarks that she is filling out
(230). With the suggestion of pregnancy, Hedda is not only reminded of her feminine role as a mother,
but also as a wife of Tesman, something that she has as much contempt for as his lowly bedroom
slippers. Hedda resents the gender conventions that dictate that she now belongs to the Tesman family,
a situation that would not occur were she a man. Because of this situation, Hedda uses all her strength
to keep her emotions shut in. When Tesman suggests that she is part of the family, all Hedda can say is,
“Hm--I really don’t know--” (232). The only way she is to carry on with this conflicting life is to remain
quiet.
             Hedda has become completely convinced that the revealing of any emotion is wrong and as a
result she will play with her pistols in an effort to amuse herself instead of actually voicing her male
opinions. These pistols themselves represent masculinity and Hedda finds some comfort in cherishing
them. The pistols are Hedda’s outlet from the reality around her. Tesman begs her to not play with the
pistols at the end of Act 1, but at the beginning of the very next act, Hedda is seen loading them and
even pretending to shoot Judge Brack. Thus, even after both Judge Brack Tesman vehemently try

Symbolism in Hedda Gabler
November 6, 2010 neoenglish MA English-Literature
The Function of Symbols
Criticism of the “naturalistic” plays of Ibsen has been so largely directed toward establishing his
stature as psychologist and social iconoclast that his characteristic use of functional imagery in
Hedda Gabler has been for the most part neglected. Of course such statements as Gosse’s that
“there is “no species of symbol” in the play have not stood uncorrected”.

But Jeannette Lee’s interpretation of Hedda (committed, by her own admission, to the
gentian policy of going round about) as “a pistol, deadly, simple, passionless and
straight,” is confusing, and Miss Lee’s allegorical exegesis, in which the soul of the poet
(the manuscript) is destroyed through the combined effort of animality (Madame Diana)
and cold intellect (Hedda), despite the efforts of love (Thea) may be regarded as an
oversimplification of the ironic world-view to which Ibsen’s total achievement bears
witness. Auguste Ehrhard more convincingly interpreted Loevborg’s book as the future,
which Hedda, the demon of destruction, attempts to impede and destroy, but Ehrhard’s
discussion omits consideration of other important symbols. In short, while these studies
have indicated another perspective from which Ibsen’s artistry may be profitably
examined, their effect is to provoke reinvestigation, of rather than to explain
satisfactorily, the meaning and function of the symbols.

The Relationship of Symbols with Theme

During the course of the play, Ibsen places considerable emphasis upon Thea’s hair, upon the
manuscript as her “child,” and upon General Gabler’s pistols, and his treatment of these items
suggests that he intended them to have symbolic significance. We shall be concerned in this
essay with determining this significance and its effect upon the total meaning of the play. Our
analysis of the three symbols in their relationship to the theme, the characters, and the action
will be based upon several broad assumptions, which reflect views of Ibsen’s concepts and
methods implied or expressed by a number of previous commentators: 1) In Hedda Gabler Ibsen
examines the possibility of attaining freedom and fulfillment in modern society. 2) 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, is complicated by her incomplete understanding of what
freedom and fulfillment mean and how they may be achieved. She fails to realize that one must
earn his inheritance in order to possess it and she romanticizes the destructive and sensational
aspects of Dionysiac ecstasy without perceiving that its true end is regeneration through
sublimation of the ego in a larger unity. 3) Ibsen, as an experienced artist, was aware of the
impact of minutiae and the need for integrating these with the general impression to be
projected therefore we may regard his description his stage direction and his properties, no less
than his dialogue, as means where by intention and significance are conveyed.
Symbolic Significance of Hedda and Thea
While all the other characters in Hedda Gabler are implicitly compared to Hedda and serve, in
one way or another, to throw light upon her personality, Thea Elvsted is the one with whom she
is most obviously contrasted. Furthermore, their contest for the control of Loevborg is the most
prominent external conflict in the play. The sterility-fertility antithesis from which central action
proceeds is chiefly realized through the opposition of these tows. Hedda is pregnant, and Thea is
physically barren. But in emotionally repudiating her unborn child, Hedda rejects what Ibsen
considered woman’s opportunity to advance the march of progress. The many other symptoms
of her psychic sterility need little enlargement. Unwilling to give or even share herself, she
maintains her independence at the price of complete frustration. Ibsen uses Thea, on the other
hand to indicate a way freedom, which Hedda never apprehends. Through her ability to extend
herself in comradeship with Loevborg, Thea not only brings about the rebirth of his creative
powers, butt merges her own best self with his to produced a prophecy of the future conceivably
of the Third Kingdom in which Ibsen believed that the Ideals of the past would coalesce in a new
and more perfect unity. Having lost herself to find her self she almost instinctively breaks with
the mores of her culture in order to ensure continuance of function. Despite her palpitating
femininity, she is the most truly emancipated person in the play. And it is she who wins at least a
limited victory in the end. Although Loevborg has failed her, her fecundity is indefatigable: as
Hedda kills herself, Thea is busily preparing to recreate her child with Tesman, thereby at once
enabling him to realize his own little talents, and weakening even further the tenuous bond
which ties him to Hedda.
Manuscript
The contrast outlined above is reinforced by the procreative imagery of the play. The manuscript
is Loevborg’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 onward Thea’s “child” and toward Thea’s hair and calls attention to the
relationship between them. Even without other indications that Ibsen was using hair as a
symbol of fertility; such an inference might be made from the words which accompany the
destruction of the manuscript:
Now I am burning your child, Thea! Burning it, curly-clock! Your child and Eilert Loevborg’s. I
am burning- I am burning your child.
Thea’s Hair
There is, however, considerable evidence, both before and after this scene, that Thea’s hair is a
sign of that potency which Hedda envies even while she ridicules and bullies its possessor.
Ibsen, of course, had ample precedent for employing hair as a symbol of fertility. Perhaps the
best support for the argument that he made a literary adaptation of this well-known, ancient
idea in Hedda Gabler is a summary of the instances in which the hair is mentioned.
Although Ibsen’s unobtrusive description of the hair of each of these women at her initial
entrance may seem at the time only a casual stroke in the sketch, it assumes importance in
retrospect. Hedda’s hair is “not particularly abundant,” whereas Thea’s is “unusually abundant
and wavy.” Hedda’s strongest impression of Thea is of that abundance:
She recalls her as “the girl with irritating hair that she was always showing off.” Moreover Thea
fearfully recollects Hedda’s school-girl reaction to it: “… when we met on the stairs you used
always to pull my hair … Yes, and once you said you would burn it off my head.” When Thea and
Loevborg first meet in the play, Hedda seats herself, significantly, between them; the brief
exchange of questions and answers, which ensues, is notable for its overtones: “Is not she (Thea)
lovely to look at?” Loevborg asks. Hedda, lightly “Only to look at?” Loevborg asks. Hedda, lightly
stroking Thea’s hair, answers, “Yes. For we two—she and I—we two are real comrades.” Later,
when the women are alone, Hedda, now fully informed of the extent to which Thea has realized
her generative powers, laments her own meager endowment and renews her threat in its
adolescent terms:
Oh, If you could only understand how poor I am, and fate has made you so rich! (Clasps her
passionately in her arms) I think I must burn your hair off after all.
Hedda’s violent gesture and Thea’s almost hysterical reaction (“Let me go! I am afraid of you,
Hedda!”) Indicate the dangerous seriousness of words which otherwise might be mistaken for a
joke; the threat prepares us for the burning of the manuscript, which follows in Act III. In the
last tense scene of the play Hedda twice handles Thea’s hair. The reader’s imagination readily
contracts the expressions and gestures whereby an actress could show Hedda’s true attitude
toward the hair which Ibsen directs her to ruffle “gently: and to pass her hands “softly through.”
The first gesture follows immediately upon an important action—Hedda has just removed the
pistol to the inner room. The second accompanies dialogue which for the last time emphasizes
Hedda’s association of the hair with Thea’s fertility and which brings home to Hedda her own
predicament:
Hedda:        (Passes her hands softly through Mrs. Elvsted’s hair). Doesn’t it seem strange to you, Thea? Here
you are sitting with Tesman—just as you used to sit with Eilert Loevborg?
Mrs. Elvsted: Ah, if I could only inspire your husband in the same way!
Hedda:        Oh, that will come too—in time.
Tesman:       Yes, do you know, Hedda—I really think I begin to feel something of the sort. But won’t you go
to sit with Brack again?
Hedda:        Is there nothing I can do to help you two?
Tesman:       No, nothing in the world.
These scenes in which the hair plays a part not only call attention to Hedda’s limitations but
show her reaction to her partial apprehension of them. In adapting a primitive symbol, Ibsen
slightly altered its conventional meaning, substituting physical for physical potency. Its
primitivistic associations nevertheless pervade the fundamental relationships between the two
women. The weapons Hedda uses against Thea are her hands and fire. The shock of the
climactic scene results chiefly from seeing the savage emerge from behind her veneer of
sophistication—the Hedda who feeds the manuscript to the flames is a naked woman engaged in
a barbaric act. In contrast, the Hedda who handles her father’s pistols is self-consciously cloaked
in illusions of her hereditary participation in a chivalric tradition.
Pistols
The pistols, like many other symbols used by Ibsen, quite obviously are not merely symbols, but
have important plot function as well. Moreover, their symbolic significance cannot be reduced to
a simple formula, but must be thought of in the light of the complex of associations which they
carry as Hedda’s legacy from General Gabler. Through Hedda’s attitude toward and uses of the
pistols, Ibsen constantly reminds us that Hedda “is to be regarded rather as her father’s
daughter than as her husband’s wife.” Clearly the pistols are linked with certain values in her
background which Hedda cherishes. Complete definition of these values is difficult without a
more thorough knowledge of Ibsen’s conception of a Norwegian general than the play or
contemporary comment on it allows. Perhaps, as Brandes said, nineteenth century audiences
recognized that Hedda’s pretensions to dignity and grandeur as a general’s daughter were falsely
based, “that a Norwegian general is a cavalry officer, who as a rule, has never smelt powder, and
whose pistols are innocent of bloodshed.” Such a realization, however, by no means nullifies the
theoretical attributes and privileges of generalship to which Hedda aspires. Possibly Ibsen
intended us to understand that Hedda is a member of a second generation of “ham actors” who
betray their proud tradition by their melodramatic posturings. But it is this tradition. However
ignoble its carrier, to which the pistols and Hedda (in her own mind) belong, and it is, after all,
the general only as glimpsed through his daughter’s ambitions and conceptions of worth that is
of real importance in the play. These conceptions, as embodied in Hedda’s romantic ideal of
manhood, may be synthesized form the action and dialogue. The aristocrat possesses, above all,
courage and self-control. He expressed himself through direct and independent action, living to
capacity and scorning security and public opinion. Danger only piques his appetite, and death
with honor is the victory to be plucked from defeat. But the recklessness of this Hotspur is
tempered by a disciplined will, by means of which he “beautifully” orders both his own actions
and those of others on whom his power is imposed. Such a one uses his pistols with deliberation,
with calculated aim. He shoots straight—to defend his life or his honor, and to maintain his
authority. Pistols, however, have an intrinsic glamour. Of the several possible accoutrements of
a general, his pistols are those least likely to evoke thoughts of chivalric principles and most
likely to recall the menace of the power vested in him. And such power, as Hedda Gabler shows
us, delivered into the hands of a confused and irresponsible egotist, brings only meaningless
destruction to all who come within its range.
Manipulation of the Pistols
The manipulation of the pistols throughout the play is a mockery of their traditional role. Except
at target practice, Hedda Does not even shoot straight until her suicide. Her potential danger is
recognized by both men whom she threatens, but both understand (Brack, immediately;
Loevborg, in Act II) that her threat is a theatrical gesture, and that she has no real intention of
acting directly, in defiance of the convention which bid her “go roundabout” Her crass
dishonesty in her sexual encounters is highlighted by this gun play. She uses the pistols to be
sure, to ward off or warn off encroachments upon her “honor” This honor, however, is rooted in
social expedience rather than in a moral code. Having in-directly encouraged Loevborg by a
succession of intimate tete-a-tetes, she poses as an outraged maiden when he makes amorous
advances, thereby, as she later hints, thwarting her own emotional needs. Subsequently she sells
her body to Tesman as cynically as (and far less honestly than) Madame Diana sells hers, then
deliberately participates in the form, if not the substance, of marital infidelity with Brack in
order to relieve her boredom. Both Hedda and Brack become aware of the cold ruthlessness of
the other and the consequent danger to the loser if his delicate equilibrium of their relationship
should be disturbed. But until the end Brack is so complacently convinced that Hedda is his
female counterpart that he has no fear she will do more than shoot over his head; even as she
lies dead, he can hardly believe that she has resorted to direct action —” People don’t do such
things.”
Death of Loevborg      
The part the pistols play in Loevborg’s death makes a central contribution to our understanding
of the degree to which the ideals they represent are distorted by the clouded perspective from
which Hedda views them. She has no real comprehension of, nor interest in, the vital creative
powers Thea helps Loevborg to realize. Instead, she glorifies his weaknesses, mistaking bravado
for courage, the indulgence of physical appetites for god-like participation in “the banquet of
life,” a flight from reality for a heroic quest for totality of experience. Even more important is the
fact that as she inhibits her own instinctive urge for fulfillment; she romanticizes its converse.
Thus, having instigated his ruin, she incites Loevborg to commit suicide with her pistol. This
radical denial of the will to live she arbitrarily invests with the heroism and beauty one
associates with a sacrificial death; Hedda is incapable of making the distinction between an
exhibitionistic gesture that 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.
Conclusion
It would appear, then, that the symbols while they do not carry the whole thematic burden of
Hedda Gabler, illuminate the meaning of the characters and the action with which they are
associated. As Eric Bentley has suggested, the characters, like those in the other plays of Ibsen’s
last period, are the living dead who dwell in a waste-land that resembles T.S Eliot’s. And, like
Eliot later, Ibsen emphasized the aridity of the present by contrasting it with the heroic past.
Indeed, Hedda Gabler may be thought of as a mock-tragedy, a sardonically contrived travesty of
tragic action, which Ibsen shows us is no longer possible in the world is sick with a disease less
curable than that of Oedipus’ Thebes or Hamlet’s Denmark. For its hereditary leaders are
shrunken in stature, maimed and paralyzed by their enslavement to the ideals of the dominant
middle-class. With the other hollow men, they despise but nonetheless worship the false gods of
respectability and security, paying only lip-service to their ancestral principles. Such geniuses as
this society produces are, when left to themselves, too weak to do more than batter their own
heads against constricting barriers. They dissipate their talents and so fail in their mission as
prophets and disseminators of western culture; its interpretation is left to the unimaginative
pedant, picking over the dry bones of the past. Women, the natural seminal vesicles of that
culture, the mothers of the future, are those most cruelly inhibited by the sterilizing atmosphere
of their environment. At one extreme is Aunt Julia, the genteel spinster, over-compensating for
her starved emotions with obsessive self-dedication. At the other is Diana, the harlot. Even
Thea, the progenitive spirit, the girl with the abundant hair, is a frail and colorless repository for
the seeds of generation. Her break with convention when it threatens her maternity is shown to
be the one mode of escape from the fate that overtakes the others. But Ibsen gives her triumph,
too, a ludicrous twist. Hardly having begun the mourning song for her Adonis, she brings forth
her embryonic offspring form her pocket and proceeds to mold it into shape with the aid of a
Tesman—an echo of the classic death and rebirth, to be sure, but one not likely to produce the
glorious Third kingdom of which Ibsen dreamed. And appropriately bolding the center of the
stage throughout is Hedda, in whom the shadows of the past still struggle in a losing battle with
the sterile specter of the present. Her pistols are engraved with insignia which the others
understand not at all and which she only dimly comprehends. Her colossal egotism, her lack of
self-knowledge, her cowardice, render her search for fulfillment but a succession of futile
blunders which culminate in the supreme futility of death. Like peer Gynt, she is fit only for the
ladle of the button-molder; she fails to realize a capacity either for great good or for great evil.
Her mirror-image wears the mask of tragedy, but Ibsen makes certain that we see the horns and
pointed ears of the satyr protruding from behind it.

Ibsen and Feminism

November 6, 2010 neoenglish MA English-Literature
Ibsen a Feminist or Socialist:
The question of Ibsen’s relationship to feminism, whether one is referring specifically to the
turn-of-the-century women’s movement or more generally to feminism as an ideology, has been
a vexed one.

The view supporting Ibsen as feminist can be seen to lie along a spectrum of attitudes
with Ibsen as quasi-socialist at one end and Ibsen as humanist at the other. Proponents
of the first stance might point to an amateur performance of A Doll’s House in 1886 in a
Bloomsbury drawing room in which all the participants were not only associated with
the feminist cause but had achieved or would achieve prominence in the British socialist
movement. Looking at Ibsen’s advocates in terms of political groups, one may safely
claim that his strongest supporters were found in socialist circles.

Ibsen and Women Cause:

Ibsen himself often linked the women’s cause to other areas in need of reform, arguing for
example that ‘all the unprivileged’ (including women) should form a strong progressive party to
fight for the improvement of women’s position and of education. Similarly, in a frequently
quoted speech made to the working men of Trondheim in 1885, Ibsen stated:
The transformation of social conditions which is now being undertaken in the rest of Europe is
very largely concerned with the future status of the workers and of women. That is what I am
hoping and waiting for, that is what I shall work for, all I can.
The question of Ibsen’s relationship to socialism is illuminated by the fact that, in the nineteenth
century, socialism and feminism were familiar bedfellows. The most prominent socialist
thinkers of the day, male and female, saw that true sexual equality necessitates fundamental
changes in the structure of society; it is no accident that progressive attitudes toward women in
Scandinavia have been bound up with overall liberal trends.
Ibsen: The Humanist
At the other end of the spectrum, those arguing that Ibsen’s concerns were not narrowly
feminist or political but broadly human invariably cite the speech he made at a banquet given in
his honor by the Norwegian Women’s Rights League on 26 May 1898:
I am nor a member of the Women’s Rights League. Whatever I have written has been without
any conscious thought of making propaganda. I have been more poet and less social philosopher
than people generally seem inclined to believe. I thank you for the toast, but must disclaim the
honor of having consciously worked for the women’s rights movement. I am not even quite clear
as to just what this women’s rights movement really is. To me it has seemed a problem of
humanity in general.
This statement is perhaps best understood, however, against the background of Ibsen’s
frequently voiced disinclination to belong to parties or societies of any kind. In general, it seems
unproductive to regard these three ‘causes’—the socialist cause, the women’s cause, and the
human cause—as mutually exclusive for Ibsen. His concern with the state of the human soul cuts
across class and gender lines. Yet this is not to say that he did not at times concentrate his
attention on the condition of women as women.
Ibsen views about Women cause
His speech to the Norwegian Women’s Rights League notwithstanding, the younger Ibsen made
a number of claims which would indeed qualify him for the position of ‘social philosopher’. In
notes made for A Doll’s House in 1878, he writes that:
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.
Bearing out this sentiment, in a speech delivered the following year to the Scandinavian Society
in Rome Ibsen urged that the post of librarian be filled by a woman and that the female
members of the Society be granted the right to vote in meetings. Even more politically charged
was his support in 1884 of a petition in favor of separate property rights for married women; in
explaining why women and not men should be consulted about the married women’s property
bill, Ibsen commented that ‘to consult men in such a matter is like asking wolves if they desire
better protection for the sheep.
Ibsen’s Family and Feminism Movement
A crucial element of Ibsen’s relationship to feminism is the role played by actual feminists in his
life and work. Their influence began within his own family, with his wife Suzannah Thoresen
Ibsen and her stepmother and former governess Magdalene Thoresen. Magdalene Thoresen,
Danish writer of novels and dramas, translator of the French plays the young Ibsen staged at the
Norwegian National Theatre in Bergen, and ‘probably the first “New Woman” he had ever met’,
was a key role model for Suzannah, an independent-minded woman whose favourite author was
George Sand—Suzannah left her mark on Ibsen’s conception of such strong-willed heroines as
Hjordis of The Vikings at Helgehtid (1858), Svanhild of Love’s Comedy (1862), and Nora of A
Doll’s House.
Camilla Collett and Ibsen
But perhaps even more important in affecting Ibsen’s attitudes toward women was Camilla
Collett, who is usually regarded as Norway’s first and most significant feminist. Her realist novel
The District Governor’s Daughters (1854-5), which attacks the institution of marriage because
of its neglect of women’s feelings and its concomitant destruction of love, finds echoes in Love’s
Comedy. During the 1870s Ibsen had extended and impassioned conversations with Collett
about issues such as marriage and women’s role in society. His great esteem for her is evident in
a letter written in anticipation of her seventieth birthday in 1883, in which he predicts that the
Norway of the future will bear traces of her ‘intellectual pioneer-work’, and later he writes her of
her long-standing influence on his writings.
A Doll’s House and Feminism
No introduction to the topic of Ibsen and feminism would be complete without mention of his
reception. Whether or not one chooses to regard his work itself as feminist, there is no denying
that much of it—above all A Doll’s House—was enthusiastically welcomed by feminist thinkers in
Norway and throughout Europe. In closing the door on her husband and children, Nora opened
the way to the turn-of-the-century women’s movement. To mention only a few examples of the
play’s impact, Gina Krog, a leading Norwegian feminist in the 1880s and first editor of the
feminist journal Nyltende, called the drama and its likely reformative effects a miracle. Amalie
Skram, Norway’s foremost naturalist writer and the first Norwegian author to treat female
sexuality, praised the play dramatically and psychologically and saw it as a warning of what
would happen when women in general woke up to the injustices that had been committed
against them.
James Joyce appreciation of Ibsen
Given Ibsen’s sensitivity to feminist issues, it comes as no surprise that he has often been
praised for his creation of female characters. James Joyce’s evaluation of 1900 is representative:
Ibsen’s knowledge of humanity is no where more obvious than in his portrayal of women. He
amazes one by his painful introspection; he seems to know them better than they know
themselves. Indeed, if one may say so of an eminently virile man, there is a curious admixture of
the woman in his nature.
Although the majority of Ibsen’s protagonists are male, some of his most memorable and well-
known characters are female, such as Nora Helmer, Helene Alving, Rebecca West, and Hedda
Gabler; Elizabeth Robins speaks for all turn-of-the-century actresses in claiming that ‘no
dramatist has ever meant so much to the women of the stage as Henrik Ibsen’, The power of his
female roles has continued to attract top-calibre performers down to our own day, as is evident
in the homage paid him by Julie Harris, Jane Fonda, Liv Ullmann, Glenda Jackson, Susannah
York and others.
Emancipated Wmen and Motherhood
Female characters are of course featured most prominently in depictions of the emancipated
woman and motherhood. These two issues are of central concern in illuminating Ibsen’s
relationship to feminism. Regarding the first, Ibsen was widely credited with virtually inventing
the emancipated woman in the last Act of A Doll’s House. Because Nora’s self-realization occurs
so late in the play, however, I will focus here on four other figures who may to varying degrees
be seen as emancipated women: Lona Hessel of Pillars of Society, Petra Stockmann of An
Enemy of the People, Rebecca West of Rosmers-holm (1886), and Hilde Wangel of The Master
Builder (1892.).
These characters are distinguished by their rejection of a strict division between conventional
masculine and feminine behavior, by their disdain for public opinion, and by their freedom from
the hypocrisy that often accompanies maintenance of the status quo. Their emancipated status
is reflected in their appearance, language and behavior. In the first Act of Pillars of Society we
learn from the townswomen’s gossip that Lona Hessel, stepsister of Bernick’s wife Betty, had
scandalized the town before her departure to America to join Betty’s younger brother Johan by
cutting her hair short and wearing men’s boots; returning now from America, she is initially
taken for a member of the circus because she carries a bag over her shoulder by the handle of
her umbrella and waves at the gawking townspeople. Similarly, Hilde Wangel appears in
Halvard Solness’s office dressed in walking clothes with her skirt hitched up, complete with
rucksack, plaid, and alpenstock and ‘slightly tanned by the sun’ ,flaunting her disregard for
traditional standards of feminine attire and beauty. The un-conventionality of both characters is
further evident in their speech, which is dotted with colloquialisms; topics traditionally regarded
as unmentionable for young middle-class women, and swear words.
Rebellious attitude of Female characters
The aggressive and forthright behavior of these female characters is shaped by their lack of
concern for what people think. In Pillars of Society the townswomen disclose that, prior to her
trip to America, Lona had slapped Bernick in the face when he announced his engagement to
Betty; her scandalous behaviour continued abroad, they report, where she sang in saloons for
pay, gave public lectures, and published ‘a quite outrageous book’. Upon returning home she
shocks observers by washing her face at the pump in the middle of the marketplace. Rebecca
West defies public opinion by continuing to live as a single woman beneath one roof with
Rosmer following his wife Beata’s death; as Rebecca says to Rosmer, ‘Oh, why must we worry
about what others think? We know, you and I, that we have no reason to feel guilty’.
Concomitantly, in contrast to the traditional female of the day, she seems wholly lacking in
maternal inclinations, observing to the housekeeper that Rosmer is better off childless, since he
is not the kind of man who can ‘put up with a lot of crying children’. When Mrs Solness warns
the older Hilde of The Master Builder that people might stare at her if she ventures into town in
her unconventional garb, she responds that that would be fun.
Higher Education of Female characters
A further trait indicative of the emancipated character of these women figures is their high level
of education. Lona’s authorship of a book speaks for itself; Petra Stockmann, a full-time teacher
who first appears on stage with a pile of exercise books under her arm, expresses unalloyed
liking for her work. Rebecca, largely educated at home by her (foster) father Dr West, reads
radical newspapers in an effort to keep abreast of new developments and shares books and ideas
with Rosmer. Significantly, it is she who takes the initiative in attempting to support the
impoverished revolutionary writer Ulrik Brendel by asking the radical journalist Peter
Mortensgaard to come to his aid. Reportedly inspired by Ibsen’s stepmother-in-law Magdalene
Thoresen, the character of Rebecca West was hailed by feminists. Gina Krog heard the ‘gospel of
the future’ proclaimed in Kosmersholm: ‘Ibsen’s belief in women, in the women of his country,
has never been expressed so proudly as here.’
Liberated Tendencies
In keeping with their liberated tendencies, these figures typically serve tounmask the lies which
shadow the lives of other characters. Petra, a free-thinking young woman who refuses to
translate a story because it defends conventional Christian beliefs, is repelled by the hypocrisy of
a school system which requires her to teach things she does not believe in and declares that she
would prefer to start a school herself if she had the means. She wholly supports her father’s plan
to expose the pollution infecting the municipal baths, like him subordinating the individual well-
being of their family to a commitment to truth, principle and the general welfare. In a similar
vein, Lona Hessel favourably compares the air of the American prairies to the shroud-like smell
of moral linen she encounters back home and, when Rorlund questions her as to her intention
regarding their society, expressly announces her mission: ‘I want to let in some fresh air, my
dear pastor’. The primary target of her campaign is Bernick, whom she finally exhorts to confess
the multiple deceptions on which his business, his marriage and his reputation are founded.
Aasta Hansteen’s influence on Ibsen Feminist views
Like that of Rebecca West, the conception of Lona Hessel was inspired by an actual feminist
contemporary of Ibsen’s, Aasta Hansteen. A portrait painter by profession and an outspoken
suffragette who often wore men’s boots and carried a whip when she spoke in public, Hansteen
achieved her greatest notoriety in 1874 by supporting the cause of a Swedish baroness who
claimed to have been seduced and abandoned by a Norwegian medical student. In presenting
the baroness’s cause as an issue concerning all women and in arguing for the expulsion of the
student in articles, speeches and demonstrations, Hansteen succeeded in ostracizing herself.
Ibsen was sympathetic to Hansteen and disturbed by her fate at the hands of the press and
public. Her influence on Pillars of Society is perhaps most obvious in Lona’s remarks to Bernick
about the treatment of women, both his own and that of society at large. When Bernick
complains that his wife Betty has never been any of the things he needed, Lona counters:
‘Because you never shared your interests with her. Because you’ve never been open or frank with
her in any of your dealings. Because you let her go on suffering under the shame you
unburdened on her family’. Lona generalizes this observation in her famous comment to Bernick
near the play’s end: ‘this society of yours is like a lot of old bachelors: you never see the women’.
New Women and Ibsen
These four female characters share many properties with the New Woman, a literary type which
flourished above all in Victorian fiction of the 1890s. 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. Yet
while Ibsen’s emancipated women characters were influential for the conception of the New
Woman, they cannot be wholly identified with this type. A recognition of the qualifications to
their emancipation is important for an understanding of Ibsen’s position vis-a-vis feminism.
Women’s Cause: A Close Look
Taking a close look at the figures discussed above, we see that all four are ultimately defined in
terms of male characters. Lona Hessel’s ‘character and strength of mind and independence’
notwithstanding, she tells Bernick that she has returned from her new life in America because of
her feelings for him, in order to help him re-establish himself on honest ground. Furthermore,
referring to her role as ‘foster-mother’ to her younger stepbrother Johan in America, she
observes: ‘Heaven knows, it’s about the only thing I have achieved in this world. But it gives me
a sort of right to exist’. Throughout An Enemy of the People Petra Stockmann’s views are shaped
by those of her father, an influence underlined by the drama’s final word: the curtain falls as
Petra grasps Thomas Stockmann’s hands and exclaims, ‘Father!’
Even Rebecca West, so enthusiastically championed by contemporary feminists, reveals herself
to be decidedly oriented around men. When Rosmer’s brother-in-law Kroll observes (referring
to her remaining with Rosmer): ‘You know … there’s something rather splendid about that – a
woman giving up the best years of her young life, sacrificing them for the sake of others,’
Rebecca responds: ‘Oh, what else would I have had to live for?’. Her visions of ennobling
humanity are focused on Rosmer, the object of her love, rather than on herself; when Rosmer
asks her towards the end of the play how she thinks things will be for her now, she replies that it
is not important. Kroll’s comment that what she calls her emancipation is only an abstraction,
that it never ‘got into [her] blood’, may be an accurate one; it is in any event supported by her
confession that when she reached twenty-five she began subtracting a year from her admitted
age, since she felt she was ‘getting a bit too old’ to be unmarried.
A Stereotypical Feminine
Rebecca West is also stereotypically feminine in her seductiveness, her tendency to use her wiles
and great attractiveness to manipulate others. Kroll, saying ‘Who is there you couldn’t bewitch …
if you tried?’, accuses her of having used his former infatuation with her to gain entree to
Rosmersholm; Brendel calls her ‘my enchanting little mermaid’ in warning Rosmer not to build
on her in carrying out his goals. As Kroll points out, Rebecca had succeeded in captivating the
unstable Beata as well, and her removal of Beata through psychic murder – prompting Beata’s
suicide by leading her to believe that Rebecca was pregnant by Rosmer and that a childless wife
was in the way – hardly resembles feminist solidarity.
Femme Fatale
Directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of Beata, Rosmer and of course herself, Rebecca
has as much in common with another literary type that flourished at the turn of the century as
she does with the New Woman, the femme fatale. Her high degree of sensuality, characterized
by as early an observer as Salome as a ‘wildness that resembles a beast of prey at rest and which
hungers for spoil’, further associates her with this type. Like the conventional femme fatale, she
is incapable of moderating her passion, but rather either allows it to lead her to irrational acts
such as the psychic murder of Beata or represses it completely.
Ibsen’s Mother Figures
Insofar as the female ability to bear children is the most crucial ramification of the physiological
difference between women and men, the issue of motherhood has been central to every feminist
movement or programme. As Julia Kristeva writes, it is not woman as such who is oppressed in
patriarchal society, but the mother. A focused look at Ibsen’s mother figures discloses a similar
message: maternity is viewed most positively by those who are not biological mothers, whereas
his actual or prospective mothers either deny their pregnancy, abandon their children, give them
away to be cared for elsewhere, raise them in an atmosphere of deception, or neglect them. The
victimization these un-motherly mothers inflict results from their own victimization by a
powerful social norm equating anatomy with destiny; in Ibsen’s notes to A Doll’s House he
conjectures that a mother in modern society is like ‘certain insects who go away and die when
she has done her duty in the propagation of the race’. Hence Ibsen bears witness to a larger
nineteenth-century historical strategy which Michel Foucault has termed ‘hysterization’, or the
process of defining women in terms of female sexuality, the result of which was to bind them to
their reproductive function.
Conclusion
Supporting the belief that a women’s mind and body are hers to control as she wishes, Ibsen’s
oeuvre allies him with feminist thinkers not only of his era but of our own day as well.

Eilert Løvborg

Character Analysis
Eilert is all about being caught in between. He’s in between Hedda and Thea, aristocracy and life
as an outcast, scholarly fame and shameful disrepute, drinking and not drinking, courage and
cowardice. His role in Hedda Gabler revolves around the tension of being in between – the
pressure to move in one direction or another.

Hedda doesn’t exactly help with the stress, either. In fact, she’s the main proponent of this back-
and-forth action. We know she has jerked Eilert around before, sometime in the past when they
were…dating? Sleeping together? Friends? What exactly WAS the situation with Eilert and
Hedda? To figure it out, we have to do a fairly close reading of the dialogue, and make a few
assumptions about what the subtext actually means. Take the nuanced conversation in Act II, the
hints about Eilert's background in Act I, throw in a dash of Victorian background knowledge (see
"Setting" and "Sex Rating" for specifics on interpreting these implicit statements), and we can
conclude the following:

Eilert comes from a wealthy, aristocratic family. This is important to remember, because it puts
him on the same level as Hedda and Brack, NOT in the middle class represented by George and
his Aunt. All those references to his "past sins" refer to one thing: alcoholism. Eilert used to run
around town getting drunk and hanging around with the wrong crowd, specifically Mademoiselle
Diana, a prostitute of sorts. Hedda was intrigued by Eilert’s apparent disregard for the rules, and
the two of them formed a friendship. Eilert used to visit Hedda, and the two would converse
about all his unseemly activities while their chaperone, often Hedda’s father, sat across the room
and out of hearing range (though able to keep an eye on them none the less).

Then Eilert wanted more – as far as we can tell, he wanted to have sex with Hedda. Hedda said
no, and considers this refusal a mark of her cowardice. (She refused because it would be quite
the scandal for the General’s daughter to end up with a debauched alcoholic.) Hedda also
threatened to shoot Eilert but didn’t – she considers this the second mark of her cowardice (a.k.a.
her fear of scandal).

What’s important to remember from all this is that Hedda likes Eilert as an alcoholic. She likes
the idea that, for all the repression and restrictions of society, someone like Eilert still exists – a
man who basically says "Screw you" to all the prim and proper tightwads of the upper class.
Notice that Eilert is even cavalier about money – he won’t compete for the professorship because
he "only wants to win in the eyes of the world." Hedda is all about this renegade character.Thea,
on the other hand, is a totally different story. She likes Eilert as a reformed man – a scholar, a
writer, and a teacher. It makes sense, then, that sparks will fly when the three of these guys end
up in a room together. Keep this in mind: Hedda and Thea aren’t two jealous women fighting
over who gets to have Eilert; they’re fighting over which man Eilert will be. As Hedda puts it,
they’re fighting for "control" of his "destiny."

So what’s a poor Eilert to do? It seems that he chooses the conformist lifestyle alongside Mrs.
Elvsted. Notice that, for all Hedda’s taunting, Eilert again and again refuses to drink. It’s not
until his relationship with Thea is called into question that he falls right off that wagon. We
realize that Eilert didn’t reform of his own accord. As Mrs. Elvsted says, she "got some kind of
power […] over him." He gave up his drinking, she said, to make her happy. Eilert later confirms
this himself: "I’ve lost all desire for that kind of life," he says of his former wild behavior. "It’s
the courage and daring for life—that’s what she’s broken in me."

This raises an interesting point – the relationship between courage and drinking. We know
Hedda thinks that Eilert is courageous when he’s drinking and cowardly when he’s not. But here
it sounds like even Eilert feels the same way. He almost resents what is essentially his
domestication on the part of Mrs. Elvsted. Look at his word choice: she’s "broken" his "courage"
and his "daring." Does that sound positive to you?

Speaking of resentful, what on earth is going on with Eilert when he breaks up with Mrs.
Elvsted? He seems almost cruel when he tells her, "From now on, we separate. […] I have no
more use for you." Ouch. And that’s before he tells her that he’s ripped up their brain-child into a
thousand pieces. Of course, Eilert will later explain his seemingly sadistic behavior to Hedda. He
felt that, without the manuscript, he couldn’t be together with Thea anymore. Why? Was their
bond limited to the realm of the intellectual and scholarly? Did they share other interests? Most
importantly, does Eilert, or did he at any point, love Thea?

Eilert Løvborg Timeline and Summary

  BACK
 NEXT 
 Eilert comes by the Tesmans’ house. George is relieved to hear that he won’t have to compete
for the professor post after all.
 Eilert converses with Hedda, convinced that she’s thrown herself away by marrying George. We
get the whole Hedda-Eilert back-story here.
 Eilert refuses to have a drink; it becomes clear that he is a recovered alcoholic.
 When Mrs. Elvsted shows up, Eilert flaunts their "companionship" in Hedda’s face.
 Hedda taunts Eilert about his masculinity, trying to get him to drunk. He refuses again.
 Then she reveals that Mrs. Elvsted was worried about him drinking; her apparent lack of faith in
him drives him to the bottle.
 Eilert leaves for the stag party with Tesman and Brack, promising to come back at ten that night
to escort Mrs. Elvsted home.
 Eilert doesn’t come back.
 The next morning, we hear from Tesman that he was quite the debaucherous drunk the night
before at Mademoiselle Diana’s, and that he lost his manuscript. George has the writings now,
but hasn’t told Eilert yet.
 Eilert comes bursting into the Tesmans’ house later that morning. He tells Thea that he’s ripped
up the manuscript –their child – into a thousand pieces and that he doesn’t want to be with her
anymore, as he has no more use for her inspirational services.
 Once she’s gone, he plans suicide, with Hedda’s help.
 We find out later that Eilert went back to Mademoiselle Diana’s to look again for his manuscript
and accidentally shot himself in the gut.
 Then he died.