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HEDDA GABLER SUMMARY Meet Hedda Tesman. She’s kicking around in Norway in the 1890s, so she’s very repressed, both socially and sexually. She’s the daughter of the now-deceased General Gabler, which means she grew up rich and privileged. Now she’s married to George Tesman, a would-be professor and a bit of an academic bore. Hedda has just returned from her six-month honeymoon with George and is settling into married life in the house he has bought specifically to please her, though it meant stretching beyond his means financially. On top of the boredom and repression, Hedda is in all likelihood pregnant, though she won’t admit it despite several hints from George’s Aunt Julie, a kind older woman who takes care of her invalid sister Rina. Conflict enters the scene when Mrs. Elvsted visits to the Tesmans on a trip to the city from her country home. She’s there looking out for a guy named Eilert Løvborg, a recovering alcoholic who tutors her children. Hedda, the master of manipulation, soon gets Mrs. Elvsted alone and coerces her into admitting the truth: she and Eilert are somehow involved, and she wants to leave her husband for him. Eilert has just published a book – he’s in the same field of history as Mr. Tesman – and Mrs. Elvsted has followed him to the city to make sure he doesn’t fall back on his old drinking ways. She begs the Tesmans to look out for him, since George is his colleague and friend. Shortly after, Judge Brack, the big man around town, comes by and flirts with Hedda. It’s clear he’s interested in her. Everyone keeps asking Hedda the same question: why has she, the best catch in town, married a bore like George? Hedda admits that 1) she had to marry someone and 2) she thought George, through his scholarly pursuits, would be famous some day. Eilert eventually stops by the Tesmans and we discover that Hedda has a history with him; they used to be intellectual buddies the way that Eilert now is with Mrs. Elvsted. When Hedda broke off their friendship/budding romance, she did so to avoid the scandal of hanging out with a questionable, renegade alcoholic like Eilert. She also threatened to shoot him with one of her father’s pistols. Now that he’s with Mrs. Elvsted, Hedda decides to entertain herself by causing some trouble. She tells Eilert that Mrs. Elvsted was afraid he would drink again – in other words, she doesn’t trust him. This angers Eilert, who promptly starts drinking again. He goes out to a party with the Judge and Hedda’s husband George, but not before revealing a tantalizing and plot-thickening tidbit: he’s written another book, this one using information from the past to predict the future. He’s written it with the help of his new muse, Mrs. Elvsted. He has the only copy, a hand-written manuscript, with him now and will read some aloud tonight. Mrs. Elvsted stays with Hedda, worried sick that Eilert will drink himself silly at the party. Of course, Eilert drinks himself silly at the party. He never returns that night. While Mrs. Elvsted is sleeping, George comes back early the next morning, tells Hedda about the drunken debauchery, and shows her something: Eilert’s manuscript. It seems that Eilert dropped it while drunk and George recovered it, eager to keep it safe so he could return it to his friend once sober. When a letter comes regarding Aunt Rina’s fading health, George rushes out, leaving behind the manuscript. Later that morning, Eilert comes running in. Mrs. Elvsted wakes up in time for him to break

up with her, telling her that he tore up the manuscript and doesn’t want to see her any more. Mrs. Elvsted declares that he has destroyed their child (meaning the book) and leaves. Only then does Eilert admit, to Hedda, that he lost the manuscript. Hedda, being Hedda, says nothing about the recovered manuscript and instead gives him a pistol with which to shoot himself. She’s eager for Eilert to have a beautiful, poetic death – she wants him to shoot himself in the temple. Finally alone again, Hedda burns the manuscript to ashes. When she confesses this to George later, he is overjoyed that his wife loves him enough to destroy the work of his professional rival. Mrs. Elvsted visits again the next morning to find out what’s going on with Eilert, and Judge Brack comes by to tell everyone that Eilert is dead by suicide. Mrs. Elvsted and George, feeling quite horrible, decide to re-write the manuscript using Mrs. Elvsted’s notes. While they start work, the Judge takes Hedda aside and tells her that Eilert didn’t commit suicide – rather he accidentally shot himself in the gut. Hedda is devastated that the great poetic death she imagined never came to pass. Brack also reveals that the pistol firing the fatal shot was Hedda’s –he recognizes it. He can keep this info quiet, but only if she does what he wants. No one tells Hedda what to do. She shoots herself in the temple.

HEDDA GABLER THEMES THEME OF MANIPULATION Hedda is famous as a cold-hearted, manipulative woman years ahead of her time. In this play, her ability to influence others has a lot to do with her sexuality and good looks. Machinations become a sort of game, a way of escaping the boredom of Victorian-era Norway. Because women can’t seek power through careers or scholarship, Hedda seeks it through controlling others.

THEME OF WOMEN AND FEMININITY Hedda Gabler takes place in Norway in the late 1800s. Women are restricted by Victorian values and prevented from having any real lives of their own. As such, they exist only in relation to men. The women in this play all seek to solve one fundamental problem: what to do with their lives. Emptiness and malaise are the only common factors between them, however, as the various "solutions" to this "problem" differ greatly.

THEME OF WEALTH Hedda Gabler explores a marriage between an aristocratic woman and a seemingly middleclass man. Wealth is a constant barrier between them, not only as far as money is concerned but also in regards to class. Interests, mannerisms, even personalities and friendships, are

all tied to class. Because of this, the notion of "rich" and "poor" is often more about power, influence, and reputation than it is about cash.

THEME OF RESPECT AND REPUTATION In Hedda Gabler, playing by society’s rules is often more important than human life. Set in the late 1800s, the characters are constrained by Victorian values, particularly when it comes to sex. Because so many sexual topics are taboo, many of the conversations and machinations can be understood only in subtext and innuendos. The threat of public scandal hangs constantly over the characters’ heads, threatening to ruin social status, and therefore lives. At the same time, some characters find pleasure in rebelling, albeit it secretly.

THEME OF COURAGE Courage is tied to the idea of rebellion in Hedda Gabler – rebellion against society and its constraints. For one character, this means secretly defying the limits of her sex by manipulating and coercing the men around her. For another, this means leaving the good graces of his aristocratic family and engaging in a life of alcohol and debauchery. For yet a third character, it means leaving her husband behind to be with the man she loves.

THEME OF APPEARANCES Beauty is power in Hedda Gabler. Hedda herself is a stunning woman of aristocratic good looks, which she uses to get what she wants. Because everyone wants to sleep with her, she has power over men – a rare scenario in a world defined by Victorian values (according to which women are subservient and men dominant). Aesthetics are important to the play as well: the aristocratic class, more so than the middle class, is obsessed with appearances and with avoiding what it deems ugly. The retreat into a romanticized, idealized world of aesthetic rather than moral values is a hallmark of the titular character.

THEME OF DREAMS, HOPES, AND PLANS If Hedda Gabler teaches one lesson, it is that dreams cannot be relied upon. In this play, all plans for the future are predicated upon falsities, lies, misunderstandings, or miscommunication. Whether it be marriage, friendship, babies, professional pursuits, or economic risk, no thing is a sure thing. The characters continually act based on these false certainties with regard to the future, and they are repeatedly punished for doing so.

THEME OF DRUGS AND ALCOHOL Hedda Gabler features a recovering alcoholic as one of its main characters. The play draws a connection between the idea of courage and the idea of drinking – surely a man must be courageous to turn his back on the rules of a Victorian society and engage in drunken debauchery? In this play, yes, that is the case. Alcoholism is interpreted as the mark of a free spirit, rather than a disease which needs to be treated.

HEDDA GABLER CHARACTERS HEDDA TESMAN Character Analysis Hedda Gabler is not a nice person. She taunts a recovering alcoholic about his masculinity and goads him into drinking again. She takes advantage of her husband’s dying aunt to steal an irreplaceable document. She tries to trick a man into committing suicide and takes pleasure in the romance of his death. And she totally channels Glenn Close à la Fatal Attraction in that crazy scene by the stove. (Glenn boils a rabbit, Hedda burns a manuscript – same thing.) If that doesn’t entice you to join us on this tour of Hedda’s character, we don’t know what will.

Why is Hedda So Mean and Manipulative? Before we write Hedda off as totally evil, let’s think about WHY she is the way that she is. The short answer is: because she’s female and it’s 1890 (or maybe 1860 – see "Setting" for a full discussion). The point is, it’s the Victorian era. And for those of you who weren’t around to experience it personally, you should know that it was not a fun time to be a woman. Just look at your text for examples: Hedda isn’t allowed to hang out with a man unless a chaperone is present. She isn’t allowed to go to the Judge’s party. She has to be careful not to use the word "night" when referring to the time she spends with her husband, because that might imply sex. It’s clear that, in this world, women aren’t supposed to do or say much of anything. It’s basically their job to sit around all day looking pretty and complimenting their husbands. This is, as you might expect, incredibly boring. Or, in Hedda’s own words: "How mortally bored I’ve been," "How horribly I shall bore myself here," and even more explicitly, "I am bored, I tell you!" Right. So Hedda faces a problem that, as you’ll see in the rest of our Character Analyses, all three women in the play deal with in their own separate way: what the hell is she supposed to do with herself? Hedda actually asks this question, explicitly and more than once. (The men, of course, don’t have to

worry about this issue – they are in fact defined by their professions. Brack is a judge. Tesman is a soon-to-be professor. Eilert is a scholar and author.)There are any number of ways to think about Hedda’s solution to this female problem. We’ll talk about three of them.

Hedda Gets Her Kicks… By Screwing With Other People Hedda’s boredom is a likely culprit for her ever-worsening machinations throughout the course of the play. Little girls play with dolls; Hedda plays with people. Why? Because it’s entertaining. And man oh man is Hedda good at what she does. She can fake friendship (check out her Act I conversation with Mrs. Elvsted), fabricate motives (with regards to burning the manuscript), and conceal emotions (the suppressed rage in Act I). But her greatest asset is definitely her ability to extract the information she needs from others. Hedda’s like a walking confessional – others tell her all their secrets. She’s very skilled at asking questions without ever answering any herself. Eilert says it best: "I used to make [confessions] – telling you things about myself that no one else knew." When he asks her what "power" in her made him do so, she replies: "You think it was some kind of power in me?" Notice how she counters his question with another? The girl knows what she’s doing. In fact, the only character who seems to get any truth out of her whatsoever is Brack, which we talk all about in his Character Analysis. What appeals to Hedda here is the idea of power. When Mrs. Elvsted wants to know why she’s manipulating Eilert like this, her answer is: "For once in my life, I want to have power over a human being." She considers Thea "rich" for her influence and herself "poor" for the lack of it. If Hedda, being a woman, can’t have power that’s political, monetary, academic, authoritative, or professional, then she’ll take the only option left to her.

The Vicarious Solution Hedda doesn’t like her life – so she tries to live through other people instead. Now, by "other people" we of course mean "men," because there’s no point in living through an equally stifled female. Where in the world did we get this crazy notion? From….this little line right here: "Do you find it so very surprising that a young girl [would] like some glimpse of a world that […] she’s forbidden to know anything about?" This is Hedda’s explanation for her friendship with Eilert in the past. She couldn’t go out in the world, become an alcoholic, and sever ties with her aristocratic family. But that’s what Eilert was doing. Hedda got as close to the renegade lifestyle as she could by listening to him talk about it. When she devises the perfect suicide for Eilert, she’s continuing in this vein – orchestrating the life that she can’t experience herself.

The "Fine! I’m Just Going to Live in My Own Little Ideal World!" Attempt Or, as scholars would say, Hedda is less concerned with the practicalities of the real world and more concerned with maintaining an aesthetic standard. What does this mean? She pays attention to how things look. She wants the world to be attractive,

romantic, even poetic. She retreats into this aesthetic world to avoid dealing with the harsh realities of her crappy life. She even tells George: "I don’t want to look on sickness and death. I want to be free of everything ugly." Hedda places Eilert in the center of this world as her imaginary romantic hero. She imagines him with vine leaves in his hair, reading his book aloud, throwing restraint and order to the wind. It’s like something out of a novel – and she designs his death to be just as romanticized. Shooting yourself through the temple, in Hedda’s eyes, is the noble way to go. That’s why she declares over and over that "there is beauty" in his death, that it is "liberating" for her to witness an act like this one. When we look at her actions and her words, we realize that Hedda values aesthetics over human life. That’s a pretty scary thought.

So Why Didn’t Any of These Work? But for all her solutions – retreating to an ideal fantasy, living through others, manipulating those around her – Hedda is still just a woman trapped in 1890 Norway. She may seem like a rebel, or at least eons ahead of her time, but she’s actually very much restricted by the social standards she despises. We see this best through Hedda’s "deathly" fear of "scandal." The threat of scandal is the reason she broke things off with Eilert in the first place. She married George because, according to society, she had to marry someone. She doesn’t love her husband, but she "doesn’t expect to be unfaithful, either" because she can’t run the risk of a scandal. Most importantly, Hedda has to keep up appearances. She might be seething with rage inside, but she has to keep her cool on the outside. We know this is taking a toll on her, because we see that inner rage bubble up every now and then. When she’s finally left alone in Act I, Hedda "moves about the room, raising her arms and clenching her fists as if in a frenzy." In Act IV she again "clench[es] her fists in despair" and declares that she’ll "die" from all these "absurdities." Still, Hedda manages to restrain herself after every outburst – she remains a prisoner to Victorian values. What’s more distressing is that Hedda recognizes her situation, and even hates herself for her conformist actions. Just look at all those times Hedda calls herself a "coward" – this is exactly what she’s talking about. She’s a coward because she isn’t willing to break the rules. She’s a coward because, at the end of the day, she’s still trapped inside that parlor room. Doesn’t it seem fitting that she dies in the inner room, behind a closed curtain? That leads nicely into our Big Question: Why does Hedda commit suicide?

Why Does Hedda Commit Suicide? Argh. We were hoping you weren’t going to ask us that. Hedda kills herself for any number of reasons. As we all know, she’s been unhappy for quite some time now. We know she’s bored, trapped in a loveless marriage, completely stifled, living below her standards, married to a buffoon, and about to have a baby she in no way wants. But while she’s not exactly tripping the light fantastic to begin with, Hedda’s been getting by. So which is the straw that breaks the camel’s back? Here are a few possibilities.

1) She can’t stand the thought of the judge having power over her. Or, in Hedda’s own words, "No—I can’t bear the thought of it! Never!" If she’s been getting her kicks thus far by having power and manipulating others…she just lost her hobby. 2) She has nothing to live for. Remember what we were saying about women in this play needing a purpose in their lives? Well, check out the exchange between Hedda and George right before her suicide. She asks if there’s anything he needs her for, and he replies, "No, nothing in the world." A few lines later, Hedda asks, "What will I do evenings?" Like Mrs. Elvsted, she’s facing the bleak prospect of nothingness that is par for the Victorian course. 3) She finally faces her pregnancy. Yes, Hedda has been pregnant for all of the play, but she’s been in denial for the first three acts. Did you notice that one of Hedda’s big outbursts comes when she finally reveals to George (and admits to herself) that she’s going to have a baby? Or her words to Judge Brack: "I have no talent for such things! I won’t have responsibilities!" The fact that she takes the gun from the writing table BEFORE she comes under the Judge’s thumb and BEFORE she declares there’s nothing left to live for is a great piece of evidence for this theory. 4) She’s lost her aesthetic ideal. Hedda declares that she "doesn’t believe in vine leaves anymore" and is disgusted to hear the truth about Eilert’s death. "Does everything I touch turn ridiculous and vile?" she asks. And the events around her answer "yes." So much for being "free of everything ugly." 5) Hedda is afraid of breaking the rules. Because she’s being blackmailed, Hedda has to decide whether to face the public scandal of an investigation regarding the pistol, or the private shame of an affair with Judge Brack. She’s horrified of scandal, so she kills herself to escape it. If this one is true, it means that Hedda is still a coward when she dies. 6) She’s proving her own courage, maintaining her aesthetic ideal, freeing herself from Victorian values, and sticking it to the Judge and her husband. This is certainly the most optimistic interpretation. In this theory, Hedda’s suicide is victorious. She proves that a noble death (i.e., a gunshot to the temple) is possible, and she finally faces her fear of scandal (what’s more of a scandal than spontaneous suicide?). She stops living vicariously and takes strong action herself. George loses the one thing he prizes most – his trophy wife – and Brack never gets to have sex with the woman he’s been lusting after. Hedda wins. So that’s that. But before we send you on your way, check out these two interesting critical theories.

The "Insane" Theory Okay, here’s the question: if Hedda were on trial for her series of cruel machinations, could she plead mental incapacity? Answer: maybe. Depends on which critic you talk to. She might be insane; she might be bipolar; she might just be neurotic. But let’s look at the text. The much-discussed fist-clenching, silent-raging of Act I doesn’t exactly seem like the actions of a sane woman, right? Neither does the fact tha...