Themes In Hedda Gabler

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Joseph LeGras

Professor Roberts

English 202

Themes in Hedda Gabler

Hedda Gabler was written in the Victorian era, when women had to play the role of the perfect housewife. They were simply displayed for their looks and to make the men look good. The women had few rights at all. This play displays a few rebellious women fighting for a better life. Henrik Ibsen shows themes of manipulation, obsession, and a feminist agenda throughout his play Hedda Gabler. These themes are mainly demonstrated throughout the women in this story.

One of the main characters, Hedda Gabler, has an evil spirit inside of her, she is constantly manipulating people. She comes from a luxurious and high-class life. She is intelligent, clever, and also sneaky. Even though she has many good qualities, she is somewhat dishonest. One cannot be honest and trust-worthy while lying to their friends and family. To start, she tricks her husband into buying the house that she lied about wanting. She puts up a front of showing that she loves him, knowing she only got married because she is getting old. Now, women in this time were talked down to, they were expected to not do or say anything. Their job was to look pretty and talk with class. Hedda is not the type of female to play the ordinary female role. She even says she is bored; ". . . oh dear judge, I’ve been so desperately bored" (Ibsen 1430). Hedda is bored with living the life of an ordinary female to the point of finding manipulating people fun and game. She manipulates Eilert to start drinking again without him even knowing. She tricks her husband, by taking Eilert’s manuscript because Tesman was distracted about his dying aunt. And the cruelest and sickest one is when she attempts to trick her friend into killing himself and actually enjoys his death by telling him to make it beautiful. One can say her mind is twisted and evil. Another can say she is just misunderstood. But one thing is for sure, her death was "beautiful".

Feminism is a gathering of events aimed towards protecting political, economic, and social rights for women. Mrs. Elvsted and Aunt Tesman show the majority of feminism in this story. Mrs. Elvsted displays independence by leaving her husband. She was unhappy and left to fight for a better cause. Mrs. Elvsted enjoys her time with Eilert, so she finds it in her to help him with this new manuscript. She inspired him to write it so much, that he calls it their "baby". She is the perfect housewife for this era. Even Hedda is intimidated by her feminism. Hedda is jealous of Mrs. Elvsted and Eilert’s relationship after Mrs. Elvsted tells Hedda about how he had changed; "He gave up his old ways- and not because I begged him to. I never dared to do that. But he started to notice that those kinds of thing upset me, so he gave them up" (Ibsen 1424). Hedda does not like the fact that Eilert had changed to please Mrs. Elvsted as, she wanted to have the power over Eilert. After Eilert’s death, Mrs. Elvsted is still determined to have their child and finish what was started. She sits down with Mr. Tesman and tries to reconstruct the manuscript from Eilert’s notes. Aunt Tesman showed her feminism little but still displayed it well. She was an old woman that did her job for her husband. And now, all she wants to do is take care of someone, just to have a purpose.

The Obsession traits are split into three people in this story: Hedda, the Judge, and Mr. Tesman. Mr. Tesman’s obsession is indeed a light one; he is obsessed with pleasing his wife Hedda, anything she wants she gets. Tesman bought the house they live in now just because she said she wanted to live in it, even though she only said she wanted the house to start up conversation. He will do anything for her, and not just because she is his wife. It is like he is brainwashed. The judge had an obsession with Hedda as a whole. The judge constantly talks about raping her. He begs for a personal, private relationship with her, and she denies him. His obsession goes too far when he blackmails her into making her do whatever he wants, which eventually drive her to her death, in additional to her unhappiness. Hedda has the worst obsession of them all. Her constant urge for evil love for beauty is a weird one. She wants everything to be beautiful, no matter what it is. Even death to her has to be beautiful. She talks about things being perfect. She is too particular with things. Hedda also has a crazy side with her obsession of her dad’s pistols. She feels as she is closer to her dad, when she shoots them, and because she is unstable. These are the same pistols that Eilert and Hedda killed themselves with.

Hedda Gabler is a story of many faces. It displays the strong rebellious women of the Victorian Era, the absolute power of manipulation, and also, the crazed control of obsession.

Hedda Gabler exhibited women being all of these three themes. This shows the many struggles that women went through and conquered over the Victorian Era. Hedda Gabler will always be known as a defiant one.

Word Count: 895