Hedda Gabler

The final act of Hedda Gabler is brief but intense. The Constraints of Social Convention make it almost impossible for characters to express themselves directly, and Hedda never states the true reasoning behind her actions, which is complex and goes against the social expectations of a married woman. When Hedda does attempt to verbally justify her actions, she has to do so within the existing social framework, which requires her to lie. When she tells Tesman that she has burned the manuscript, for instance, she tells him that she did it for his sake. In fact, she burned the manuscript for all kinds of reasons, none of which had anything to do with Tesman or his career, but she is silenced by social constraints. Brack’s threats represent another form of silencing: His status as a powerful man means that Hedda has little recourse when he blackmails her into becoming his mistress. Whereas Brack is able to flout convention without consequence, Hedda’s entire life could come apart at the first whiff of scandal.

Hedda experiences The Challenges of Genuine Connection as each of her relationships crumbles around her. She finally tells Tesman that she is pregnant, which temporarily shores up their marriage, but with her pregnancy out in the open, it becomes a symbol of a future she doesn’t want with a man she doesn’t love. Meanwhile, Tesman and Mrs. Elvsted seem poised to rekindle their romance when they start reconstructing Ejlert’s manuscript. Unlike Hedda, Mrs. Elvsted shares Tesman’s academic expertise and interest, and their connection is in some ways a continuation of the relationship between Mrs. Elvsted and Ejlert. It is a relationship in which Hedda can have no part, and underscores her distance from her husband.

For a brief time, Hedda believes that she and Ejlert have a genuine connection. When she gives him the pistol, she thinks that they have understood each other, and that Ejlert will have a beautiful death. When he does not die as she hoped, she realizes that their connection was not what she thought it was, and that she has lost the only person she loves.

As Ejlert’s death proves, Hedda’s attempts at Gaining Power and Influence do not go as planned. She wanted to control Ejlert’s destiny, and she wanted proof that it was still possible for a person to generate meaning in their life. She and Ejlert have always prized deliberate action, so Hedda feels that Ejlert has let her down by not dying as she asked him to. There are no vine leaves, and there is no dramatic justice to his death. The play is ambiguous as to whether he died by suicide, by accident, or by murder. Whatever happened, Hedda is bitterly disappointed that he was shot in the genitals. Her hopes for Ejlert involved what she imagined to be a dignified and courageous death. Hedda sees suicide as an opportunity to exert control over one’s destiny. Rina’s slow death by illness is a counterpoint to what Hedda believes is the ideal way to die. 

In the final scenes of the play, Hedda realizes that all possible avenues have closed to her. Tesman is more focused on building an academic relationship with Mrs. Elvsted than in building a future with her—by choosing to recreate Ejlert’s book, Tesman is effectively throwing away his own professorship and the financial security that would come with it. Furthermore, she is pregnant and doesn’t want to be, and Ejlert, the only person she ever believed truly understood her, has died for nothing. Finally, Brack has control over her because he knows it was her pistol that killed Ejlert. Tesman suggests that she spend every evening with Brack, which Hedda knows would all but require her to become Brack’s mistress.

Taking all of this into account, Hedda realizes that dying by suicide is the only way for her to maintain any control over her life. During their conversation, Hedda tells Brack that she would rather die than tell the police that her pistol was stolen. Brack replies, “People say that. No one does it” (128). At the end of the play, Hedda proves Brack wrong. The final line of the play is Brack’s: “No one does that. No one” (131). Hedda is unwilling to live life on someone else’s terms, and the life she is living is not one that she wants. Though she wasn’t able to control Ejlert’s fate, she can control her own.