I found Hedda Gabler absolutely fascinating. The play was serious and deep and yet there were times when I found it amusing such as when Miss Tesman believed that Hedda was pregnant. Besides the small comic relief, the play was very serious. Hedda was a ruthless and cunning woman that only cared for herself. She toyed with others for fun and threw them away when she was done. She also claims that she has lived a good life, but when Mrs. Elvsted appears and tells Hedda about how she has dared to do what Hedda would never; Hedda immediately becomes jealous which shows that she wasn’t completely happy with her life and sets a plan to ruin Mrs. Elvsted. I feel sympathetic towards Tesman for marrying Hedda because he is under the impression that Hedda loves him as much as he loves her which is wrong. She only chose him because he was the best of her many suitors at the time and basically promised to give her everything she ever wanted. Hedda was only out to control anyone that crossed her path. The ending was amazing. She gave Lovborg the pistol telling him to go kill himself which would be the ultimate control over someone, but when he does, it completely backfires on her, and she is now under the control of Brack. Instead of dealing with such a thing, Hedda kills herself which is still showing how she is always in control and no one will ever control her. She is such an awesome character and I am completely impressed by her and her interactions with the other characters.
You did a great job of accurately describing Hedda. I also felt sympathetic to Tesman and even Mrs. Elvsted and Eilert Lovburg. She truly did treat these people as disposable objects and took advantage of their naivety. I agree that the ending was pretty spectacular and, at the same time, pretty unexpected. I was a little confused as to if Eilert actually had the courage to kill himself or if Mademoiselle Diana had shot him. Still not sure about that haha. And I definitely got the same impression about her suicide. She always wanted control and to see that courage existed. She was definitely a very complex and entertaining character.
ReplyDelete