Henrik Isben’s “Hedda Gabler” is a problem play that deals with several social conflicts that a newlywed woman experiences when we arrives back to her home town from her honeymoon. As the daughter of General Gabler, Hedda Gabler has been born into and grown accustom to being at the top of her town’s social hierarchy. Because of Hedda’s social status and undeniable beauty she has the ability to control and manipulate those around her – but to a certain extent. The time the play was set in, women did not have a lot of freedom to do anything outside of getting married, having children and attending to the house. Hedda did not fit this mould that was created for women of that time. She was not very maternal individual and reactive negatively whenever the subject of a possible pregnancy was mentioned. Hedda also had intimacy issues and avoided forming a close and personal bond with another human being. When she and Eilert Løvborg were beginning to develop a friendship the moment they started getting intimate she pulled her pistol out on him and told him to leave or she would shoot him. Eilert Løvborg fed her hunger for life she lived vicariously through his stories about his less than honourable, drunken nights. Soon Eilert started meant more to Hedda than she was willing to admit and she pushed him away. Hedda is unhappy with the way her life has unfolded because she is forced to form intimate relationships, her marriage to George Tesman, a possible baby, and being forced to spend time with Judge Brack. Henrik Isben’s “Hedda Gabler” resolves the thematic issue of social constraints through Hedda’s beautiful illusion that acts of freedom and courage do exist.
Hedda’s beautiful illusion lives through the life of Eilert Løvborg. He re...
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...being a wife, a proper young woman, and now a impending affair with Judge Brack. She created the created this illusion out of desperation for an escape from reality and now without it she feels as though there is no way to break away from all she finds ugly. As a result Hedda shoots herself in the temple to free herself. It is kind of ironic that she constructs this beautiful illusion on Eilert Løvborg taking his life and sees it is a great act of courage but when she commits suicide it is not out of courage but cowardice.
Hedda’s beautiful illusion was that acts of courage and freedom do exist in her world. Eilert Løvborg represented ideas of free will and rashness while his suicide represented courage and boldness, all qualities that Hedda sought after to fulfill her illusion and create beauty within her world.
Works Cited
Henrik Isben’s play “Hedda Gabler”
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Hedda married Tesman, an academic student who supposed to have a potential success, not because she loves him, but just because as she said “It was a great deal more than any of my other admirers were offering”. In this quote she is showing her real feelings meaning that she never loves him and she just married him because he was the best option among the
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For Maxim Gorki and Henrik Ibsen, the "the surprise ending" is a device to highlight the extreme desperation and hopelessness man is often faced. In both cases, the plays end with an act of suicide - The Actor in The Lower Depths, and Hedda in Hedda Gabler. The alcoholic Actor dreamt of a far off hospital that helped drunkards by curing them of their disease. He struggles through out the play trying to find this path to redemption. Hedda tries to control a world that she is trapped in. This control would result in her freedom to exist in true self-expression. Both characters live in denial. They subconsciously understand that these aspirations will forever be fantasies due to their society; they survive restlessly in these worlds of illusion. However, by the end of each play, the illusion crumbles, and both are forced to face the dire truth of their situations. The characters decide to act in the most brutal and finite way to control their own fate, ending their lives. By comparing two powerful and similar surprise endings involving two acutely different characters, Gorki and Ibsen send a similar message. Whether a character's fantastical illusions come in the form of escape, salvation, hope, or control, the destruction of these illusions result in a personal devastation that can be insurmountable.
That Henrik Ibsen as a realist writer portrays Hedda as the epitome of a Victorian housewife restricted by Victorian values and confined into a loveless marriage, while being forced to watch as men take her life under their arm. However, Hedda Gabler continuously illustrates these psychological processes of fear and courage, she portrays herself fearless but not courageous, distinguishing the concept of a fearless person rather than someone who is courageous. While Hedda Gabler shows a cold-fearless exterior, she is in heart a coward as she lives through other people, instead of taking her own life into her hands. She hides behind her audacity and Ibsen notes “…Because I have such a dread of scandal. Yes, Hedda, you are a coward at heart. A terrible coward” (Ibsen 40).Her acts are determined by her own disposition as she believes she should be fearless, contaminated by her own criticism she find herself reluctant to believe that her life could change from mediocrity in a Victorian society. She titles herself fearless but by doing so she loses courage to face her repressed fears and takes no responsibility for something she believes she has no control over. Stanley J. Rachman’s Fear and Courage: A Psychological Perspective observes bomb-disposable operators long experience of fear when jumping as they move from courage to
Hedda Gabler is a text in which a very domineering society drives a woman to her suicidal death. Many argue that Hedda’s death is an act of courage, as rebellion against the rules of the society, however other believe that Hedda’s actions show cowardice, as she is unable to cope with the harsh reality of the her situation. Hedda's singular goal throughout the play has been to prove that she is still in possession of free will. Hedda shows many examples of both courage and cowardice throughout the play, differing to the character she is with.
Hedda pretends to befriend Mrs. Thea Elvsted ( a schoolmate from her youth) in order to
It has been suggested that Hedda Gabler is a drama about the individual psyche -- a mere character study. It has even been written that Hedda Gabler "presents no social theme" (Shipley 333). On the contrary, I have found social issues and themes abundant in this work.