Henrik Isben’s “Hedda Gabler” is a problem play that deals with several social conflicts that a newlywed woman experiences when we arrives back to her home town from her honeymoon. As the daughter of General Gabler, Hedda Gabler has been born into and grown accustom to being at the top of her town’s social hierarchy. Because of Hedda’s social status and undeniable beauty she has the ability to control and manipulate those around her – but to a certain extent. The time the play was set in, women did not have a lot of freedom to do anything outside of getting married, having children and attending to the house. Hedda did not fit this mould that was created for women of that time. She was not very maternal individual and reactive negatively whenever the subject of a possible pregnancy was mentioned. Hedda also had intimacy issues and avoided forming a close and personal bond with another human being. When she and Eilert Løvborg were beginning to develop a friendship the moment they started getting intimate she pulled her pistol out on him and told him to leave or she would shoot him. Eilert Løvborg fed her hunger for life she lived vicariously through his stories about his less than honourable, drunken nights. Soon Eilert started meant more to Hedda than she was willing to admit and she pushed him away. Hedda is unhappy with the way her life has unfolded because she is forced to form intimate relationships, her marriage to George Tesman, a possible baby, and being forced to spend time with Judge Brack. Henrik Isben’s “Hedda Gabler” resolves the thematic issue of social constraints through Hedda’s beautiful illusion that acts of freedom and courage do exist.
Hedda’s beautiful illusion lives through the life of Eilert Løvborg. He re...
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...being a wife, a proper young woman, and now a impending affair with Judge Brack. She created the created this illusion out of desperation for an escape from reality and now without it she feels as though there is no way to break away from all she finds ugly. As a result Hedda shoots herself in the temple to free herself. It is kind of ironic that she constructs this beautiful illusion on Eilert Løvborg taking his life and sees it is a great act of courage but when she commits suicide it is not out of courage but cowardice.
Hedda’s beautiful illusion was that acts of courage and freedom do exist in her world. Eilert Løvborg represented ideas of free will and rashness while his suicide represented courage and boldness, all qualities that Hedda sought after to fulfill her illusion and create beauty within her world.
Works Cited
Henrik Isben’s play “Hedda Gabler”
One of Hester’s greatest qualities is her unrelenting selflessness. Despite her constant mental anguish due to her sin, the constant stares and rude comments, and the
Hester showed extreme strength and courage when she takes the child away. A deep impression of her courage is felt when her face was described. The book said she had a "burning blush and ahaughty smile." This can alsoshow her as being rebelliousbecause most perople wouldn't raise their head, much less with a haughty smile. The glance she gave the crowd was what put it over the top. She was being bold and it was like she was saying, "Look you can't punish me anymore I've served my time." Though her crime was very wrong, admiration is felt due to her braveness. Then the people saw her A and how elaborately it was decorated.
Through explaining her resilience, he shares that “her sudden revelation that through years of loneliness she has not consented to let her soul be killed” (Van Doren). It is evident that Hester does not think of her punishment as the end of her life as she continues to live and try to make the most of what she has. This proves to the audience that Hester must, at the very least, obtain the characteristic of perseverance, a quality worthy of respect. Van Doren praises Hester for her valor and believes that “Hester’s life has not been hollow, nor has her great nature been wasted” (Van Doren). His tone is so obviously reflected throughout his piece of criticism that his belief is etched into the readers’ minds, and they, too, begin to believe Hester Prynne is a hero. This quote is effective because it creates a picture for the reader that Hester is resilient and should be admired, as she continues to live her best life with what she
Hedda elicits sympathy from her audience because it is very obvious she is unhappy with her life. Women are suppressed by society and considered inferior to men. That is even more so in this time period. She expresses boredom with the life she has chosen during her conversation with Judge Brack in Act II. She talks of how she has these “impulses” to do these little things, assumingly to add a little spice to her life (Ibsen, Act II).
Hester at first felt that her sin had taken away everything that she had and left her with only one thing, Pearl. When she first walked out of the prison and onto the scaffold, she was full of pride but from that point on, she was isolated from her community and forced to live in the forest with only her baby. Hester felt that suicide was the only thing she deserved after committing adultery. She says, "I have thought of death, have wished for it?would even have prayed for it, were it fit that such as I should pray for anything. Yet, if death be in this cup, I bid thee think again, ere thou beholdest me quaff it. See! it is even now at my lips." As time passes by, Hester?s personality gradually changes and she becomes a completely different person. She has become more caring although her lifestyle became worse.
When her past wit LØvborg is brought up the reader sees a different side of Hedda. We can see that with LØvborg she feels comfortable and therefor confident. This can be seen by her willingness to discuss her thought of herself being a coward seen when LØvborg says, “Yes, Hedda, you are a coward at heart. And Hedda replies, ”A terrible coward.” This shows that she think of herself as a coward. She thinks she has no power over anyone and is poor because of her choice to comply with society. She is able to show LØvborg this side of her because he knew her before the change in her life. She knows that he still thinks of her for who she was before Tesman and this is why the audience is shown Hedda’s coward side with LØvborg.
In two of Ibsen's most famous works, A Doll's House and Hedda Gabler, the main characters are females who strive to be self-motivated beings. Because of the male-oriented society that dominates their lives, which resembles the world women had to deal with at the time when Ibsen created his works, the confined characters demonstrate their socially imposed roles. "Ibsen's Nora is not just a woman arguing for female liberation; she is much more. She embodies the comedy as well as the tragedy of modern life," insisted Einar Haugen, a doyen of American Scandinavian studies, over twenty years later, after feminism has resurfaced as an international movement (Templeton 111). Many people admire Ibsen for portraying Hedda and Nora as women who are able to take action and escape the conventional roles expected of them.
The feminist Lois Wyse once stated, “Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths.” Women should express remorse for their strengths, when men should feel guilt when exposing their weaknesses. Wyse believed that women should have been able to show their strengths in their oppressive societies instead of covering them up. The 19th century setting in the two plays, A Doll House and Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen, caused much grief in both Nora and Hedda. They both lived in Europe during the 1800’s where males dominated the way society ran. Ibsen created an environment for women to question the society they lived in. Nora and Hedda, two feminists living in a masculine household bereft of happiness, desired to evade their unhappy life at home under the guidance of a man. Eventually, both women escaped from their husband’s grasps, but Hedda resorted to suicide in order to leave. Nora agreed with Lois Wyse by showing her strengths with pride to everybody, while Hedda hid her strengths like a coward by killing herself. Ibsen used numerous literary elements and techniques to enhance his writing and to help characterize the two protagonists. Nora, characterized as a benevolent and strong person, left her husband to explore the beliefs in society and to interpret ideas herself. Unlike Nora, the belligerent, selfish Hedda destroyed the lives of people around her just to take her own life in the end. Even though it appeared that Nora abandoned all responsibility for her children and hid an insidious secret from her husband, Nora showed greater fortitude than Hedda in the way she faced the obstacles of her life.
Hedda married Tesman, an academic student who supposed to have a potential success, not because she loves him, but just because as she said “It was a great deal more than any of my other admirers were offering”. In this quote she is showing her real feelings meaning that she never loves him and she just married him because he was the best option among the
Hedda's tragedy is that she is denied the freedom to realize her creative potential, and so have the self-esteem that comes from personal achievement. Her attempt to retain her independence within society prevents her, through fear of scandal, from marrying the man with whom she might have had a relationship both individually satisfying and mutually supportive. In Hedda's suicide are seen the stifling of intellect and the emotional isolation caused by oppression, even within a commonplace bourgeois family where "People don't do such things!" (1507).
Social status, gender, and misguided intentions render Hedda Gabler and Emma Bovary alienated individuals. One question remains, who deserves the title tragic hero or villain? Hedda commits suicide to avoid being caged and blackmailed by Judge Brack, while Emma commits suicide to avoid the public shame that will inevitably come from soiling her husband’s name and acquiring unimaginable debt. Hedda refuses to commit adultery because she “has made her bed, and now she must lie in it” she knows that every action or fib has its consequences. Emma on the other hand commits adultery with two different men, trying to find her hopes and dreams. Both had a choice when choosing whom they wanted to marry. Hedda Gabler wins, because although she is rude, manipulative, and vindictive; she accepts the consequences of her actions unlike Emma.
Hester’s principal qualities of strength and honesty are revealed throughout the novel. Her strength is seen in her actions after her sin is revealed. Foremost, she thinks of her adultery as an act committed out of passion and denies the belief that man’s nature is corrupt
For Maxim Gorki and Henrik Ibsen, the "the surprise ending" is a device to highlight the extreme desperation and hopelessness man is often faced. In both cases, the plays end with an act of suicide - The Actor in The Lower Depths, and Hedda in Hedda Gabler. The alcoholic Actor dreamt of a far off hospital that helped drunkards by curing them of their disease. He struggles through out the play trying to find this path to redemption. Hedda tries to control a world that she is trapped in. This control would result in her freedom to exist in true self-expression. Both characters live in denial. They subconsciously understand that these aspirations will forever be fantasies due to their society; they survive restlessly in these worlds of illusion. However, by the end of each play, the illusion crumbles, and both are forced to face the dire truth of their situations. The characters decide to act in the most brutal and finite way to control their own fate, ending their lives. By comparing two powerful and similar surprise endings involving two acutely different characters, Gorki and Ibsen send a similar message. Whether a character's fantastical illusions come in the form of escape, salvation, hope, or control, the destruction of these illusions result in a personal devastation that can be insurmountable.
Hester is indeed a sinner, adultery is no light matter, even today. On the other hand, her sin has brought her not evil, but good. Her charity to the poor, her comfort to the broken-hearted, her unquestionable presence in times of trouble are all direct results of her quest for repe...
Hedda was raised a lady of the upper class, and as such she regards her beauty with high esteem. This is, in part, the reason she vehemently denies the pregnancy for so long. A pregnancy will force her to gain weight and lose her lovely womanly figure. Hedda has grown accustomed to her many admirers; therefore, Hedda is ...