A Critique of the Character of Hedda Gabler

The character of Hedda Gabler is contrived in the back drop of 19^th century Norwegian Society. Hedda, raised by a military father, is designated as the protagonist of the drama, manifesting an amalgam of feminine and masculine traits nurtured under General Gabler’s unique upbringing and the societal mores encroached upon her. Her identity is greatly appropriated with her father’s exalted social stature. Hedda Gabler is a pampered child who, by the dint of her father’s venerated social persona, wants to occupy an influential place in society. She aloof and insolent towards the people of low rank. She is a class conscious lady who is supposed to exercise her power over others.

Owing to her military back ground, she must have been grown up in an atmosphere of strict discipline and conformity to rules and would have inherited her father’s stature which ultimately makes her class conscious, uncouth and disparaging for others. She was trained to shoot and ride.  She stands apart from and well above all except a few of the other young women of her time. Hedda’s distance from other, her aloofness, her pride and the indelibility of her identity as a Gabler, all derive from this social eminence. For Joseph Wood Krutch, Hedda Gabler is an evil woman. However, naturalistic studies explain her behavior in terms of the restrictive social conditions of nineteenth century Norway. Hedda Gabler is a stranger to herself, however, lacking dare and defiance of conventions, she is unable to undergo the trials of self-evaluation and becomes a morbidly self-vindictive, destructive virago, capable only to strike out against the successful socially conforming individuals who represent an implicit reproach to her uninformed cravings. In the play, Ibsen provides enough information to show how Hedda's problem is the product of her special background.

Hedda cannot simply defy the convention of female domesticity to pursue her own desires, precisely because she is Hedda Gabler—the daughter of a general, and thus committed to uphold the social codes that simultaneously elevate and constrain her. Thus, to be the General’s daughter is a two-edged sword for Hedda: it confers on her the spiritual pride and self-regard that set her apart from the common herd; but it also requires her absolute conformity to the rules of propriety that she finds so stifling.

Being beautiful and the most “sought-after” young woman, she attended many social affairs but never found anyone to marry; probably she was not rich enough to interest the eligible bachelors of high social standing. She marries Tesman as she was running out of her age. As she confesses to Brack, “ I have danced out my days.” General Gabler’s daughter, she is tied to societal norms and dares not risk a fight with society and do something as unconventional as marrying a dissipated rake like Loevborg, even though she is fascinated by him. Instead she marries Tesman, who represents stolidity and respectability.

She desires conformity and even lacks financial assistance. A life of conformity without faith leads her to boredom and emotional sterility. All her dreams end in her boredom and frustration as her marriage of convenience brings about the hard realities of life of a middle class family. She never had the tendency to be ruled over or let anyone exercise 'Power' over her. She orchestrates the whole play with her genius although she fails to adopt any of the role as a wife, caregiver or a house keeper. She attempts to manipulate people like Thea and Loevborg and drives them to destruction to satisfy her own unattended ego. When Judge Brack tries to develop his relation with her and blackmails her, she felt lonely and quits.

She remains the daughter of General Gabler rather than the wife of Tesman. The portrait of G.Gabler in the room and Piano symbolizes her proximity with her past. She adopts the attitude of frost formality with aunts of the Tesman and doesn’t miss a single event to convey sarcastic remarks. Even the death of Aunt Rena exercises no influence over her. She rightly confesses to Judge Brack, "These impulses come over me all of a sudden and I cannot resist them" She is cruel and mean to Aunt Julia and Mrs. Elvsted and contracts an underhanded alliance with Brack. When Loevborg comes back into her life she tries to liberate him but fails, and in a fit of jealousy, she burns his manuscripts. She also gives him one of her pistols to commit suicide, begging him to “do it beautifully.” However, when she comes to know that he did not shoot himself in the temple, but was killed in a scuffle and shot in the bowels. She is disillusioned finding that she is completely in Brack’s power and fearing a scandal; she finally has the courage to shoot herself in the temple. Drama