Hedda Gabler
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Hedda Gabler is perhaps one of the most interesting characters in Ibsen and perhaps one of the most interesting characters the stage has ever known. She has been the object of psychological analysis since her creation. She is an interesting case indeed, for to “explain” Hedda one must rely on the hints Ibsen gives us from her past and the lines of dialogue that reveal the type of person she is. The reader never views Hedda directly. We never get a soliloquy in which she bares her heart and motives to the audience. Hedda is as indifferent to our analysis as she is to Tesman’s excitement over his slippers when she says “I really don’t care about it” (Ibsen 8). But a good psychologist knows that even this indifference is telling. Underneath the ennui and indifference lies a character rich for psychological investigation: “The Character of Hedda Gabler remains a product of our speculation. That is, as we process the surface details we perceive in the various postures she assumes, we hypothesize an idea of the figure underneath the mask.” (Lyons 83). This paper will try to “explain” Hedda with the aid of critical analysis. The first aspect of the play that strikes the reader is the title. Before we even read a line of this play we notice the incongruity between the name of the title character and her name in the play. In the play Hedda is Tesman’s wife, but the title suggests that she is the independent daughter of the late Ge
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was all it took for her to realize her mistake. Weigland goes on to say that Hedda is completely self-centered but she doesn’t have the “inner resources” to remain independent and therefore she rashly chose a husband without thinking of the consequences of her choice: “On a shopping tour she would have exercised more judgment in selecting the merest trifle than she did in the acquisition of a husband. . . What Hedda sought was a conventionally presentable husband; his individuality did not interest her in the slightest degree, she never gave it a thought of her own” (Weigland 249-250).
I mentioned earlier that our analysis of Hedda relies on our ability to pick up on Ibsen’s subtle hints. We understand Hedda through her body language, her facial expressions and her relationship to the set. Ibsen, a master of lighting, uses this symbolic technique to tell us much about Hedda’s personality. Northam points this out early in his essay on Hedda Gabler:
We already know quite a lot about Hedda from the set and her personal appearance. An illustrative action expands our knowledge. Hedda greets her aunt coldly, and then sees the open door:
. . . Oh--there, the servant has gone and opened the veranda door, and let in a wh
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Approximate Word count = 1410
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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