Who Is Hedda Commit Suicide?

Hedda’s final line at the end of Act 3 underscores not only the extent of her obsession for revenge, but, more precisely, it reveals the exact moment at which Hedda chooses to commit suicide in order to regain control over her destiny.
In Act 3, Hedda takes Lövborg’s manuscript out of its hiding place and sits next to the stove “with the packet in her lap” (Ibsen 59). By having Hedda place the manuscript near her womb, not only does Ibsen reinforce the symbol of the manuscript as “child” (Ibsen 57), but also sets it in direct competition with the child Hedda is expecting. Ibsen juxtaposes the two paths Hedda’s life could have taken: one of freedom and pleasure with Lövborg or one of boredom and social conformity with George. Had she not been “a terrible coward” (Ibsen 40) all those years ago, she could have born Lövborg’s child and not George’s. It would have been her “pure soul” (Ibsen 59) mixed in with Lövborg’s words to produce his magnum opus. Instead, Mrs. Elvsted took her place, and, in doing so, robbed Hedda of her one

The construction of this sentence—with “your” directly referring to Mrs. Elvsted—shifts blame from Hedda to Mrs. Elvsted. The child is not referred to as the product of two parents (Lövborg is conveniently absent from her statement), but rather is syntactically made to belong to one owner, Mrs. Elvsted. As the sole mother of this child, she is singled out as the person responsible for Hedda’s current fate, absolving Hedda of any responsibility for her own actions. She stole Hedda’s child and, thus, she is to blame for all of Hedda’s subsequent loss in life—her loveless marriage, her tedium, her repression. While Hedda later refers to it as, “Your child and Eilert Lövborg’s,” the continued use of the construction “your child” is indicative of Hedda’s insistence on blaming Mrs. Elvsted and her desire to place Lövborg as a secondary actor in her misery (Ibsen