Literary Review: Hedda Gabler

Title: Hedda Gabler

Author: Henrik Ibsen

Setting: Un-named city in Norway (probably Christiania - the Norwegian capital then)

Time Period: 1890

Major Characters

Hedda Gabler - (married name: Hedda Tesman) Daughter of an aristocratic general who spoiled her. She’s used to a life of luxury in which she gets anything she wants. She is bored with her life because there’s nothing new for her to see or experience. She marries George Tesman so that she won’t be an oddball in society. She’s nearly thirty and realizes that she’s not getting any younger or desirable. He’s the only one of her suitors who grovels for her hand in marriage, so she chooses him. She immediately sees that she will be able to manipulate him into giving her anything she wants. She puts up with the fact that he’s only interested in past civilizations and he doesn’t satisfy any of her needs. She wants the power to shape the lives of others, and her obvious ennui wrecks not only her life, but the lives of all who come in contact with her as well.

George Tesman - very kind and intelligent man. He was raised by his aunts, Juliana and Rina. He remains devoted to them, even though Rina is an invalid. He does everything in his power to give Hedda the life she’s used to. He annoys not only characters in the story, but readers as well. After almost all his sentences he asks the question “Eh?” (or “What?” depending on the translation). He is a gentleman and serves Hedda as if he were her slave and not her husband. He even accepts financial support from his aunt Juliana so that he can provide the kind of life Hedda is used to, and to pay for the house he though she really wanted. He even depends on becoming the professor of history so that she’ll be proud of him and they’ll have more financial security. He doesn’t realize Hedda is manipulative, despises him, and doesn’t even want to have their child. He believes her lies that she burnt the manuscript for him as an act of love.

Judge Brack - likes to gossip and be know everything going on in people’s private affairs. He has connections around the city and uses that to provide information to Tesman about his candidacy for professorship in history. He informs them of the competition from Eilert Lovborg for the professorship, and also of his death. Brack shares an intimate relationship with Hedda, and she confides in him about her boredom she has with he...

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...straight ahead of her and comments, “So that pretty little fool has had her fingers in a man’s destiny.”

Lovborg asks Hedda, “Was there no love in your friendship for me either? Not a spark--not a tinge of love in it?” In this he expresses that he truly felt love for her, and that is what gave her power over him.

Hedda asks herself, “Oh, why does everything I touch become mean and ludicrous? It’s like a curse!” This comment emphasizes the fact that her ennui is affecting all of those around her. It has caused her to become nihilistic and wreak havoc on the lives of others for her own amusement.

Hedda comments, “I think I have a natural talent for boring myself to death.” She realizes that much of her boredom is self-inflicted, just like when she told Judge Brack that “as you make your bed so you must lie…”

Lovborg tells Hedda, “It wasn’t secret knowledge you wanted. You wanted life.” They were discussing her curiosity in the past about his sinful life. She replies, “I want to have the power to shape a human being’s destiny.”

Hedda says, “Yes, there’s something in [the house] of the odor of death…Oh, my dear Judge--you can’t imagine how horribly I’m going to bore myself here.”