FROM A JOURNEY OF INNER STRUGGLE TO A CATASTROPHE: ^ HENRIK IBSEN’S HEDDA GABLER

Authors : Arpine Mızıkyan AKFIÇICI

Pages : 2-10

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Publication Date : 2015-12-01

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :In a cultural framework shaped by patriarchal ideology, Ibsen’s 1890 play Hedda Gabler explores women’s two major roles within the family, daughter and mother/wife and examines how the title character’s resistance to these female roles, as the play unfolds, is characteristic of her rebellion against the conventional turn-of-the-century view of woman’s place. The play portrays the reduction of the woman to her status as female, and this adds to the hopelessness of Hedda’s situation and, undeniably, brings about her catastrophic end. Her being a member of a declining aristocratic class and the fear of ending up as a spinster make Hedda see marriage into a respectable middle class/academic family as the only means of escape. Nevertheless, she becomes oppressed by the narrow conventions and conformity of a petit-bourgeois society that imprison her in conventional expectations of female roles. Despite the hints that she should have a baby, Hedda resists the maternal role throughout the play, which is commonly considered to be a woman’s sole and inevitable vocation in life.  It is within this framework that this paper aims at discussing how Hedda’s refusal to fit into the accepted female roles of wife and mother results in her victimization and downfall: she kills herself with a pistol immediately after she plays a “frenzied dance melody on the piano” through which she metaphorically cries for help raising her voice because she recognizes that she is confined to her feminine role.  
Keywords : Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen, maternity, female roles