by Shirley Lendway

Created on: November 08, 2010   Last Updated: November 13, 2010

Nice Girls Finish First

Ibsen gives us various scenarios for women in his plays as they traveled through life during the nineteenth century. They could leave their husbands, as Nora did in A Doll’s House, they could build an imaginary world when their husbands are less than exemplary, as Mrs. Alving did in Ghosts, shoot themselves as Hedda Gabler did in the play of the same name or dance around  corpses or projected corpses and take the money they left behind like Thea Elvsted in Hedda Gabler.

 In some ways, Hedda Gabler begins where A Doll’s House stops. Thea is Nora, fresh for new adventure after leaving her husband. And what an adventure she has as her past begins to repeat itself.

 David Richard Jones assures us in his article, “The Virtues of ‘Hedda Gabler,’” that “Thea is a small, easily dominated person who finds her fulfillment through intellectual work guided by men” (453).  However, we quickly learn that where there’s opportunity, there goes Thea. This Norwegian play takes place during the late Victorian period, a time when women were lucky to be employed as governesses in training to be spinsters or mistresses if they did not marry and often forced into loveless marriages when they did.

 But Thea offers a new twist on an old story. She becomes a governess in a home where the wife is an invalid, accepts a temporary career setback as a housekeeper and marries the master when his wife dies. And fortune still seeks her hand. Ejlert Lovborg replaces her as her stepchildren’s teacher. During her husband’s long absences on business, she has an emotional affair when working as his scribe. We know she had an emotional affair with Lovborg because she runs after him when he’s been gone a week; we presume he has come to town in search of a publisher for his promising new book. This “easily dominated” woman is developing a history and is well on her way to becoming a ruthless predator!

All of this has taken place outside of the action of the play. We initially learn about the newlyweds, Jorgen and Hedda Gabler Tesman, when they have freshly arrived at their newly-purchased home, full of prospects about Jorgen obtaining a professorship, but in actuality, except for his access to his Aunt Juliane’s and the ailing Aunt Rina’s annuity, virtually penniless.

Into this state of affairs stumbles Thea Elvsted. It does not take long before Hedda pulls

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