by Catherine Partin
Two of Ibsen’s best-known plays, A Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler,
have as their heroines frustrated bourgeois housewives whose lives are confined
to the home and who prove themselves capable of more than is allowed them by
societal constraints. Nora and Hedda
seem at first to inhabit separate worlds: one is a supportive wife and devoted
mother; the other is a reluctant newlywed and dreads the responsibility of
child-rearing; but both seek excitement and fulfillment outside the home and
beyond the limited scope of their domestic duties. Despite their apparent differences, both
share a common quest for self-actualization through a rejection of social
values and conventions, including a longing for excitement outside the domestic
sphere and the idealization of a male character each of them attempts to
influence and through whom they attempt to live vicariously.
Nora and Hedda both challenge the
roles they are expected to fill within a patriarchal society, especially in
marriage. Nora
takes on the traditionally masculine task of working to bring a material income
into the home, but her focus remains concentrated on providing for her
family. In contrast, while Hedda is
virtually confined to the Falk Villa, her interest lies in the outside world,
beyond the domestic sphere; unlike Nora, Hedda’s longing for independence is
not masked by concern for a husband or children. Patricia Spacks notes in The World of Hedda Gabler that Hedda “rejects the basic functions
of women – marriage, motherhood; she rejects the real world of responsibility”
(158). Meanwhile, Nora is willing to
devote herself to her role as wife and mother for the sake of the idealistic
loyalty that she misguidedly ascribes to Helmer. “I was completely certain – that you would
come forward and take all the blame…it was to prevent that that I was ready to kill myself” (Ibsen, “A Doll’s House” 230). While Hedda’s death is an act of rebellion
against those to whom she is expected to submit, Nora’s contemplation of
suicide is motivated by her notion that such an act would be a heroic feat of
selflessness, a noble sacrifice to save her family from living in
disgrace. Nevertheless, despite Nora’s
willingness to devote herself to her role as Helmer’s wife, she discovers a
sense of satisfaction in violating the accepted conventions that discourage
women from entering the world of work and business. “[I]t was really tremendous fun sitting there
working and earning money. It was almost
like being a man” (Ibsen, “A Doll’s House” 162). In reality, the closest Nora and Hedda can
get to experiencing the kind of freedom regularly afforded to men is through
the idealistic hopes they pin on the male characters of Helmer and Lovborg.
Both
women maintain high ideals of love, sacrifice, and beauty that they initially
cannot realize independently, each relying instead upon a powerful male figure to
defy social conventions for them, thus fulfilling a romantic fantasy. Arthur Ganz argues in Miracle and Vine Leaves: An Ibsen Play Rewrought, “Both women are
prepared to throw away their lives to preserve the vision of the miraculous,
the beautiful, that lifted their selves and their existences beyond the
mundane… Each idealizes a man through whom she intends to achieve ‘the
unattainable’ and whom she sees only as an instrument for the realization of
herself” (11). Although Nora ultimately
does not commit suicide, her absolute faith in Helmer as the heroic figure she
imagines him to be leads her to readily accept the idea of giving herself up in
order to preserve her husband’s honour. Nora
abandons her thoughts of suicide as soon as she realizes that the cause for
which she had been willing to die existed only in her mind as an unspoken
desire. Bereft of her own idealistic
vision of Helmer as a loyal husband worth giving her life for, Nora finds
herself liberated from the psychological shackles that had kept her captive in
her role as a dutiful wife and mother.
She is then free to pursue her own personal and economic freedom. The threat of poverty and public humiliation
are of less importance to Nora than the self-actualization she can attain only
by rejecting the role assigned to her by society. For Nora, suicide would be the ultimate act
of submission to the rules that value a man’s honour, not to mention a policy
of strict obedience to men’s impartial systems of judgment, over a woman’s
moral obligations, no matter how noble her intentions. Unlike Hedda, whose suicide is a form of
protest, Nora ultimately rebels not by seeking escape in death but by flouting
social conventions in choosing to claim her life as her own. Hedda, however, turns to suicide when
Lovborg’s death fails to fulfill her vision of what she considers the beauty of
free will. She is so bound by the laws
of society that she can see no possibility of liberation in attempting to defy
them.
The
obstacle facing both women in their struggles toward self-realization is the
institution of marriage, portrayed in these plays as a sort of contract; women
marry not for love, but for purely practical and economic reasons. “I’d danced myself out. That was all.
My time was up…and he was so determined…so sure he’d be able to support
me…Why should I turn him down?” (Ibsen,
“Hedda Gabler” 41). The husbands in both
plays appear to dote on their wives, but neither relationship is emotionally or
intellectually satisfying to Nora or Hedda.
Nonetheless, both women are willing to endure their unfulfilling
marriages as long as certain conditions are met: in Nora’s case, her relationship
with Helmer is kept intact only by her continued illusion that he is as willing
to risk his life for her as she is for him; Hedda, driven by her “obsessive
concern with the perception of society,” remains committed to playing the role
of a loyal and devoted wife despite her own acknowledgment to Brack that she
considers her marriage to Tesman a disappointment and a failure (Ganz 15). Unlike Thea, however, Hedda does not see the
possibility of deserting a dull marriage in favor of a passionate romance as an
avenue to liberation. To Hedda, Thea
represents the bleak future of the woman who tries to live outside the
constraints of society: she chases after Lovborg but fails to exercise any real
control over him, and while she has freed herself from an unsatisfying
marriage, she continues to depend heavily on a man for personal and emotional fulfillment
but without the benefit of the legal bond that would at least ensure her
financial security. Despite her
unfeminine affinity for pistols and her aversion to motherhood, Hedda appears
in other respects a model wife: her relationship with Lovborg has never
ventured beyond their illicit conversations into physical intimacy, and she
refuses to engage in an adulterous affair with Judge Brack.
However, Hedda’s reluctance to pursue a
relationship with either man signifies not any sense of loyalty to Tesman, but
rather a refusal to allow any man to exert power over her either materially or psychologically. Her frustration stems in part from her
repressed sexuality, involving fear of, desire for, and curiosity about a man’s
world that a young girl “‘isn’t supposed to know anything about’” (Ganz 15). Both Nora and Hedda are excluded from the
freedoms exercised by the male characters in Ibsen’s plays, particularly
economic and sexual. As a result, their
relationships suffer: Nora’s financial dependence on Helmer, although socially
sanctioned, is a symptom of the distrust that leads to the dissolution of their
marriage; Hedda’s unwillingness to accept a submissive sexual role compels her
to resent Tesman and to reject both Lovborg and Brack. Although they share similar desires for power
and independence, sexuality plays a different role for each woman in her
attempt to assert herself. Ganz writes,
“[Hedda’s] sexual allure has almost nothing to do with her manipulation of
Lovborg…Nora is, after all, prepared to use her charms to get money, but Hedda
tries to use her will and intelligence to ‘control a human destiny’” (16). Hedda’s aversion to sexuality is underscored
by her preoccupation with the idea of will and intellectual influence as the
most powerful means of control, as she observes the dynamic between Lovborg and
her envious husband , Thea and her positive influence on Lovborg. In contrast, Nora recognizes her feminine
charms as a source of power and uses them to her advantage, first flirting with
Dr. Rank and then using dance to distract her husband. She also realizes that her appeal will fade
with time and age, and is prepared to use her secret as a kind of insurance
against the inevitable waning of her beauty, which constitutes her only power
over Helmer: “What I mean, of course, is when Torvald isn’t as fond of me as he
is now – when my dancing and dressing up and reciting don’t amuse him any
longer. It might be a good thing, then,
to have something up my sleeve…” (Ibsen, “A Doll’s House” 161). Whereas Nora’s sexuality is her primary means
of getting what she wants, Hedda resists men’s advances and prefers to exert
her influence verbally, through her conversations with Lovborg and Tesman. Although their means are different, their
ends are the same.
The
trait that ultimately unites these characters is the idealistic vision each
harbours of the man to whom she links her secret desires and private
aspirations. The tragedy of A Doll’s House is that Nora has spent
eight years operating under the false and naïve expectation that Helmer would
one day be revealed as the noble and worthy husband she longs for, risking her
own reputation in the hope that he would readily do the same for her sake. Hedda similarly envisions a grand gesture by
Lovborg that would demonstrate her influence over his actions and validate her
belief in the power of one’s will to overcome socially-imposed limitations. She manipulates Lovborg as a way of
experiencing a vicarious sense of liberation from the social conventions by
which she is bound:
“The vine leaves
that she wishes to see in his hair are the symbol of beauty achieved by
defiance of society; his dissipated life in the past, the dissipation she urges
him toward in the present, represent to her the possibility of escaping rather
than submitting to narrow social limits.
It is entirely for her own sake that she manipulates him: not merely for
the joy of controlling a destiny, but for the immediate joy of knowing that she
has, with perfect safety, with no apparent responsibility, caused a violation
of conventional restrictions” (Spacks 158).
Lovborg has already earned a reputation for having led
a depraved and self-indulgent past, but is easily redeemed and welcomed back
into society’s good graces, but as a woman, Hedda cannot overtly rebel against
social conventions without devastating consequences. To Hedda, Lovborg’s suicide as she imagines
it represents the fulfillment of her own desire for autonomy and the triumph of
the will over worldly constraints: “All I know is that Ejlert Lovborg had the
courage to choose the kind of life he wanted to lead. And now this, this triumph, this beautiful
deed. He had the strength, the will, to
tear himself away from the banquet of life…so early” (Ibsen, “Hedda Gabler”
100). Lovborg’s death is admirable to
Hedda because it suggests a kind of freedom from social pressures and
obligations she herself could not expect to find in her own life. Neither could Nora be considered able or expected
to take on the full responsibility of her economic or legal decisions; her
forgery must reflect badly on Helmer because she is at his mercy
financially. Both Nora and Hedda find
themselves unable to act directly as individuals in the world, at least within
the limits of their roles as women, but rely upon men as their
representatives. As Ganz notes, “The
‘miracle’ that Torvald is to perform and the crown of vine leaves that Lovborg
is to wear are to have similar effects on the women who contemplate them. For each of them this act – carried out on
her behalf or under her influence – is to justify a life of restraint,
conventionality, sacrifice, secret repression” (18). However, neither heroine is granted this
vicarious satisfaction of their desires.
Nora admits, “[W]hen the miracle didn’t happen…I saw that you weren’t
the man I’d always thought you” (Ibsen, “A Doll’s House” 229). Her disappointment over Helmer’s
unwillingness to risk violating social conventions and Hedda’s disillusionment
concerning the circumstances surrounding Lovborg’s death precipitate their
decisions to move beyond idealizing or manipulating men to achieve their ends,
and to take control of their own lives for the first time.
Over the
course of both plays, Nora and Hedda’s motivations gradually shift from the
desire to control another person’s destiny to their own need for
self-realization, propelling them both to their final acts of defiance and
liberation. Nora’s desertion of her post
as wife and mother is a necessary sacrifice in asserting her autonomy, and Hedda’s
suicide is a powerful statement of protest demonstrating willful control over
her own destiny. Both are a declaration
of independence and a last courageous gesture of rebellion.
