hedda.hubbell

Amanda Hubbell

B. DeLuca

12/10/13

What’s Up With Hedda?

Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen is the story of a woman with serious desires to live outside the conventional norms set forth by her nineteenth century society. Recently married, both Hedda and her new husband are visited by former suitors who have become entangled themselves. Hedda, a general’s daughter, quickly involves herself in their dramas because of her wish to have serious impact on someone else’s life. Her forceful insertion into their relationship and insistence on giving meaning to someone else gives the impression that Hedda Gabler is suffering from the mental disease, psychopathy.

Psychopathy, or anti-social personality disorder, is constituted by a “lack of empathy, emotional responsivity, and remorse, plus continued reactive (impulsive) and instrumental (premeditated) violence” (Dubovsky). While Ibsen’s character of Hedda exhibits many of the same characteristics of a psychopath, it is far more likely that she is in fact a sociopath. In general, sociopaths and psychopaths display many of the same habits, although according to many psychologists in the field, sociopaths behavior is “a consequence of social or familial dysfunction” (Lykken 29). Even though Hedda is recently married, and she has taken her husband’s last name, Ibsen still titled her story with her maiden name, Gabler. Hedda’s father was a highly decorated general, so the middle class society that Hedda has married into cannot fulfill the requirements of an “elegant respectability” (Ibsen 46) that she has set out for herself. The play never mentions any other living family on Hedda’s side, so it is safe for the reader to assume that Hedda was an only child. During this time period, boys and men were more highly coveted than females, so the treatment that Hedda may have faced from her father could have been dismissive. However, Ibsen leads us to the understanding that Hedda was raised as if she were a boy, at least until the time she was introduced into society. The power that Hedda’s father still holds in her life is an overpowering influence in everything that she does. In her mind, Hedda believes that she is owed this respectability because of her childhood environment. In response to the disappointment she feels about her husband she returns to “General Gabler’s pistols” (46) to entertain herself. If she cannot live the life that she was promised by Tesman, than Hedda will return to the stark violence taught to her by her father by operating the pistols that he used, thereby reinstating her fathers natural strength in her life. Tesman’s attractive wife is under the assertion that she is owed a particular lifestyle because she settled for Tesman. When Tesman does not hold up his side of their bargain, she returns to being General Gabler’s daughter instead of Mrs. Tesman.

General Gabler also gave his daughter Hedda more social leeway than many other females. During Hedda and Lovborgs friendship, they had many discussions about sex and other secrets of male society. Typically this type of behavior would not be allowed for a female, and she could be shamed and seen as tainted. Before Hedda met Tesman, Lovborg would come to her family home and “confess to [Hedda]” (Ibsen 71) his sinful behavior. While Hedda interrogated Lovborg on his otherworldly trysts, her father sat in the same room, “by the window reading the papers, with his back to [them]” (70). With the physical presence of her father, a sense of approval must have been felt by Hedda while delving into the inapt side of an intimate relationship with a man. This inappropriate relationship escalated to the point of a physical encounter, something that would truly “dishonor” (71) Hedda if she had gone through with it. As a female from a family of good standing, Hedda and her family would be dishonored if her chastity was questioned. She worships her father and his good name and would never have allowed a rumor like that to damage him. However, one cannot assume that Hedda, a single female, would have agreed to a moment alone with a man without her father present or at least knowledgeable of his attentions. This leads to the logical conclusion that the General encouraged Hedda to pursue the line of power that she held over Lovborg. If Hedda was indeed raised like a son, her manipulative streak would have been heartily supported by her father. Hedda does not agree that she is “part of the [Tesman] family”, because she knows that she could only ever be part of the Gabler family.

Hedda Tesman exhibits her lack of empathy for others, particularly her husband, on several poignant occasions. First, when Aunt Julie comes by their home to visit, Hedda pretends to think that the special hat that Julie has bought so Hedda “won’t be ashamed” of being seen out with, belongs to the maid (14). The General’s daughter specifically goes after her husbands rather impoverished aunt because Hedda does not feel respected enough by her. Later when Tesman chastises her for being so rude, Hedda feigns innocence, saying that “it wasn’t particularly polite” for Aunt Julie to leave her things lying around the room where anyone could see them (24). It is an expecially cruel blow, becase not only did Aunt Julie raise Tesman, but she mortgaged out her income in order to make Hedda’s new home more comfortable for her (17). Hedda does not stop to consider the kind of impact her passive aggressive words may have on a woman like Aunt Julie, or to even entertain the possibility that Julie may deserve her respect as Tesman’s aunt; her only outlook in life is that Hedda is above such scrutiny. She again removes herself from any sense of duty to Tesman by refusing to attend to his dying Aunt Rina’s bedside. When her husband receives the note that Rina is in the last stages of life, he is obviously devastated, but as Tesman is preparing to attend his aunt, he requests Hedda’s appearance at his side, but she quickly refuses, saying that she could not bear the “ugliness of it all” (90). She gives no consideration to the pain that Tesman was clearly feeling and gave precedence to her own loathing disposition towards illness or any sort of unsavory moments. While most people would obviously go with their spouse to the deathbed of a loved one, George Palermo argues that psychopaths often act in a similar vein to Hedda, because they “lack the capacity for empathy and, of consequence, moral reasoning” (Palermo 1148).

Psychopathy is further characterized by a “lack of emotional response” (Dubovsky) to any given heightened experience, and Hedda is known for her “cold clear calm” (Ibsen 19) that she carries in her demeanor. For example, Hedda’s only reaction to Aunt Rina’s imminent passing is that they “were expecting it” to come to an end soon (90). She shows little emotion in this instance, although her husband was clearly distraught with the news. Hedda gives no indication that Rina’s suffering makes her feel sympathy or empathy, but instead she recoils from the inconvenience of having someone close to her family ill. Even though, early in the play, Hedda does become angry with Tesman over his inane excitement over slippers, she is more aggravated by his inability to interest her rather than being upset (Ibsen 21). Her only emotional response is due to some inconvenience to herself. Although there is much excitement over her husband receiving a new job, navigating a new marriage, and installing themselves into a new home, Hedda complains to her friend Judge Brack that she is “terribly bored” and had been so throughout her honeymoon (51). While her husband did research and scoured through libraries and old compendiums, Hedda pouted and scoffed and waited for someone to pay attention to her. She is incapable of allowing someone else’s interests to compound over her own.

Hedda also exhibits many forms of violence that are typical to the social experience of psychopaths. She is certainly the most violent character in this particular Ibsen play. First, Hedda exhumes her boredom with her husband by taking out her father’s old dueling pistols. Being raised by a career military man, Hedda would have been accustomed to violence, and clearly was well trained in the use of firearms. She is so comfortable with them that while playing with them, she enjoys shooting at Judge Brack when he comes through the garden for a visit with her and never considers the possibility that she may injure him (47). For Hedda, violence against other is a natural escalation and not one that she would ever hesitate in.

In particular, Hedda enjoys exhibiting violence over Thea Elvsted, whom she sees as weak and inferior, and therefore undeserving of any influence she may have over a man. During her school days with Mrs. Elvsted, Hedda loved threatening the younger woman with cutting off all her hair, and pulling on it “whenever [they] passed on the stairs” (32). Even as a girl Hedda enjoyed holding power over other people and claimed her dominance with the threat of physical viciousness rather than her more underhanded approach that she developed as a woman. Thea Elvsted admits to being “terribly afraid” (32) of Hedda in her youth, and finds her still terrifying in her own adulthood after Hedda revisits her old threat of “burning off [Thea’s] hair after all” (80). When Hedda feels excited over her display of control over Lovborg, she again turns to her fascination with Thea burning in fire to celebrate. She wants her old school mate to understand how powerful and strong she is, so she puts Thea back in the place of a subservient underclassman to Hedda’s selective upperclassman. Later, when Lovborg falsely confesses to Thea that he has destroyed the book they had worked on together, Hedda gleefully burns the manuscript she secretly keeps, and whispers repeatedly that she is “burning [Thea’s] child” (104) with Lovborg. Although the child in question is not a living child, it is the child that Thea and Lovborg conceived together, and Hedda gloats in the glory of ending something so precious to a woman like Thea. Finally, when Hedda sees that her rival may sway yet another one of Hedda’s men, her husband, she commits the greatest act of violence that she can think of, and perpetuates a mystery that she believes Tesman could never overcome, her own suicide. In this deed, Hedda becomes more powerful than Thea could ever be, and because she cannot answer for her actions, her motives can never be fully understood.

Hedda Gabler-Tesman is one of the most complex classical female characters in dramatic literature. She is a woman of great depth and mystery. Her actions may not ever be fully understood except perhaps by her creator, Henrik Ibsen. While many people may lack empathy, or remorse, and some people may occasionally have violent tendencies, this certainly does not mean that they have the emotional disorder, the combination of these traits can certainly give a good indication to the kind of person Hedda may have been. A good understanding of the mental state of a person with anti-social personality disorder can give great insight to a character like Hedda. Whether Ibsen intended his heroine to have questionable morals, or just questionable actions, his readers may never know, but they can be certain that something is just not quite right with Hedda Gabler.

Works Cited

Dubovsky, Steven. "The Psychopath is Different from You and Me (and Antisocial Personality)." Journal Watch.Psychiatry(2012)ProQuest. Web. 26 Nov. 2013.

Ibsen, Henrik, and Nicholas Rudall. Hedda Gabler. 1sted. Chicago: Samuel French, 1992. 1-126. Print.

Lykken, David T. "Psychopathy, Sociopathy, and Crime." Society, 34.1 (1996): 29-38.

Palermo, George B. "Do Psychopaths Feel Empathy?." International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology. 56.8 (2012): 1147-1148. Print.

Stanton, Stephen S. "Troll's in Ibsen's Late Plays."Comparative Drama. 32.4 (1998): 541-580. Web. 24 Nov. 2013. < http://0-www.jstor.org.torofind.csudh.edu/stable/41153947>.