Character Sketch Of Hedda Gabler

Hedda Gabler

Character Sketch of Hedda

1. Introduction

     Hedda Gabler is General Gabler's daughter, she is tied to societal norms and dares not risk a fight with society and do something as unconventional as marrying a dissipated rake like Loevborg, even though she is fascinated by him. Instead she marries Tesman, who represents solidity and respectability. A life of conformity without faith leads her to boredom and emotional sterility. She is cruel and mean to Aunt Julia and Mrs. Elvsted, and contracts an underhanded alliance with Brack. When Lowvborg comes back into her life she tries to liberate him but fails. She also gives him one of her pistols to commit suicide. However, when she comes to know that he did not shoot himself in the temple, but was killed in a scuffle and shot in the bowels. She is disillusioned finding that she is completely in Brack's power and fearing a scandal; she finally has the courage to shoot herself in the temple.

2. A Neurotic Character

     In 1950s, Joseph Krutch thought that Hedda was an evil woman. However, more recent critics explain her behaviour in terms of the restrictive social conditions of nineteenth century Norway. This view is well presented by Mayerson: ... Hedda is a woman, not a monster; neurotic, but not psychotic. Thus she may be held accountable for her behaviour. But she is spiritually sterile. Her yearning for self-realization through exercise of her natural endowments is in conflict with her enslavement to a narrow standard of conduct. Unfortunately, Hedda never does understand the reality of her situation, nor does her death "prove" anything. Mayerson goes on to explain that Hedda: ... dies to escape a sordid situation that is largely of her own making; she will not face reality nor assume responsibility for the consequences of her acts. The pistols, having descended to a coward and a cheat, bring only death without honour.

3. A Dishonest Woman

     Hedda often tells two characters two very different things. For example, she tells Tesman that he ought to go write Eilert Loevborg a long letter but then immediately reveals to Mrs. Elvsted that she only did this to get rid of him. When talking to Judge Brack, Hedda says that she really does not care for the house Tesman has bought for her, yet she lets Tesman go on believing that the house is precious to her, even while it is a great financial burden for him. These examples not only illustrate Hedda's tendency toward untruthfulness but also that she enjoys having people in her power. She likes Tesman to think that he is pleasing her, and she likes the fact that he goes to great lengths to do so. Such demonstrations prove her power over him. 

4. Hedda Gabler or Hedda Tesman

     We begin by noting that both the main character and the play named after her are called "Hedda Gabler", even though, as a married woman, she ought to be known as "Hedda Tesman". For a woman to take her husband's name at the time of marriage implies many changes in her life. Hedda, however, seems fundamentally untouchable in her innermost being. Hedda's permanent identity as "Hedda Gabler" is directly connected to her father's exalted social rank. As a general, he would have occupied a position of great distinction, both in the town and in Norway at large. His daughter would have shared this stature, and would thus have stood apart from - and well above - all but a few of the other young women of her generation. Hedda's distance from others, her aloofness, her spiritual pride, the indelibility of her identify as a Gabler, all derive from this social eminence. 

5. An Attractive Woman

     Hedda is distinguished not only by her pedigree, but also by her looks and behaviour. Her beauty impresses Aunt Julia and Berta, and her dashing appearance on horseback creates a profound impression among the lesser townsfolk. Had such a person been a man - well-born, high-spirited, intelligent, attractive - he would certainly have pursued an active and challenging career. As a late-Victorian woman, that possibility is closed to Hedda; it is only through the men in her life that she can achieve that kind of fulfillment. We see in her frustrated hopes for her husband's success how she longs to participate in a life of action and achievement, if only vicariously: 

Hedda: There's every chance that, in time, he could still make a name for himself. 

Brack: I thought you believed, like everyone else, that he was going to be quite famous some day. 

Hedda: (wearily) Yes, so I did. 

6. A Non-Conventional Character

     Hedda cannot - like some women of her time - simply defy the convention of female domesticity to pursue her own desires, precisely because she is Hedda Gabler - the daughter of a general, and thus committed to uphold the social codes that simultaneously elevate and constrain her. Thus, to be the General's daughter is a two-edged sword for Hedda: it confers on her the spiritual pride and self-regard that set her apart from the common herd; but it also requires her absolute conformity to the rules of propriety that she finds so stifling. And Ibsen makes it quite clear that for Hedda utter conformity is the price she is willing to pay - however grudgingly - for her social eminence. 

7. Fear of Scandal

     To suffer scandal is to experience social disgrace as a result of behaviour that violates the code of respectable conduct. To be the object of scandal would mean that Hedda could no longer occupy the exalted position that goes with being a General's daughter; it would mean in some sense that she was separated from her identity as a Gabler - without which she fears she may be nothing. And yet, Hedda is powerfully driven by desires and ambitions that could destroy her reputation. Her solution to this conflict between scandalous yearning and the need for absolute propriety is to live out her forbidden longings indirectly, through the experience of others - principally Loevborg. He fear of scandal prohibits any open rebellion against her boring marriage with Tesman, as we learn from her sexual fencing-match with Judge Brack. 

8. Loevborg's Return

     Loevborg's return gives Hedda one more chance to rise up against her empty existence without risking personal exposure. If she can wrest control of Loevborg from Thea, she will have recaptured a soul-mate - and pawn - in her shadow-life of whispered obscenity and transgression of proxy. And when Loevborg is wrecked by his scandalous conduct at Mademoiselle Diana's, Hedda sees in his intended suicide an opportunity to appropriate for herself his grand, romantic gesture of social defiance and contempt. She gives him one of her pistols to commit suicide, begging him to "do it beautifully". This shows that Hedda does not care much about anyone and she is very much into her own self. 

9. Frightening Aspects of Her Character

     Out of her frustrated desires for a full life of her own grow those impulses to deny and destroy the lives of others that are the most frightening aspects of her character. She repeatedly refuses to acknowledge that she is pregnant, because motherhood would be one more intolerable obligation binding her to marriage and Tesman. She is cold and cruel toward Aunt Julia, an unwanted relative acquired because of that marriage; and she flatly refuses to visit the dying Aunt Rina, likewise because of her contempt for Tesman's family. Toward Loevborg her conduct is a strange combination  of passion and exploitation. Although sexually stirred by him, she refuses his advances, choosing instead to satisfy herself by manipulating his weaknesses. 

10. Hedda's Suicide 

     Hedda has been unhappy for quite some time now. She is 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. She can't stand the thought of the Judge having power over her. She has nothing to live for. She is afraid of breaking the rules. Thus she shoots herself in the temple to prove her own courage, maintaining her aesthetic ideal, freeing herself from Victorian values, and sticking it to the Judge and her husband. Death confers on her ultimate immunity from exposure and scandal and absolute freedom from the control of husbands and would-be-lovers. Thus Hedda's suicide is victorious.