Ibsen: Hedda Gabler (Volume E)
Dec 21, 2015
Realism
• Norwegian middle class
• bourgeois corruption• ordinary language• unveiling hidden
motives• emotional and moral
truth• hyper-realism
“HEDDA: I was just looking at my old piano. It really doesn’t go with these other things.
TESMAN: As soon as my salary starts coming in, we’ll see about trading it in for a new one.
HEDDA: Oh no, don’t trade it in. I could never let it go. We’ll leave it in the back room instead. And then we’ll get a new one to put in here…” (p. 789).
Furniture
HEDDA: “So I’m in your power now, Judge. You have a hold over me from now on.”
BRACK: “Dearest Hedda—Believe me—I won’t abuse my position.”
HEDDA: “But in your power. Totally subject to your demands—And your will. Not free. Not free at all. No, that’s one thought I just can’t stand. Never!” (837).
Domestic Life
HEDDA: “But it so happens that George Tesman and I found our common ground in this passion for Prime Minister Falk’s villa. And after that it all followed. The engagement, the marriage, the honeymoon and everything else. Yes, yes Judge, I almost said: you make your bed, you have to lie in it.”
BRACK: “That’s priceless. Essentially what you’re telling me is you didn’t care about any of this here.
HEDDA: “God knows I didn’t” (p. 805).
Hedda
How is Hedda Gabler similar to other female protagonists of Realist works? Think about characters like Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina—do these women represent a feminist crisis taking place in the nineteenth century, or do they represent universal problems that all humans face when bored of domestic, middle-class life?
Discussion Questions
What role do material objects play in this drama, and how does their importance relate to your relationship with your own possessions?
Discussion Questions