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Summary Hedda Gabler A Level Notes A*
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In-depth notes on Hedda Gabler, which gave the candidate A* at A Level, includes: context, characters, costume, analysis and summary
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Hedda Gabler Study ToolHenrik Ibsen
● Born into a bourgeois family in Skien, Norway.
● As a child, his father had to sell the family business and went bankrupt – linking to
● money issues that are present in all his plays.
● Family suffered after this, but slowly climbed back up the bourgeois ladder.
● His mother was a huge presence in his childhood, especially as his father took
● bankruptcy heavily.
● His Mother-in-Law was a leader in the late 19th century feminist movement in
● Norway.
● He then became an assistant at Det Norske Theatre in Bergen.
● He moved back to Oslo (then Christiania) and took up directing and became
● assistant director at Oslo's theatre (then Christiania Theatre).
● However, this fell into financial difficulties and he was blamed and bankrupted.
● After this he took self imposed exile to Italy, as he became disenchanted with
● Norway’s politics, Norway’s conservative theatrical views and their poor lifestyle.
● Thereafter in his success, he was always cautious about returning and would often
● showcase new work in other countries.
● Wrote plays in prose and focused on realistic social issues.
● Ibsen avoided idealised heroes and stock characters opposing the popular
Melodrama of the time
● He created fully developed realistic characters with deep psychological motives.
● He was influenced by the scientific developments of the 19th century, including
Darwinism and Freud’s Psychoanalysis.
● His work had a female focus – exploring gender roles in society.
● He also explored women’s suffrage, religious intolerance and class struggle.
● Ibsen’s protagonists faced a self-realisation, clashing between individual and social
pressures.
Common themes:
● Women in unfavourable situations.
● Males who neglect partners.
● Women trying to contrast social expectations.
● Sacrifice for self-preservation.
● Suicide (physical and social).
● Women living with a lack of fulfilment.
● Extreme situations – a lot happens before the play has even started.
● Religion represented negatively in his plays.
● Characters have a lack of moral compass.
● There is separation in families.
Intro to the play
● The play is set in Norway, Autumn 1890, the morning
● This time period is known as the Victorian era which is largely characterised for its
peace, prosperity and social reform
, ● The portrait of another extraordinary woman who would have caused considerable
disturbance in the minds of audiences of the time
● At the time Ibsen was beginning to draft Hedda Gabler he had become infatuated
with an eighteen-year old, Emilie Bardach.
● The infatuation was mutual, yet Ibsen found himself unable to ‘follow through’
● He feared scandal and the destruction such an affair might cause of his ‘safe’ life and
marriage so her broke off the affair whilst it was still unconsummated and before it
could wreak havoc with his life
● The portrait of Hedda is perhaps a mixture of the casual destructiveness through
uncalculated of Emilie who he saw liked to flirt with older married men and his own
fear of impulsiveness and the scandal such behaviour would draw on its wake
● Late 19th century world of Ibsen’s plays, women are supposed to read, see, discuss
only matters that are “respectable”
● Hedda is in direct contrast with this
● This taboo on anything even the least bit racy is part of what draws Hedda to Eilet
Lovborg, his dissolute but exciting life to allow her to vicariously experience
pleasures she will never know otherwise.
● The problem is compounded by the limited possibilities for women outside of the
home [Hedda never leaves the home throughout the play]: in Europe, as in America,
women in the 1880s and the 1890s had few opportunities to embark on a meaningful
professional career
● In Norway, and most western countries, women would not gain the vote until the first
half of the 20th century
● Hedda and her apparent talent for politics is acknowledged in Act 2 but there is never
any discussion of her seeking office in her own right
● If Hedda is to purse a political career, it will have to be from behind the scenes, with
the bookish and easily distracted George as the candidate
● In a deeper sense Hedda and her predecessors are fleeing a system in which
women’s right and privileges are strictly limited
● Ibsen wrote to a letter to a friend “The title of the play ‘Hedda Gabler’ my intention in
giving it this name was to indicate that Hedda as a personality is to be regarded as
her father’s daughter than as her husband’s wife
● It is obvious that Hedda, the daughter of a General expects more from life than she
has experienced as yet
● Whatever the reasons for her behaviour she is full of profound restlessness and
boredom, constantly seeking for ways to make her humdrum life more exciting or
romantic
Realism
● Became popular in Europe from 1870 onward
● Challenged social problem
● Characters were natural
● Characters didn't try to romanticise life
● Based on real life
● Language not inflated or poetic
● Ordinary middle-class people focus
● Themes = society / social class / social mobility
● Believable characters with authentic costumes
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