Feminism In Hedda Gabler

Henrik Ibsen is the greatest artist who has handled the play form we call modern drama, in which the centre of dramatic interest has shifted from violent action to what is happening in people’s minds. It follows that the dramatist who would do for our times what the older dramatists did for theirs, must be a poet and explorer of the inner life, and such Ibsen was. One of the most significant themes in Ibsen is the woman’s question. The standards for a life superior to the `existing state` are set by women in Ibsen’s plays. Women fare badly in a society where economic and social functions are almost exclusively male prerogatives. They represent, in a sense incomplete men. Ibsen has condemned modern society saying that it is not a human society

Therefore, this research paper does not attempt to argue whether Ibsen is a feminist or not, but it aims to show the feminism issues in his major play Hedda Gabler. Furthermore, this research paper attempts to highlight the real life depictions in literature in the nineteenth century to show and criticise how women were oppressed and stereotyped. Moreover, these two applications follow the American and the British methodologies in analysing Ibsen’s play Hedda Gabler. The American methodology concentrates on highlighting the stereotypical images of women, and focuses on how a woman is identified as an “angel woman” and a “monster woman”. It also asserts that women must free themselves from being reduced to these images which too often appear in literature. The British methodology, on the other hand, examines how women are oppressed in literature, and highlights the drastic consequence of the unjust attitudes toward women. Hence, this paper examines the westerns’ assumption in fiction that puts man in the hierarchical position i.e. that a man is superior, intelligent, and strong, while a woman is inferior, passive, and