Role Of Power In Hedda Gabler

For any healthy relationship to last, both partners have to be fully committed to each other. In both plays, none of the relationships really offer any type of fulfillment. The title of Hedda Gabler, uses Hedda’s maiden name, Gabler, even though her married name is Hedda Tesman. Based off of the initial reading of the title, one can already tell that there is a strong intention behind it. Isben purposely wrote the title that way to indicate that Hedda wanted to be recognized as her father’s daughter, not as her husband’s wife. This already proves that she is not fully in love with her husband and there is more that is going on beyond just the

Hedda Gabler is portrayed as an extremely strong-willed woman. During the times in which this play is set, numerous women’s rights and suffrage movements were occurring across the world. It can be inferred that Hedda’s assertive attitude is characteristic of the time period. To Hedda, it is preposterous that she would have to be under the power of a man. When Judge Brock implies that he will disavow all knowledge of the source of the gun that killed Lövborg if Hedda becomes “subject to [his] will and demands” (Ibsen 262). She states, “No longer free! No! That’s a thought that I’ll never endure!” (Ibsen 262). At this time women across the world were adopting new ideas on their place in society. The atmosphere of the era provides an explanation of the source of Hedda’s manipulations.

Helga feels the effects of her taboo social status early on when she is alienated because of the absence of her family. This absence becomes critical to Helga's acceptance by James Vayle's family when they are discussing their possible marriage plans.

In many aspects, George Tesman too does not see Hedda’s full value as a person, and from the beginning of the play, Ibsen makes this clear. Tesman adores rather than love his wife, proudly viewing her as an object of adornment that makes several of his friends jealous. A scholar who is more devoted to his work than his wife, Tesman spends more time with his books than his wife, even during their honeymoon. In this passage, Ibsen further illustrates this objectification of women. Tesman turns his head away from her because he believes there is “nothing in the world” (32) that Hedda can help Tesman with; Hedda is merely an ornament and not of real use to Tesman. Ibsen’s use of stage direction that depicts Tesman “turning his head” after talking to Hedda both indicate Tesman’s rejection of Hedda as a valuable person and his obliviousness to Hedda and her desperate situation. Tesman’s imperceptiveness is further highlighted by Ibsen when Hedda “imitates Tesman’s intonation” (16). Also, Hedda’s mimicking of Tesman, which is used earlier in the play as a sign of her contempt, is also used here in this passage by Ibsen to portray Hedda’s desperation. That Hedda would turn to Tesman, a person she dislikes and views as beneath her, as a means of escape, is a clear indication of her despondency and madness, which foreshadow her ultimate act of despair—suicide. Yet Tesman thoughtlessly

Conflict is first observed through Hester’s ongoing difficulties with her fellow townspeople. Hester receives ridicule from on looking townspeople, as a gossiping woman states, ‘ “At the very least, they

Upon returning from their honeymoon, however, Hedda begins to realize the folly of her plan when she learns that Tesman cannot bring to fruition her ambition of climbing the social ladder. Having endured what was for her a painstakingly dull six months abroad with Tesman, Hedda must now endure the fate of a bored housewife bound in a union she dare not break for fear of impropriety.

Hedda tears down everyone throughout the play, with Lövborg and Brack as the only exception. After being born to a high standing family, her expectations of power are high, but due to her biologic form as a woman she is trapped and unable to take control, “because Hedda has been imprisoned since girlhood by the bars of Victorian propriety, her emotional life has grown turbulent and explosive” (Embler). However, after succumbing to marriage with Tesman, whom she only marries for money and respect, she loses her place in society as she, as a mere woman, cannot retain it. This slowly unwinds Hedda and eventually leads her on to her fatal path. By

Hedda arouses sympathy from the readers through her own personal conflicts. She is a woman trapped by herself in a loveless marriage to an “ingenuous creature” (52 Ibsen) named George Tesman. Tesman is a simple soul with very little to offer. Not only is he an entire social class below Hedda, but he is oblivious, insecure due to his own banalities, and overly reliant on his Aunts’, despite being thirty-three-years-old. Hedda married George due to a “bond of sympathy. . .” (31 Ibsen) formed between them and she “took pity. . .” (31 Ibsen) on George. This brings a sense of sincerity to Hedda that was not turned to such a high magnitude preceding this discussion between Judge Brack and herself. Hedda is a lonely, yet independent, soul that wants sexual freedom without

The definition of “pussy power” is power exercised by women; specifically a woman's use of her femininity in order to exert influence over men. This frequently used feminist slogan applies to Jane Eyre’s twisted and passionate relationship with Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Through their power struggle for equality, despite their differences in social status, age, and gender, they find a shared position as outcasts: hardly fitting the Victorian era stereotypes of propriety. Beaten down by social rules, Mr. Rochester and Jane test each other with their argumentative dialogue, but they are comforted by each other’s bluntness. Both Rochester and Jane cross the line in the complex power play of their relationship. The effects of Mr. Rochester’s psychological repression from his dark past contribute to his moody and controlling behavior toward Jane; their power dynamic is reversed once they are engaged, and the effects of Jane’s psychological repression from being oppressed as an impoverished, young governess contribute to her fickle behavior toward Rochester to ensure equality between them.

Hedda is the product of aristocratic birth.  She is, as I mentioned earlier, the daughter of General Gabler, whose portrait hangs over this play not unlike the portrait of the absent father in Williams' The Glass Menagerie.  And in case we have missed the significance of the portrait in the stage directions or have overlooked it as an audience member, Miss Tesman rivets our attention to it and the reality of Hedda's aristocratic life:  "Well, you cant's wonder at that--General Gabler's daughter!  Think of the sort of life she was accustomed to in her father's time.  Don't you remember how we used to see her riding down the road along with the General? In that long black habit--with feathers in her hat?"  (Ibsen  2).  Her aristocratic birth and her past is contrasted by her choice of a husband who has neither noble blood nor bourgeois money.  We are told that this motherless child of an aristocratic general often gave in to fits of cruelty as a child:  "At the finishing school the presence of a girl with a head of abundant, wavy flaxen hair irritated her and provoked her to outbursts of cruelty which had their source in equal measure, perhaps, in envy and in a deep-seated temperamental antipathy; for dearth of abundance, physically and temperamentally, is a characteristic of Hedda's nature" (Weigland  246-247).

These feminists aimed to defend their silenced voices. One motive for the dissent of inequality could have resulted from the strict government regulation of conformity. Everyone was trained to evade individualistic thinking, which in turn, led to the questioning of leaders. “It was an age in which the human intellect had taken a more active and a wider range than for many centuries before,” (149). This quote illustrates the possibility of a change in people’s mind regarding the injustice towards women. Hester represents the story’s population that thinks freely. She is not content with fulfilling the pre-determined destiny of a silent wife under Christ, and demonstrates it by challenging that role and attempting to reorganize the archaic system in which she lives. The women of the town are outraged by her actions, demonstrating that they are afraid that if women start acting out of passion, the entire structure they depend on would dilapidate. Hester made it clear that it is possible to survive outside of prejudice, which is still exemplified today. She displays that the idea of feminism and the reasons leading up to it have not changed for decades.

The judicious actions foreshadow disaster. Having no control over their relationship, she maximizes this opportunity of diverting his life. Although she is conservative, she also tries pushing the boundaries by continually being discontented, as opposed to what is expected of women during that era, and thus she is a victim of society. Her curiosity towards the outside world is a result of her being trapped indoors and explains her jealousy towards Lövborg, Thea or anybody who has freedom. Hedda withholds and controls her emotions; nonetheless this gives the audience an impression that she is mysterious and secretive.

Hedda has been interpreted as an “unreal, as a defective woman, as vicious and manipulative in nature, as a failed New Woman, or as a woman who is afraid of sex” (Björklund 1). She also could be seen as a woman who is afraid of sex or her own sexuality because homosexuality wasn’t accepted like it is today. According to Björklund, “Hedda’s masculinity defeats the dysfunctional masculinities of Tesman and Lovborg, but, in the bathe with Brack’s hegemonic masculinity, Hedda’s female masculinity becomes absorbed into the dominant structures. Hedda desires masculinity as represented by Brack—power and control—but, in the end, that masculinity is what kills her; she shoots herself with one of her father’s pistols, and her masculinity is absorbed into the patriarchy. Hedda’s masculinity is rejected, but what it represents—power and control—is mirrored by Brack, whose masculinity is reconstructed: he is the one cock of the walk” (Björklund

In Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen portrays the hopeless struggle of woman in the Victorian era through the protagonist, Hedda. From 1837 to 1901 in England, women experienced unrestrained oppression, were expected to follow the orders of their husbands, and were believed to be unwise. In the play, the newly wed Hedda has just arrived to her new husband, Tesmun’s home town, and her whole world seems to be shrinking inch by inch, expressed mainly through elements of stagecraft. The play is mostly focused around the main character, Hedda, a tragic heroine. Her need to manipulate others grows ever stronger as her boredom and despair increase, due to the new middle class atmosphere she is forced into. At last, she frees herself from all of the social restrictions society has imposed on her, by completing the act of suicide. Through the characterization of Hedda, Ibsen explores the oppression of woman in the Victorian Era.

Hedda Gabler is a text in which jealousy and envy drive a woman to manipulate and attempt to control everyone in her life. The protagonist, Hedda, shows her jealousy in her interactions with the other characters in the play, particularly with Eilert Loveborg and Thea Elvsted. Because Hedda is unable to get what she wants out of life because of her gender and during the time of the play, her age, she resorts to bringing everyone else down around her. Hedda lets her jealousy get the best of her and because of this she hurts many of the people around her as well as ultimately hurting herself.