Hedda's Jealousy

Hester displays acts of courage that portray her as a heroic character. Hester clearly suffers from her punishment of having to wear the scarlet letter ‘A’ in public as she attempts to maintain

After Thea Elvsted leaves the room, crushed by Lovborg’s statement that he had destroyed the manuscript, he says to Hedda, To you I can tell the truth, Hedda.” The reason he probably thinks that is that he can trust her with everything he says to her. She has that personality that she is honest, loyal and trustworthy. I think he is right in this statement because having someone there that you can trust and that is honest to you. Having trust for someone I think is a big step to have. Sometimes having trust for someone is there for you and that they are that person that has a listening ear. For Thea she trusted Hedda for the sayings she had.

Hedda Gabler is portrayed as an extremely strong-willed woman. During the times in which this play is set, numerous women’s rights and suffrage movements were occurring across the world. It can be inferred that Hedda’s assertive attitude is characteristic of the time period. To Hedda, it is preposterous that she would have to be under the power of a man. When Judge Brock implies that he will disavow all knowledge of the source of the gun that killed Lövborg if Hedda becomes “subject to [his] will and demands” (Ibsen 262). She states, “No longer free! No! That’s a thought that I’ll never endure!” (Ibsen 262). At this time women across the world were adopting new ideas on their place in society. The atmosphere of the era provides an explanation of the source of Hedda’s manipulations.

What first started as an opuscule feature in an article known as The State, (a newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina) soon grew to a collection of outstanding novels, Gwen Bristow was one of the few women who received recognition for her works of literature. Growing up in Louisiana in the 1900’s, women were never perceived as being writers due to lack of schooling for girls. However, with the faith of her husband ,Bruce Manning, Bristow continued on writing a created the soon to be well known novel, Celia Garth. With 44 years of practice, Gwen obtained a great amount of knowledge when using literary devices in her work. For instance, within Celia Garth, Gwen Bristow used symbolism to enhance the quality of her writing, an example of symbolism

One of Hedda's main points in life is to control her position in society. She does everything in her power to avoid any type of scandal in the community and to go along with the norms of society. This occurs with her decision of marrying George Tesman, even though she had feelings

The judicious actions foreshadow disaster. Having no control over their relationship, she maximizes this opportunity of diverting his life. Although she is conservative, she also tries pushing the boundaries by continually being discontented, as opposed to what is expected of women during that era, and thus she is a victim of society. Her curiosity towards the outside world is a result of her being trapped indoors and explains her jealousy towards Lövborg, Thea or anybody who has freedom. Hedda withholds and controls her emotions; nonetheless this gives the audience an impression that she is mysterious and secretive.

Story ends in Hedda’s death, normally there are two main reasons behind a death, external reasons and internal reasons. In my opinion the factors that made Hedda shoot herself are her own machinations. The internal reasons for her death are portrayed throughout the story, and those internal pressures are jealousy, manipulation, and Hedda being scared of scandals. Jealousy

Hedda tears down everyone throughout the play, with Lövborg and Brack as the only exception. After being born to a high standing family, her expectations of power are high, but due to her biologic form as a woman she is trapped and unable to take control, “because Hedda has been imprisoned since girlhood by the bars of Victorian propriety, her emotional life has grown turbulent and explosive” (Embler). However, after succumbing to marriage with Tesman, whom she only marries for money and respect, she loses her place in society as she, as a mere woman, cannot retain it. This slowly unwinds Hedda and eventually leads her on to her fatal path. By

Hedda arouses sympathy from the readers through her own personal conflicts. She is a woman trapped by herself in a loveless marriage to an “ingenuous creature” (52 Ibsen) named George Tesman. Tesman is a simple soul with very little to offer. Not only is he an entire social class below Hedda, but he is oblivious, insecure due to his own banalities, and overly reliant on his Aunts’, despite being thirty-three-years-old. Hedda married George due to a “bond of sympathy. . .” (31 Ibsen) formed between them and she “took pity. . .” (31 Ibsen) on George. This brings a sense of sincerity to Hedda that was not turned to such a high magnitude preceding this discussion between Judge Brack and herself. Hedda is a lonely, yet independent, soul that wants sexual freedom without

Ibsen’s use of dramatic scenery and stage actions to illustrate Hedda as manipulative as she constantly tries to distance herself away from the Tesman's. Through other characters found within the play one can see her manipulative side as she struggles to maintain her aristocratic class values. The stage actions that Ibsen created for Hedda stresses the importance that she finds herself trapped in a middle class life and struggles with the realization of the lack of control over her future. Hedda constantly expresses her true self, away from other’s prying eyes out of the fear of a scandal that would arise once the other characters realize her true being.

This passage from the denouement Henrik Ibsen’s play, Hedda Gabler, before Hedda’s suicide, is an illustration of the vulnerability and defeat of the impetuous and manipulative titular character. Ibsen develops Hedda’s character by uncovering details about the conflicts between Hedda and the other characters, Judge Brack, Mrs Elvsted, and George Tesman which highlight Hedda’s transformation from an individualistic to despairing individual, conveying the theme of freedom and repression in society.

The reflection of women in literature during the late eighteen-hundreds often features a submissive and less complex character than the usual male counterpart, however Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler features a women who confines herself to the conformities that women were to endure during that time period but separates herself from other female characters by using her intelligence and overall deviousness to manipulate the men in her life and take a dominant presence throughout the play. Hedda challenges the normal female identity of the time period by leaving the stereotype of the “quiet, subservient housewife” through her snide and condescending remarks as well as her overall spoiled aristocratic demeanor.

Hedda has been interpreted as an “unreal, as a defective woman, as vicious and manipulative in nature, as a failed New Woman, or as a woman who is afraid of sex” (Björklund 1). She also could be seen as a woman who is afraid of sex or her own sexuality because homosexuality wasn’t accepted like it is today. According to Björklund, “Hedda’s masculinity defeats the dysfunctional masculinities of Tesman and Lovborg, but, in the bathe with Brack’s hegemonic masculinity, Hedda’s female masculinity becomes absorbed into the dominant structures. Hedda desires masculinity as represented by Brack—power and control—but, in the end, that masculinity is what kills her; she shoots herself with one of her father’s pistols, and her masculinity is absorbed into the patriarchy. Hedda’s masculinity is rejected, but what it represents—power and control—is mirrored by Brack, whose masculinity is reconstructed: he is the one cock of the walk” (Björklund

In the next example of Hedda’s jealousy, one can see how she is willing to go to extremes to hurt people and how malicious she can be. At the end of Act III, on page 699, Hedda burns the manuscript that Eilert and Thea worked so hard on. It was so precious to them that it could be considered their child. As she is burning it, Hedda says, “Now, I’m burning your child Thea-You with your curly hair. Your child and Eilert Loveborg’s. Now I’m burning-burning the child.” By saying this Hedda sums up many of the reasons why she is jealous of Thea. She mentions Thea’s hair, proving that even though she dismissed it earlier in the play, she did remember being jealous of Thea’s hair and still is. She is jealous of Thea because Thea is with Eilert who is the only man that Hedda has ever loved and wanted to be with. She is jealous that they were able to have a “child” together because she wishes it could have been her. In this one quote, Hedda shows her true emotions. She burns the manuscript as a way to hurt Thea and Eilert because she is jealous of them. She is malicious and jealous and this is the only way she knows how to react.

Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler introduces its audience to a paradoxical protagonist, Hedda Tesman. Ibsen’s delineation of Hedda presents her as a petty and frivolous woman whose sole motivation is to seek her own amusement with no regard to those around her. If some tragedy had befallen Hedda in her formative years and thus shaped her into the cold, callous woman she would become, Ibsen purposely omits this from this play: whatever judgment the audience might make of Hedda as a character must derive almost exclusively from the behaviors she exhibits in each of the work’s four acts. Ibsen does not intend for his audience to readily sympathize with Hedda. By not endearing Hedda to his audience, the subject of her suicide in the final act is