The play Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen is about a neurotic, self-centered woman who is trying to gain status by trampling on the lives of other people. Hedda married her husband not because she loved him but because she was bored. Then she was disappointed when he couldn’t keep her up to the standards she thought she deserved. She could not be contented and says so when she says “why on earth should I be happy. Can you give me a reason?” (Ibsen 1486). She was a newlywed and maybe pregnant with a home and a nice life but couldn’t think of a reason to be happy. Fearing that Loevborg’s writing would outdo her husband and being jealous of another woman she hands him a pistol and encourages him to kill himself after he thought he lost his most important manuscript and desperately needed her support. All of the time Hedda knew where it was and could have restored it to him and saved his life. This is a evil woman who would put her status above the life of another man. She makes herself miserable because she could not be content with life as it was. I think Loevborg said it best when he said “Yes, Hedda You’re a coward at heart”(1494). It takes a truly strong person to do the right thing and a coward to choose to manipulate people for their own satisfaction. It was impossible for Hedda to be happy because she looked at life materialistically and though I know that life was not equal for men and women in this time period but she held more power than most of the men in this story. After all how many people can say they were instrumental in a man’s suicide?
“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.” -Kahlil Gibran
Sherrie, I can truly agree with you on the fact that Hedda Gabler was surely as evil as she was materialistic. She proved to be a true narcissist: all about self. She was an illusory woman that would befriend one only if it was for some villainous reason. Hedda shows her true colors as she maliciously quizzes and manipulates Mrs. Elvsted and urges, “…Let’s tell each other our secrets, as we used to in the old days” (Ibsen 1475). Now Mrs. Elvsted should have immediately known that this uppity snob of a woman was up to no good, as her previous acquaintance with her back in school was always an atrocious meeting with some sort of debilitating act of aggression. Mayhap Mrs. Elvsted had no other friends and wanted one so badly until she chose to swallow all of the malarkey that Hedda had to dish out; maybe her elevator didn’t go all the way up and she was just a little touched in the head.
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