Hedda Gabler (1890) is a play by Henrik Ibsen. The protagonist, Hedda Gabler, is the wife of George Tesman, a research fellow in cultural history. Tesman is a scholar who hopes to become a university professor. Hedda is the daughter of the late General Gabler. She is careless and self-centered, and is used to living extravagantly. Hedda has persuaded her husband to buy a house that they cannot afford, and has influenced him to spend money to live a lifestyle beyond their means.

Hedda is bored with married life, and she plays with the pistols that belonged to her late father, shooting them recklessly in the garden. She detests the role of dutiful wife, but does not want to risk losing her comfortable lifestyle or endangering her social status.

When Hedda learns that Thea Elvsted has left her husband, Sheriff Elvsted, to be with Hedda’s former lover, Eilert Løvborg, Hedda is determined to show that she still has power over Løvborg. Thea has inspired Løvborg to write a brilliant new book, which has made him a favored candidate over Tesman for the professorship at the university. Thea has also helped to rehabilitate Løvborg from his previous alcoholism.

Hedda, who is bored with her unimaginative husband, and who wants to show that she still has power over Løvborg, deliberately tries to interpose herself between Thea and Løvborg. Hedda manipulates Thea into confiding in her, and when she learns that Thea is in love with Løvborg, she lures him back into a relapse of alcoholism. When Løvborg gets drunk and misplaces the manuscript of his new book, Tesman finds it and informs Hedda of its discovery.

Løvborg later returns to Hedda’s house, in despair that he has lost the manuscript, and she lets him think that the manuscript is lost. When Løvborg threatens to kill himself, Hedda tells him to do it “beautifully.” She gives him one of her father’s pistols, and he leaves, planning to kill himself.

Hedda secretly burns the manuscript, which for Thea and Eilert has represented the testament of their love for each other. Løvborg dies accidentally, after being shot in the stomach, and Hedda finds herself under the power of Judge Brack, who has discovered that Hedda gave Løvborg the pistol, and who intends to use this information to blackmail Hedda, in order to make her his mistress. Hedda finds her loss of power and control intolerable, and taking her other pistol, shoots herself in the head.

Hedda Gabler's personality is both ruthless and fearful, self-indulgent and self-contained. She is bored by her husband, George Tesman, whom she married because he seemed to offer her an opportunity to maintain her social standing. She is cold, distant, and uncaring toward her husband. She is repelled by the idea of becoming pregnant and of being a faithful wife and loving mother.

She is deliberately cruel to her husband’s aunt, Juliana. When Juliana leaves a bonnet in the drawing room, Hedda pretends to think that the bonnet belongs to the servant, Berta.

Hedda is a manipulator. She manipulates Tesman into buying a house which he cannot afford. She manipulates Thea into confiding in her, and when she learns that Thea is in love with Løvborg, she manipulates Løvborg into falling into a relapse of alcoholism. What Hedda is not successful in doing is transforming Løvborg into her image of a heroic man, “with vine leaves in his hair—fiery and bold.” This repeated phrase, “vine leaves in his hair,” describes her vision of a romantic hero: free and in control of himself.

Hedda rejects the idea of motherhood, and of domestic tranquility. She is selfish and spoiled, and she is more interested in flirting with Judge Brack. She seems to gain pleasure from exercising power over others. Hedda cannot fit herself into a confined or stereotyped social role, that of the loving wife and mother.

This leads to a major theme of Ibsen’s plays, the difficulty in achieving individual identity within the confinement of a stereotyped social role. Ibsen describes the conflict between self and society, between self-denial and self-fulfillment.

Hedda Gabler rejects the role of loving wife and mother. Her passion arises from the power that she can have over others. Thus, the play centers on the conflict between self-indulgence and self-control, between willfulness and duty, between power and submission.