Who Is The Villain In Hedda Galber?

Essay on Hedda Gabler

Whom do you regard as the principal villain in Hedda Gabler (in so far as you do not reject the term “villain” as simplistic, if you do, what forces or conditions human beings into making immoral choices or adopting obnoxious attitudes)?

Provide abundant, specific and detailed textual evidence in support of your views.

Approximately 800 words.

Terms such as hero and villain are complex ones and are not easy to describe. To start with, the dictionary defines a villain as “An evil character in a novel, movie, play, or other story, especially one who is the main enemy of the hero.” This being a very basic and simple definition one must explore it in order to figure out who the villain is in Hedda Gabler. The villain in this play cannot be a murderer or anything of the sort. In Hedda Gabler it is subtler. The villain is a character who is manipulative, has bad intentions, and is hypocritical and immoral. There are two such characters in the play: Hedda herself and Judge Brack.

Hedda is the first character that can be considered a villain. Firstly because of her moments of instability, which increase toward the end of the play. In the beginning, there are only small clues to this; we discover her fascination for pistols, something quite odd for a woman, especially at the time. “My pistols, George darling!” These rare occasion in which she refers to Tesman as George and more surprisingly as “darling” is when she is with her pistols. It is as if they were a sexual image to her that she has an obsession for. This fascination becomes disturbing when we learn that Hedda had actually tried to kill Eilert Loevborg and how she shoots at Brack. “I’m going to shoot you, Judge Brack!” Her calm and serenity is often disrupted by these inexplicable actions where she loses control “Sometimes a mood like that hits me. And I can0t stop myself.” it is as if she had a sort of split personality, either that or there are moments where her true nature comes out and the calm side of her is only a faÐ"§ade. She is frustrated with her inability do anything important because of her status as a woman in the Victorian times and therefore finds ways to channel her motivations through manipulating people (such as Mrs. Elvsted when Hedda manages to make her talk about Eilert), and always being in control at least when she is in her own home. This is shown well when she is in the company of Eilert and Mrs. Elvsted and wants “to be in the middle.” WE have to notice, though, that Hedda is more of the self-destructive type. She is the one who will lead to her downfall. A villain in the strict sense of the term means that they harm others. Hedda is harmed and feels hurt, and cannot cope with the “absurdity” of the events of her life. This self-destruction starts when she realizes that she did not have the courage to be with Eilert, not even to shoot him when she couldn’t. “Yes. Courage. If only one had that … one might be able to live. In spite of everything.”

Judge Brack on the other hand is different. He is the opposite of self-destructive.

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