Hedda Gabler

In Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, the title character represents the female as predator, the overwhelmingly beautiful Hedda who is bereft of morality. Hedda is bored to death with the ennui of middle-class existence, the "genteel poverty I have managed to drop into" (Ibsen 182). This act direction will focus on Act IV of Ibsen's play. Act IV is extremely important because it represents the turning point in the play for the central characters, a point from which they cannot return to the normal, routine existence of their middle-class lives. We merge into Act IV from Act III, the final stage action of which includes Hedda's burning of Lovborg's manuscript.

Character/Acting: Hedda is the most complex character in the play. She is trapped in a world of appearances that she herself has constructed. Having a mortal fear of scandal and public rumor, Hedda cannot bear the genteel poverty or the non-ambitious nature of her husband. She made this marriage of convenience because she is of high birth but lacks wealth. She married George Tesman because he is "correctness himself" (Ibsen 178). Therefore, Hedda exists at a time when women faced the challenge of modifying acceptable, limited codes of behavior of middle-class existence, but she is unable to decide what kind of "new woman" she would like to be. Torn between the old world and the new, Hedda is torn apart. Motherless, Hedda was raised by her General father, and his guns are her only method of a

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Lovborg. They plan to spend nights together rewriting the manuscript, to which Hedda replies "But how am I to get through the evenings out here?" (Ibsen 220). At this point, George basically gives the lecherous Judge Brack permission to spend evenings alone with Hedda. Hedda knows Judge Brack has power over her because of her complicity in Lovborg's death "I am in your power none the less. Subject to your will and your demands. A slave, a slave then! No, I cannot endure the thought of that! Never!" (Ibsen 220). Unlike Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's House, Hedda does not have the courage to leave her imprisoned condition because she is mortally afraid of scandal and a coward at heart. Thea has shown to be able to make the transition from old world woman to new world woman by leaving her husband and not giving a hang what people say. As Thea and George become lost in their work and with Judge Brack enjoying his cat-bird seat over Hedda, Hedda goes into the inner room and achieves beauty and calm by lying on the couch and shooting herself. She has found beauty at last. Props/Setting/Lighting/Music: Props are extremely important in this play. In Act IV, the piano, gun, and portrait of Hedda's General father are the most impo

Category: Literature - H