Post #10

Is there ANYTHING good about Hedda? Well, I wouldn't say there was anything in particular that's good about her, but I do want to point out that she's human. And even though she calls herself a "coward", I think that in a lot of ways Hedda is truly brave. I mean, she's mad that Thea and Lovborg have this great manusript, and instead of just sitting there feeling jealous and pathetic, she decides to burn the thing! Hedda also has the bravery to try and take control of the things going on around her, using her pistols as means to power. Even though Hedda fails at taking control of her life (like when Brack takes her pistols from her) she at least tried. Instead of sitting around and letting other people tell her how her life is going to go, she tries to fight for that power. However, I'm not going to say that she was as courageous as Thea, or as courageous as she could have possibly been, because I think that killing herself was her greatest act of cowardice. And laziness. I mean, she caused this huge mess for herself (burning the manuscript, telling Lovborg to kill himself with her pistol) and then she just says, "oops, I can't fix it. I'll just kill myself." Sad.

Post #9

So what was the purpose of Aunt Julie? To me, she is a very flat and static character because she does not change at all throughout the play. It's kind of ironic, though, that we look at Aunt Julie as being such a boring character and how we say that she's just a stereotypical "female" character of the time- motherly, and selfless, but in fact Aunt Julie was probably the only character in the play who actually cared about other people. I mean, Hedda cared about Hedda obviously, Tesman cared about his work, Brack was just creepy, and Lovborg and Thea were pretty much only devoted to their manuscript. So yes, Aunt Julie looks kind of pathetic for caring so much about what other people think (the hat...), but still. At least she has a soul. Okay, okay, the other characters have souls too (some of them) but I just think it's a little wrong of us to be so harsh on poor Aunt Julie when she's the only one who is trying to do any good in the world. Cut her some slack.

Post #8

So I think that in a lot of ways, we could compare Thea to Maria Josefa because they are both arguably the only free women in either of these books. Maria Josefa is free because she doesn't worry herself about stupid things like appearances and what the neighbors will think, etc. and she also is the only in the The House of Bernarda Alba who says whatever she feels whenever she wants to. The same goes for Thea in Hedda Gabler. Thea is the only woman with the courage and freedom to escape her entrapment, and also the only one who competely disregards what society will think, since she says that she knows people will talk about her leaving her husband but she doesn't care. Hedda, on the other hand, is always worried about a scandal and doesn't want people to see what's really going on in her household because she's too afraid of what they'll think of her. This shows that Hedda is not at all as free as Thea is, much like Bernarda was not as free as Maria Josefa.

Post #7

Hmm, so why was Hedda so opposed to having a baby? You would think she would love having kids and being able to boss them around all the time, right? However, I think that to Hedda, pregnancy represents being trapped in this boring world where she has no freedom. With a kid on the way, Hedda has almost no hope of getting out of this life she's gotten herself into- the kind of life where she is inferior to men and her only purpose is to host parties and look nice in society. Having a kid would pretty much secure this role for Hedda, and I think Hedda was not ready to give up on the idea of doing what Thea did and getting out. However, I doubt Hedda would have had the courage to ever leave like Thea did, especially if she had a kid. So instead of dealing with everything, Hedda took the easy way out and killed herself. . . and her child.

Post #6

Does anyone in this book know what love is?? Hedda doesn't love Tesman, in fact, she is completely bored with him after being married, what? Less than a year? And Tesman doesn't even hardly care when Hedda kills herself. Brack certainly doesn't love Hedda, he's just in it for the fun. . . And what about Lovborg and Hedda? She actually persuades him to kill himself! The only couple I thought actually loved each other was Thea and Lovborg, since Thea left her marriage for him- but now I'm not sure about that either. First of all, if Lovborg truly loved Thea, he wouldn't have committed suicide. But then I figured that Thea was truly in love with Lovborg, seeing her concern for him after he went missing. But then, ten seconds later, Thea was busy trying to rewrite her precious manuscript with Tesman. "In Lovborg's honor". Yeah right.

Post #5

Why did Hedda burn the manuscript? To me, it was one of two reasons: the first is that she didn't want her husband to look lesser to Lovborg. With Lovborg's new, amazing book out, no one would care about Tesman's book, and we all know that Hedda has to be the best. She couldn't stand having her husband look pathetic next to her ex-lover. The second reason, and probably the most likely, is that she was jealous of Thea's involvement with the book. Hedda always wants the power of men, but never truly has it, while Thea is the equal of Lovborg since she is a huge part of the writing of the manuscript. Because of this, Hedda is jealous and tries to ruin it for Thea, since if Hedda can't have something, she doesn't want anyone else to have it either. This could be part of the reason why Hedda kills herself at the end, since she wasn't able to stop Thea from having that freedom and power. Thea just picks herself right back up and continues writing the manuscript even after Hedda tried her best to destroy it.

Post #4

I think one of my favorite characters in the book was Thea. When we first met Thea, she looked like the stereotypical "woman" of the time- weak, lovestruck, and innocent. So it was a big surprise to me when I looked back over the book and found how strong her character actually was. Not only did she have the strength to leave her husband who didn't love her, she also took control of her life and went after what she wanted. She also was equal to Lovborg in writing the manuscript, something that was unheard of during the time. Thea also never gave up on her dream of the manuscript being published, and even after Lovborg's death and finding out that the manuscript had been "lost" she had the courage to rewrite it and keep going.

Post #3

Okay, so everyone's pretty much agreed that Hedda did not truly love George. So my question is: did George really love Hedda? It's easy to say that he did, looking at the beginning of the book. He wants to give her everything she wants, and to even wait on her. But near the end, George seems to almost get bored with her when he decides to "work on the manuscript" with Thea and have her move in with Aunt Julie. He casually brushes off Hedda while he and Thea are busy and tells her to go spend time with Judge Brack instead. Also, at the very end when she kills herself, George does not seem particularly upset about it. In fact, although he seems surprised at the act, he doesn't actually sound sad about it, leading me to think that perhaps George doesn't really love Hedda as much as it first appears.

Post #2

So after I finished reading the whole book, I started wondering if George Tesman was really an all round oblivious guy, or if he actually started to figure things out at the end. I mean, was he genuinely interested in JUST working on the manuscript with Thea or did he have other things in mind when he suggested she stay with his Aunt Julie? And it certainly seemed like he was happy that Hedda burned Lovborg's manuscript, even though he pretended to be shocked and upset. He seemed to actually be happy that his rival's amazing book would no longer be published and outshine his upcoming book. Therefore, I think by the end Tesman was starting to act as sneaky as Hedda or Brack.