In this essay by Weller Embler, which analyses the play of Hedda Gabler, by Ibsen, Embler states that he believes that Hedda is a tragedy, and one of Ibsen's purest. He says that Hedda's boredom, and her inability to deal with her husbands boring personality drives her to be discontent. I would agree with this, as we can see her boredom through her use of pistols as toys, and her constant need to meddle and mess with people. I would also agree that there is some merit to the fact that there is tragedy in this play, but I would not agree that Hedda is a tragedy.
Firstly, we see that that Hedda constantly lives her life to the fullest, and does whatever she wants, as a free woman. She eventually dies, which would typically be a staple of a tragedy, but the way that she dies isn't tragic at all, to me. I find that she dies free, and free of her repression, which, to Hedda, would be the ideal way to die. The fact that Hedda dies through suicide, and kills her unborn child, along with seriously hurting two people that love her very much, is rather tragic.
Another thing that I disagree with, and my classmate Gautam agrees with me on, is the fact that Embler says that the play is "a study of decay". He says that throughout the play, Hedda is slowly decaying. I would 100% disagree with this. Throughout the play, we see Hedda as a fairly static character, who simply doesn't care about what is going on. I disagree that anybody really changes throughout the play, and that, in fact, there are only two things that actually happen. The burning of the manuscript and the suicide at the end.
All in all, I feel like this essay had some good analysis of Hedda, and that it made some very good points. However, I don't agree with anything that it says, because I feel that he takes analysis without actually providing any context for it, or without looking deeper into the characters of the play.
A Note on Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler”
Weller Embler
College English , Vol. 7, No. 8 (May, 1946), pp. 456-458
Link: http://www.jstor.org/stable/370462
Firstly, we see that that Hedda constantly lives her life to the fullest, and does whatever she wants, as a free woman. She eventually dies, which would typically be a staple of a tragedy, but the way that she dies isn't tragic at all, to me. I find that she dies free, and free of her repression, which, to Hedda, would be the ideal way to die. The fact that Hedda dies through suicide, and kills her unborn child, along with seriously hurting two people that love her very much, is rather tragic.
Another thing that I disagree with, and my classmate Gautam agrees with me on, is the fact that Embler says that the play is "a study of decay". He says that throughout the play, Hedda is slowly decaying. I would 100% disagree with this. Throughout the play, we see Hedda as a fairly static character, who simply doesn't care about what is going on. I disagree that anybody really changes throughout the play, and that, in fact, there are only two things that actually happen. The burning of the manuscript and the suicide at the end.
All in all, I feel like this essay had some good analysis of Hedda, and that it made some very good points. However, I don't agree with anything that it says, because I feel that he takes analysis without actually providing any context for it, or without looking deeper into the characters of the play.
A Note on Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler”
Weller Embler
College English , Vol. 7, No. 8 (May, 1946), pp. 456-458
Link: http://www.jstor.org/stable/370462
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