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A review by thelizabeth
Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen
5.0
Read via DailyLit in 47 parts. (Edmund Gosse and William Archer translation.) I read this in college in a very bad class, and I was curious about NYC's new revival so it was time for a reread. Thank goodness! I only remembered what happens at the end, and not at all why.
This read was much more thought-provoking. And somehow, though it is key, I didn't recall the theme of Hedda's pregnancy at all. (It was a really bad class.) And that's not a spoiled revelation; though she only (barely) admits it near the end, everyone else knows this in the first scene. Everyone scrutinizes her body and her expected future, but no one other than the audience acknowledges her unhappiness, and the oncoming child, and her opportunity to destroy the "child" of her only comrade. I just read a review of the current production that cites Hedda as being "evil" and I was shocked, because, what else is a proportionate response to the pain of her mistake.
The other new idea to me was the significant but brief description of her youth with her militant father, as his compatriot and sidekick. The General Gabler, giving his name to her and the play's title. The qualities of the father passed to the daughter, they rode side by side and shared guns, but doomed with a female life, Hedda's only adulthood can be marrying a useless bore. She can say of her pending family, "it is killing me," but in the end that's just not accurate enough.
(3 stars for the public domain translation, but 5 stars forev.)
This read was much more thought-provoking. And somehow, though it is key, I didn't recall the theme of Hedda's pregnancy at all. (It was a really bad class.) And that's not a spoiled revelation; though she only (barely) admits it near the end, everyone else knows this in the first scene. Everyone scrutinizes her body and her expected future, but no one other than the audience acknowledges her unhappiness, and the oncoming child, and her opportunity to destroy the "child" of her only comrade. I just read a review of the current production that cites Hedda as being "evil" and I was shocked, because, what else is a proportionate response to the pain of her mistake.
The other new idea to me was the significant but brief description of her youth with her militant father, as his compatriot and sidekick. The General Gabler, giving his name to her and the play's title. The qualities of the father passed to the daughter, they rode side by side and shared guns, but doomed with a female life, Hedda's only adulthood can be marrying a useless bore. She can say of her pending family, "it is killing me," but in the end that's just not accurate enough.
(3 stars for the public domain translation, but 5 stars forev.)