Hedda Gabler - An Unexplored Angle

After so much reading and analysis of Hedda Gabler by Ibsen it was interesting to come across this paper which while still upholding and reiterating the basic accepted ideology on this play, still managed to offer some fresh approach and insight into this complex tale.

Hedda Gabler, Psychoanalysis And The Space Of (The ) Play by Nigel Hand explores Freudian, Kleinian and Winnicott’s key concepts with the view that Ibsen is a precursor of Freud and object-relations tradition in psychoanalysis.

It is interesting to sit back from the play and try and understand the mind of this deeply disturbed young woman, Ibsen’s female protagonist Hedda Gabler,  who ordinarily had everything to live for. The burning question arises; what when on in her mind to take her own life and that of her child. Was she psychotic or simply worn out by the pressures she faced?

The paper describes Ibsen as an anti-Romantic and that no text can be a single defining and exclusive context and that none of this would be possible without Freud. While this is debatable the paper states that Ibsen’s symbolism points to Ibsen’s early experiences which left his protagonists emotionally crippled and that Ibsen is an archeologist of the psyche. In fact the paper argues that the birth and development of psychoanalysis are foreshadowed and that Ibsen writes and thinks as a Freudian in Hedda Gabler (HG), as well as Klein and Winnicott as classified by Ibsen’s heroines preoccupation with the “beautiful”.

Hedda, is the quintessential tragic heroine who seems to actually revel in her self made gloom and doom. She is comfortable in her misery which she holds onto to like a comfort blanket. But what is her tragic flaw? Is this a tale of revenge or as the paper suggests is she a existential liberal tragedy Queen ? Is her death about release and freedom or the end of her grief ?  It is known Hedda is an alienated individual in conventional society who finds herself suffocating in her claustrophobic middle class atmosphere having abandoned her aristrocratic roots. I have talked in earlier blogs about the symbolism about the guns and her father’s portrait as reminders of her past and yet again I question why her mother is never mentioned. Of course all females may be abhorred by Hedda as a reminder of her bondage in a male domain. While all readings and interpretations clearly indicate Hedda is pregnant this paper only suggests there are hints and clearly points out that Tesman naively assumes Hedda and he have much in common while Hedda inwardly refutes this. The reader the paper also suggests will find it difficult to think of the two as a parental couple. I am not so sure that Tesman does think he has much in common with this aristocrat or that the play has a deep preoccupation with constituting the parental couple. I also was surprised to hear that the paper thinks Hedda knowingly pretended that Aunt Julies’s hat was the maid to simply humiliate her. Surely a high society woman would mistakenly think a middle class hat must be the maids as it does not fit into the norm of her high society ideals. Is Hedda being portrayed as the villain, both cold and manipulative by critics unfairly ? Is she being condemned without a trial? Are we as a society too quick to label and judge a woman who had just woken up and not found her bearings to find visitors or indeed does subsequent conversations with the conniving Brack reveal Hedda’s sinister side?

The play through relationship of Hedda and Thea shows perhaps a much less complex nature of simply jealousy over an old lover now belonging to Thea. This certainly brings us back to the theme of revenge as Hedda plots to destroy both Thea, Lovborg and their metaphorical child the manuscript that they created together. Hedda shoots herself when she realizes her husband and Thea are trying to piece the burned manuscript together from her notes as if this is the final straw. It is interesting theory though that while most critics argue that the play in an over romantic view that the central theme revolves around the protagonists revolt against middle class society, this paper says that this is only partially true. It goes on to state that “ The protagonist of the play is for all of us a deeply troubling dramatic creation-outside of Shakespeare and the Greeks, none more so perhaps. Northam attempts to escape from the challenging perplexity which Hedda Gabler arouses in our minds by producing a highly romanticized appraisal of her character and her actions. When he attributes to Ibsen’s heroine ‘a residually creative sense of human potentiality’ . Northam undoubtedly points to something which is at the heart of the play, but his belief that she also displays ‘serene self-confidence ‘is simply astonishing, for what is Hedda Gabler if not a deeply troubled soul? “.

Was the play centered more on the fate of the unborn child and is Hedda not the destroyer but the carrier of life. Are the symbolism of the burning of the manuscript deeper than killing the child but “ I am burning “ could denote in ambiguity that Hedda hates herself more. The paper states that by distortion of viewpoints we miss the real theme of the play, that the book –child theme shapes the play. The play suggests a triangular angle that has not been given attention to, “ triangular relationship “ (HG p.300). As quoted in the paper, “ The book-child theme is embedded in the more overt drama of sexual liaisons and rivalries[..] the play generates so many different subject positions we come to feel that it is being staged in some figurative space in which the potentialities of human nature are being very profoundly explored”. The paper goes into depth to show sexual jealousies and describes the book-child motif as the figure in the carpet, as the play is about adult sexual relationships which provides the setting for the modulations of the theme.

In section 2 of the paper creativity, envy and destructiveness is analyzed in depth. Hedda it states despises what she is drawn to which is a human nature trait. Hedda is drawn to Tesman’s good nature and his motherly concern but in an interesting twist the hat incident is interpreted as envy of what Tesman has with his Aunts caring and not just social disparity in their stations. This envy Hedda harbors borders on the psychopathic and is dangerous. It also explores Hedda’s objects such as the phallic symbols of the pistols as a substitute for a mother’s breasts. Further, the paper links her interest in Mrs Falk’s house beyond just materialism and a reason to marry Tesman but an association of a dead woman, absence and loss and happiness gone forever.

Section deals with fate or destiny and Hedda’s preoccupation with style such as the aesthetics of suicide. In fact “ the figure of the book child is a wonderfully imagined device for exploring the theme of the use of an object.[…] both literal and metaphoric[..] Hedda Gabler is unable to fashion a life is that in her personal world objects do not survive.” Ironically Tesman has the power to initiate her suicide ( her humiliation with Brack and Lovborg suicide aside ) by Tesman and Thea who she envies uniting to piece together the object she has destroyed. In her death and of her unborn child Hedda succeeds in leaving nothing else to envy.” If nothing is left to be reduced to nothing, something may begin to be. ‘A terrible beauty is born’ and a destiny is fatefully fulfilled”

The paper bought great insights depth and new ideas to the tried and tested formula. And while much is opinion based it leaves tremendous room for debate and discussion.

Hand, Nigel; “Psychoanalysis and the Space of the paly.” Yale University, N.p, n.d. Web. 20 May 2012. <http://modernism.research.yale.edu.wi>.