Hedda Gabler Research Paper

Hedda Gabler: Sociological Stratification through Max Weber The idea of possession and attachment to materialistic objects associated with class is one of the themes of Henrik Ibsen’s famous plays Hedda Gabler, where the main characters George Tesman and his wife Hedda come back from their honeymoon to find that things have gone down for Hedda, where she was relying on Tesman, a scholarly fellow, publishing his research in a book. This however seems to be taking longer than anticipating and if that was not enough for Hedda, Tesman’s sort of rival, Eliot Lovborg, has published a fantastic publication with the help of Thea Elvsted and is on the way to writing a masterpiece of a follow up to the first book. Hedda has tried to elevate her

Ibsen implements this into Hedda’s character and she expresses this through her pistols in all three aspects of Weber’s theory. In the story, Hedda originally had a pretty lavish lifestyle under her father, a man who was referred to by Miss Tesman with, “Well what do you expect? General Gabler’s daughter – the way she lived in the general’s day! … With the feather in her hat?”(Ibsen 854) This point to Weber’s 1st idea of social stratification, in which Hedda believes herself to be above everyone due to the high economic way here father, and by extension Hedda, lived and strives to find a way to continue to keep that mindset now that she married Tesman. The dueling pistols are a reminder of material culture of class that she believes to still be hers and in the days that the story takes place also seems to support this. (Ibsen 872) Scholars put that “Recent historical research indicates that ritualistic dueling had a rational basis. Basically, under certain social and economic conditions, individuals must fight in order to maintain their personal credit and social standing.” (Wright and Kingston 1094) Ibsen reflects this throughout the story where Hedda is seen holding and polishing her

At the time of the play being written, “The Norwegian social structure was similar to the German model in form and rigidity. Aristocrats, officials of the state, officers of the army… Next in importance were the profes-sional classes: doctors, professors, law-yers, and important merchants..” (Kihdahl 808) This is important to the character of Hedda because of the level of power and influence her father had by being a general in the army, for this highlights Weber’s third part of social stratification where the most political and educated had the most influence and divided the social order further.(Boundless) This changes when General Gabler passes away, and Hedda is pushed to maintain that same power influence as before through Tesman and his potential to-be professor position, which was held in high esteem back then. (Kihdahl 808) The pistols come into play with the power aspect by being a reminder of what Hedda wants and had at the sames time, along with the idea that she is a female and pushes for Tesman to reach a position of power to have more influence and with that status and class. This, however, is not fulfilled because Lovborg beat Tesman to the punch with Lovborg’s book,