Hedda Gabler Essay

In the play Hedda Gabler written by Henrik Ibsen, a women named Hedda takes her own life as an escape; Overall, the play was interesting. In the beginning, Hedda the young women and main character of the play is unhappy and manipulative. She married a man named Tesman who is young educated scholar and is in love with Hedda. Being in love made him blind to her manipulative ways. It was an extremely one sided marriage as the reader could tell throughout the play. This is when we first realize Hedda is unhappy. Tesman says “Why, bless me—then Aunt Julia was right after all! Oh yes—I knew it! Hedda! Just fancy—Eilert Løvborg is not going to stand in our way!” and in Hedda's response, she seemingly wants nothing to do with her husband or the situation.

Hedda came from a wealthy family, and a daughter of a general. She went from a wealthy family to a husband who is not as well endowed. She was more of a son her father never had. As Plimpton says within Martha Hostetter article "Hedda's desire to inhabit a man's world, her violent response to Lovborg's overtures, her fascination with pistols--all of this lays the groundwork for a complicated sexual dynamic.” She was a tomboy in a way with liking guns and her violence. She was brought up spoiled and continues to think she should be. In fact, she had said the piano “doesn't go well with all the other things” and Tesman insisted on exchanging it. Her being stubborn and wanting the most she came up with the idea of getting another one and keeping this one as well, saying “I don't want to part with it. Suppose we put it there in the inner room, and then get another here in its place”. She wants her way and does not care at what cost.

Hedda has been in denial about problems she faced throughout the play. Her suicide was the only way to make it end. As Mary Kay Norseng says within her article, “It is the frustration, the thwarting, the blocking, the incompleteness, the tension over the fulfilling of that need, deemed important by that person, that causes the unbearable tension.” Hedda was not willing to work out the problems she faced and took the easy way