How Is Hedda Gabler Unsympathetic

In the beginning of the written story the author reveals Hester to be a cold-hearted mother. "She had bonny children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon

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.

She is wise, fair, and proud of who she is. Right from the start of the tale, the old woman gains a large amount of power over the knight. Trying to escape a death sentence, the knight is desperate for knowledge that the old woman possesses. Cleverly, the woman uses this to her advantage, but unlike Walter, she does not abuse her power. She tells the knight the information that he needs to save his life, and she asks for marriage in return. Despite the knight’s distress in their marriage, the old woman has enough self-confidence to realize that she is not the one at fault. Unlike Griselda, the old woman is not ashamed of her common social status. She believes that social class is simply a label, not a true judgment of character. She also feels that her lack of money is beneficial since she is content with what she has. The old woman has enough sense to realize that she does not need to agree with her husband

Ibsen uses the relationship and conflict between Hedda and Brack to illustrate Hedda’s struggle to assert her free will and power in a male-dominated society. The two characters are united as social equals who are members of the aristocracy as

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

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

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.

An early example of this is how she handles her service to others. Even while being harassed by the general public, Hester Prynne continues to make these sacrifices which are only rewarded with hatred and insults. Hester foregoes her own pleasures, except for the lavish “decoration of her infant,” and bestows the rest of her wealth “on wretches less miserable than herself” (Hawthorne 75). She even continues to aid the poor despite the fact that they “not unfrequently insulted the hand that fed them” (Hawthorne 75). Despite the fact that it was in Hester’s best interests not to aid those around her, she continued to do so. This evidences her sheer strength of character as the heroine of the novel. Hester’s loyalty is also magnified by her selfless nature, as her willingness to sacrifice lends itself well to remaining loyal to others. Hester also selflessly bears the burden of the entire community’s sin. Hester “perceives the ‘hidden sin in other hearts’ around her” and because her sin has been uncovered, “she alone bears the penalty for deviancy” (Taylor). A prime example of this is once again her refusal to reveal Dimmesdale as her child’s father. In resisting their efforts to uncover him, Hester states to the clergy: “I might endure his agony, as well as mine!” (Hawthorne 63). Here, her loyalty is greatly supplemented by her willingness to suffer in place

Towards the end of the novel Hedda gives Lovborg a pistol so he would end his life “beautifully”. They find him dead with the pistol next to him and the assumption is made that either he shot himself accidentally or was killed by Mademoiselle Diana as an act of self defense. However, when Brack first reveals the news of Lovborg’s death to Hedda he conceals this information and tells her that Lovborg shot himself in the breast. In response to this Hedda calls his death beautiful and “a deed worth doing!” (page 66) knowing that she has officially gained power over Lovborg. When Brack sees this response he gets Hedda alone and tells her the truth of what happens and that he knows that she gave him the gun. He then reveals to Hedda that she has a choice: either let Brack tell the police about the owner of the gun and ruin her reputation and social status that she has sacrificed so much for, or not tell anyone and forever be in debt to Judge Brack. Hedda is appalled by both options because they mean loss of power and everything she’s strived for. With the weight of this on her shoulders she chooses an alternative option and kills herself.

Similarly, she longs to manipulate others due to her lack of independence. Forcing her to stay for a cup of tea, Hedda “drags Mrs. Elvsted almost by main force towards the archway” (Ibsen). Blatantly rude, she belittles Thea physically and almost sadistically, making the latter feel powerless and trapped to release her anger and to use this as a replacement for the dissatisfaction in life. Her mind and demeanor is thus an outcome of her past. Hoping to gain attention to substitute her isolation and emptiness, she automatically responds bitterly. Lacking dominance, she reciprocates physically for authority over Mrs. Elvsted’s fate. When Brack visits, she greets him by “raising and aiming the pistol” (Ibsen 35). Envying his ability to determine others’ destiny as a lawyer, she imagines deciding that of his for a moment. The pistol

Mrs. Ramsay thrives in this role of wife and mother, and men support this role by loving and adoring her for it. In watching her fit the stocking to James' leg and at another time, read James a fairy tale, Mr. Bankes can not help but contemplate the wonders of Mrs. Ramsay. He sees her is the best of light, as childlike and beautiful from within. "If one thought of her simply as a woman", one who wished to be admired, they were mistaken. In his opinion, she was beyond all of that. Her self sacrificing nature brought her to a higher level, where although she was strikingly beautiful, she wanted only to be like everyone else, "insignificant", so as to serve those around her.(p. 30) The simple acts which she

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 Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen portrays the hopeless struggle of woman in the Victorian era through the protagonist, Hedda. From 1837 to 1901 in England, women experienced unrestrained oppression, were expected to follow the orders of their husbands, and were believed to be unwise. In the play, the newly wed Hedda has just arrived to her new husband, Tesmun’s home town, and her whole world seems to be shrinking inch by inch, expressed mainly through elements of stagecraft. The play is mostly focused around the main character, Hedda, a tragic heroine. Her need to manipulate others grows ever stronger as her boredom and despair increase, due to the new middle class atmosphere she is forced into. At last, she frees herself from all of the social restrictions society has imposed on her, by completing the act of suicide. Through the characterization of Hedda, Ibsen explores the oppression of woman in the Victorian Era.

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.