Hedda Gabler's Suicide

By James Cox, Student

Hedda as a symbol of the effects of societal pressures

An essay hosted at LiteratureClassics.com

Hedda Gabler is one of the most famous works of the dramatist Henrik Ibsen. The Norwegian poet and playwright gave us an insight into the household of an up and coming scholar and his high-class wife. The play, which primarily is a play of human relations, shows us the disintegration and then the suicide of the protagonist, Hedda Tesman (nee Gabler.) Due to the nature of Hedda, and the conditions of the time, this could actually be reasonable. The main reasons why she commits suicide are her place into society, her emotional state, her lack of power, her lifestyle, and her notion of beauty which she sees broken.

Hedda Tesman is her own person: it is the society of the time which confines her. As Rolf Fjelde said in his introduction to his translation of the original Norwegian texts of the play: “Hedda ... constantly threatens to become her own stereotype.” and “is neither good nor evil...” Hedda is an individual, the society causes her the most anxiety by its image of the role of the wife, the morŽs of the time binding her to the same image. The problem is the use of ‘labels and boxes,’ women have the label of ‘wife’ and fit into the ‘wife box,’ the are expected to have these attributes and behave just so. Judge Brack sums up the views of the time with a single sentence: “But good God! People don’t do such things!” The society of the time was just so oppressive that she felt that she could not possible live in it.

Hedda is cold, perverse, and almost incapable of emotion or empathy. Her emotions have been suppressed so long that they are now grotesquely altered. As a result she is abusive to her husband, George Tesman, when the tries hard to please her, and his Aunt who raised him, Julianne Tesman, who tries to make herself fit to be seen with “the beautiful Hedda Gabler.” She cannot show any emotion for an old friend, Eilert L¿vborg, and she manipulates her old school victim, Thea Elvestead, into divulging her secrets. Her life is practically purposeless, and perhaps one reason she takes her life is because it is totally devoid of feeling.

As a woman, Hedda shows many masculine traits. She was raised as the only child of the famous General Gabler, and as a result has little feminine characteristics that would cause her to fit into society. Her marriage to George shows a reversal of the traditional gender roles. She has an appearance of indifference that was usually attributed to men of the time, for instance, when Aunt Julie gives George his beloved slippers that he missed throughout the course of his honeymoon, she says “I really don't care to [see them].” Other signs of her masculinity are her pistols, a symbol of war that would never be associated with women, and also horse riding, again a pastime for men and war. She also defies the conventions set for her gender that are established by society, as stated before. As a wife, her role is mother, nurturer/carer and appendage to George, and she repeatedly rejects references to these roles. Her masculinity causes her to slip out of the roles placed for women by the society of the time.

Hedda does not always flout these masculine traits though, as she plays the role of the desirable housewife, the ‘already taken’ or ‘forbidden fruit’ with Judge Brack.
Brack - “There wasn’t a day that I didn’t wish that you were home again.”
Hedda - “And I was wishing exactly the same.”
She acts out her ‘availability’ and therefore forms a ‘triangular’ relationship with Brack. She does not, however, believe in sexual extra-marital affairs. She married George after he kept asking her the big question, “I didn’t see why I ought to resist [his appeals,]” but “I don't expect to be unfaithful, either.”

In Norwegian society at the time, women as a gender class had no power. They were not allowed to borrow money without the consent of a male, for example a father or husband, which is the main subject of another of Ibsen's plays, A Doll’s House. They have no chance for action outside of the home, and to be socially fulfilled is limited by masculine dominance. If they do not marry, they are looked down upon: spinsters are just about ostracised from society (or at least high society.) Hedda explains to Judge Brack the reason why she married George, who doesn't make a match at all: “I really had danced myself out, Judge. My time was up.” Since she has no control, nor chance for control, over society at large, she seeks to influence the characters around her, and to an extent, she succeeds. For example, she can control George, getting him to buy her whatever she wants through manipulation and a subtle use of reverse psychology. She also entertains the notion of getting George to go into politics. This would raise their social standing as a couple, give George a massive pay rise, allow her some more economic freedom, and allow her to control a portion of society through George as a parliamentarian. Currently, though, she is a power hungry girl with no chance for this power that she wants, causing another disappointment to her life.

The lifestyle which the wife of a scholar is a poor one compared to the daughter, the only child of a rich and famous General. Her old life was very high-class and respectable, but in some ways, that same respectability was her enemy. While her life of having fun in an endless social circle of parties was allowed up until now, she is now at the age where she should be married off or else become a spinster, like George’s aunt Julie. Not only is this image totally unacceptable for “the beautiful Hedda Gabler,” as a spinster she would have practically no income and even the limited (although progressively increasing) income George can bring home is better than none. She says to Judge Brack in Act Two while discussing her marriage to Tesman: “It was certainly more than my other admirers were willing to do for me, Judge.” She must keep her spirit and wants bottled up inside her, so she ends up marrying someone who at least has good prospects. Some evidence of her disgust of the life of a spinster may be shown in her occasional abuse to Aunt Julie, who has a painfully apparent class difference when compared to Hedda.

As a scholar, George spends lots of time doing research and writing, all the while locked up in his study. This allows Hedda lots of freedom to talk to the Judge, L¿vborg, and Thea during the play, but this gives us another reason Hedda may have married George. If he had got a professorship in history, this would have brought a pay rise and more work for George, allowing her practically unlimited time to do as she pleases. This is the life that she would like to live in the first place: high class company and parties. Hedda, who hates the idea of anything that takes away her freedom, also rejects all notions of children and pregnancy. Regarding the idea of having children she says “Be quiet! You'll never see me like that!” She is disenchanted by the great step down she has taken in social terms.

Hedda’s incapability to be her own person is the main cause of her disintegration. Her life is empty and purposeless, boring and tedious, and prospects extremely limited. She takes no interest in her surroundings, except at L¿vborg’s death. By giving him a pistol, she wanted to show herself that her ideals of ‘a beautiful death’ could still be achieved, but then the horrible, grisly, possibly criminal death that L¿vborg experienced seems to show her otherwise. We consider her ideas, and more importantly, her ideals, perverted.

Hedda remarks earlier that “I’m thoroughly grateful that you have no kind of hold over me,” but now Judge Brack reveals that he has seen the pistol used in the crime(?) and that he has just that kind of hold over Hedda. She commits suicide for four reasons: she fears the scandal that may ensue, she believes that the only escape from her disappointing life is death, she wants to prove to the world that a beautiful death can occur, and she also wants to show them what exactly must occur for the ‘beautiful death.’

The forces and morŽs of society can be very powerful, and they are the main forces that constrain Hedda. The main points expressed earlier are all caused by one main thing: the year the play was set, the late nineteenth century. As a character in a tragedy, Hedda Gabler stagnates and self decays because of this time Period. As a twentieth century women, she would have been free to live the life she wanted, but then this story could have been a sitcom instead of a tragedy. But the tragedy as a form of play, if well formed and well written, can last a lot longer and be more meaningful to future audiences. Since Henrik Ibsen crafted his characters extremely well, and the play’s main subject is human relations, it will have greater relevance well into the future.