Essay on Female Protagonist in Hedda Gabler and A Doll House

Hedda Gabler and A Doll House are indubitably two of Ibsen’s most well-known and finest works. In both, the central protagonists are women in strained marriages who do not accept societal norms. Both are independently-minded, but Nora in A Doll House still strongly feels the duty of marriage and motherhood, while Hedda in Hedda Gabler seems to think little of the institution of marriage and duty. Both A Doll House and Hedda Gabler were sensational in their times. A Doll House, written in 1879, was Ibsen’s first foray into creating a sensation, soon to become his trademark. His subsequent Ghosts (1881) and Hedda Gabler (1890), among others, were scandals in their day, often even banned for periods of time, though now his canon is widely†¦show more content†¦The play closes with â€Å"The heavy sound of a door being slammed is heard from below† (86), the ‘door-slam heard ‘round the world.’ In Hedda Gabler, however, Hedda’s marriag e is strained from the start. She has married Tesman â€Å"for kicks and giggles,† as it were; it is doubtful whether she ever loved him (or even pretended to) at all. She is high-class, extravagant, and feels as if the world were beneath her. She is intelligent, sexually and physically charged, and does not wish to accept the role she has been placed into by society. It is no secret that her marriage with Tesman is forced, artificial even. Their dialogue is very forced from the start, she is quite flippant with him, and she orders him around as if he were the housewife instead of her. She wishes extravagant, lavish parties from his money, which she later comes to find are an impossibility with his current financial state, and she seems to be bored very easily, both by Tesman and life itself. She encourages former flame Ejlert Lovborg to kill himself â€Å"beautifully,† but when she realizes even this seemingly simple act has gone awry, and that his death was actually accidental and ugly in nature, she sees no purpose left for her. When she has lost control over the one and only thing she had control over, she exits and shoots herself in the temple. In A Doll House, the conflict is individual versus society. Nora is at odds with her place in society, her role as a woman. She has savedShow MoreRelated Comparing the Truth in A Dolls House and Hedda Gabler Essay3077 Words   |  13 PagesTruth Exposed in A Dolls House and Hedda Gabler      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   No other dramatist had ever meant so much to the women of the stage, claimed Elizabeth Robins, the actress who performed the title role in the English-language premier of Hedda Gabler in London in 1891 (Farfan 60). Henrik Ibsen was a Norwegian dramatist and poet whose works are notorious for their unveiling of the truths that society preferred to keep hidden. Ibsen was sensitive to womens issues and through his works, he advocated forRead MoreIbsen11859 Words   |  48 PagesForshey 1 Running head: IBSEN’S FEMALE CHARACTERS Ibsen’s Female Characters in Captivity: An Exploration of Literature and Performance Christina Kelley Forshey A Senior Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation in the Honors Program Liberty University Fall 2008 Forshey 2 Acceptance of Senior Honors Thesis This Senior Honors Thesis is accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation from the Honors Program of Liberty University. ______________________________Read More Comparing the Portrayal of Women in A Dolls House and Hedda Gabler1757 Words   |  8 PagesPortrayal of Women in A Dolls House and Hedda Gabler      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The extent to which Ibsen directly sympathized with feminists is still debated, but this is somewhat irrelevant when considering his portrayal of women. Ibsen had a deep understanding of the nature of women and a strong interest in the manner in which women were treated by society. This resulted in the creation of female protagonists such as Nora Helmer, in A Dolls House, and Hedda Gabler, in a work of the same name. The character