What Is The Sympatheticism In Hedda Gabler

The first snowfall signals the true arrival of the winter season in the Canadian tundra and woodland. A gray wolf sets out on a hunting expedition in the fresh, brisk air of the morning. A young, innocent bison, has been separated from its herd, it will soon be killed. In the eye’s of an unaware onlooker, the act is pure evil; that little bison did not deserve to die; however, the wolf is a mother and has hungry pups to feed. The pups would otherwise starve to death if she didn’t go hunting. Hedda Gabler is that wolf in Henrik Ibsen’s play Hedda Gabler. On the superficial level, Hedda establishes herself as immoral and with a sole intent to hurt others. Sympathetically, the wolf was purely hunting for survival. Similarly, Ibsen progressed

It is Thea’s ‘don’t care’ attitude and the way in which everything always turns out fine for her that really gets to Hedda. In the beginning, Thea arrives at the Tesman’s house and explains how she ran away from her husband in pursuit of Løvborg. When asked what she thinks others will say, her reply is quick and to the point: “God knows they’ll say what they please” (240). Thea has found true love with Løvborg. Hedda, being terrified of scandal herself, can not bare the fact that Thea does not care what others say. Løvborg used to be her love and now Thea has won him over and made him better--Thea was the one that helped him recover from alcoholism. This is one of the catalysts that leads Hedda to explode in her revenge and commit a terrible act: burning the manuscript that Løvborg and Thea had worked on. Consumed with the evil deed, she exclaims, “Now I’m burning your child, Thea! You, with your curly hair! Your child and Eilert Løvborg’s. Now I’m burning--I’m burning the child” (288). Once again, her jealousy of Thea’s hair resurfaces. Yet, that is not all of what easily comes to Thea. She does not even try, but manages to somehow win over George’s mind with saving the manuscript. Thea’s influence is invisible, yet very potent, causing George to say, without thinking, that he will give up his whole life to rewrite that script (297). Therefore, Thea is unknowingly taking away two people

Hedda’s symbolic age--twenty-nine--forced her to get married because society’s age limit for marriage was catching up to her; she needed a stable and secure arrangement to avoid any scandals. However, by marrying George, Hedda was trying to get what she wanted the most: control. Attempting to maintain material wealth and status was her way of doing so; both become obvious in Hedda’s complaints. She wants another piano because the old one “doesn’t really fit in with all these other things,” and asks for a butler and horse, knowing she cannot have these things (232;247). More importantly, Hedda is trying to recover the previous status she had when she talks to George about how “It was part of our bargain that we’d live in society--that we’d keep a great house--” (247). This becomes the ultimate proof that Hedda’s love for George is fake. The marriage was a bargain; therefore, it seems that Hedda is only preoccupied with the betterment of herself. She does not care for others, not even for George. Hedda is consumed in her materialistic world, and cannot realize that this world will never actually materialize. It is apparent that what is important in life has somehow omitted her and she is lost in her own