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Women's Fiction
Hedda Gabler

Hedda Gabler

List Price: $13.98
Your Price: $13.98
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A well written dramatic tale.
Review: Hedda Gabler is a wonderful story of a woman desperately trying to have control over her life. Married to a husband she doesn't love and pregnant with a child she doesn't want, Hedda seeks comfort in an old friend. There are enough surprizes in this play to keep it interesting throughout. Ibsen uses his brilliant writing style to capture the very essence of Hedda. I highly recommend Hedda Gabler as well as other works by Henrik Ibsen.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Hedda, the prisioner
Review: Hedda Gabler lives in an absolute prison. Her idylic residence is a prison, her marriage to a hopeful "ilustrious intellectual" is a prison, but above all, she lives imprisoned by herself, trapped by the social parameters that demand her to live the way she does. Hedda just can't figure out how to get out of that tedious state. She's intelligent, cold, severe; Gabler has an almost prodigious capacity to obtain all the information she inquires about the people around her; she manipulates them, she seems to get involved, but she simply tries to take advantage of the situation. Apparently, she doesn't feel much, but in reality, Hedda is in constant turmoil - her involvement has to do, almost exclusively, with what she just cannot allow herself to do.

For this woman, being able to have some sort of "power" over someone becomes the most exciting of all experiences, however - there's a point when she no longer will be able to manipulate the situation on her favor, she will realize how many forces have power over her; therefore, she will simply do the most congruent and coherent of things, as unexpected and shocking as the outcome of this play could possibly be.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Boring Hedda
Review: Hedda Gabler was a boring coniving woman. She married George Tesman only because she was getting older and she needed to be with someone of a decent status. Hedda and George are not a perfect match. Hedda prefers to live in a world of murder and mystery while George likes to research, read, and write books. Hedda obviously finds this boring since she grew up as a militant tomboyish girl. Her boredom leads her to corrupt the live of others live Lovborg and Mrs. Elvsted. She certainly would have preferred to be with Lovborg, but his status would not allow her. Therefore, she finds a way to make Lovborg's life a living hell by persuading him to kill hisself after he feels guilty of losing the only thing that gives him and Mrs. Elvsted life and hope. The only person in the play that gives Hedda a sense of entertainment is Judge Brack. Like Hedda, Judge Brack also wants to see some drama therefore, he stays close to Hedda because he knows that she is capable of doing something malicious. While doing so, he black males her into being his slave for life.

I think Hedda Gabler is someone that people can relate to in the new millennium. She is one of those characters that people can see on television or right next door in their neighborhood. I also appreciated the easy reading. I think when Ibsen wrote this play he had a futuristic vision.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Boring Hedda
Review: Hedda Gabler was a boring coniving woman. She married George Tesman only because she was getting older and she needed to be with someone of a decent status. Hedda and George are not a perfect match. Hedda prefers to live in a world of murder and mystery while George likes to research, read, and write books. Hedda obviously finds this boring since she grew up as a militant tomboyish girl. Her boredom leads her to corrupt the live of others live Lovborg and Mrs. Elvsted. She certainly would have preferred to be with Lovborg, but his status would not allow her. Therefore, she finds a way to make Lovborg's life a living hell by persuading him to kill hisself after he feels guilty of losing the only thing that gives him and Mrs. Elvsted life and hope. The only person in the play that gives Hedda a sense of entertainment is Judge Brack. Like Hedda, Judge Brack also wants to see some drama therefore, he stays close to Hedda because he knows that she is capable of doing something malicious. While doing so, he black males her into being his slave for life.

I think Hedda Gabler is someone that people can relate to in the new millennium. She is one of those characters that people can see on television or right next door in their neighborhood. I also appreciated the easy reading. I think when Ibsen wrote this play he had a futuristic vision.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: "you can always hope...to be top dog?"
Review: Hedda Gabler. Created by Ibsen at the turn of the last century, this character can still find its place comfortably amongst contemporary literature. Hedda's sweeping dark and private personality, from her purposely bitter remarks to her burning up a saved manuscript, lets the reader in on some insight as to the constant turning and scheming that goes on in her mind. Her world is one as ironic as it is constricted and in her own ways and through her own methods, can she try to make the most of what she determines life should be.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: a monster in a doll's body
Review: hedda is a highly electrifying woman stuck in a loveless alliance with a bumbling fool. this steely woman lives by her poetic fantasies-- 'beauty, courage n freedom' thru lovborg (a brill man). lovborg is the ex-lover on which she lives vicariously as they share a 'bond of our common hunger for life'. hedda is driven to desperation by the masculine society she is born into. she was brought up by a militant father.. hence her fascination with pistols n things political n rejection of pregnancy. being the aristocrat she is, hedda loathes the bourgeoise n want for money.

this unwoman woman is a monster living in 'fear of scandal'. part of her time is engaged in power plays with 'fair' thea n brack, the connoisseur of life. it is amazing to see hedda switch mode frm 'clenched fists' 2 being 'calm n controlled'. as the play progresses, her aim of creating a dionsysian being in lovborg ceases dramatically. it affects her so profoundly she finds no meaning in life. her 'pretty illusion' of seeing lovborg with 'vineleaves in his hair' is dead. similarly, lesser beings were invading her pte sanctuary she holds so sacred ('inner rm').. n tt leads to her timely yet shocking death.

who is the tragic hero of the play? hedda or lovborg? hedda is not as strong n dynamic as we liken her to be. she ends in a brittle yet poignant note. what is so striking is the simplicity in which ibsen used to portray his ideas. the audience is often left dumb-founded by the disturbing n perverse themes-- death n vicarious living. also, his use of greek mythology (apollo, dionysus, diana) is very interesting as it delves deeper into the chac.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Hedda Gabler was a remarkable play ahead of its time!
Review: Henrik Ibsen was truly the Father of Modern Drama! His plays are much more "in-tune" with today's life than many scholars want to believe or will admit. Hedda was a powerful woman, who on the surface appeared to be confined by a dress, imprisoned in man's house, and smothered by a male-dominated society. It would appear that Thea Elvstead was the woman with more control, but this is not true. Hedda was a calculating "bitch" who dared (quite shrewdly) to cross over her set in stone "boundaries," manipulate others, and stand back and watch others lives be destroyed as a result. But when she is backed into a corner by the "new" creative couple (George & Thea) and Judge Brack, she takes the final power into her own hand. How ironic that the power is her late father's pistol. How tragic is her death when it was the ultimate control of a destiny that she so strongly desired? Henrik, you were a true visonary!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Hedda Gabler was a remarkable play ahead of its time!
Review: Henrik Ibsen was truly the Father of Modern Drama! His plays are much more "in-tune" with today's life than many scholars want to believe or will admit. Hedda was a powerful woman, who on the surface appeared to be confined by a dress, imprisoned in man's house, and smothered by a male-dominated society. It would appear that Thea Elvstead was the woman with more control, but this is not true. Hedda was a calculating "bitch" who dared (quite shrewdly) to cross over her set in stone "boundaries," manipulate others, and stand back and watch others lives be destroyed as a result. But when she is backed into a corner by the "new" creative couple (George & Thea) and Judge Brack, she takes the final power into her own hand. How ironic that the power is her late father's pistol. How tragic is her death when it was the ultimate control of a destiny that she so strongly desired? Henrik, you were a true visonary!!!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The Malicious Implacable Hedda Gabler
Review: Many people view Hedda as a heroine who was trapped in a world that was not comparable to her train of thought;however I view her as a malicious implacable twisted woman. Nothing in which she did suprised me at all. I felt no remorse in her passing but rather a deliberate sigh of relief. The only thing she ever had to offer was sarcastic insults and low blows to one's intelligence. At the age of 29 Hedda possed the strife and iniquity of a woman twice her age.

Hedda lives in a mans world having been raised by her father who was militant. She strives not to let being a woman hinder her from lifes adventures, so she goes things that most men do. She has a nick for blowing things up and anything that gets in her hands is destroyed. She made all women in her presence succomb to her aggressivenss, all men fell prey to her wit and beauty.

Hedda married Tesman to appear as if she was doing something with her life. He may have been inherently smart but he was naive to the ways of Hedda. Lovburg was a smart man and he could carry on a descent conversation with Hedda but he was pathetic in a sense. It seemed as if he lead a double life and I viewd him as being a drifter. The only person who was on her level of equal intelligence truly was Judge Brack. He understood her and read her like a book; they were literally the same person. He did find her escapades to be quite amusing but at the same time he kind of held a grudge towards her amybe from some past rendezvous.In the end his name Judge took total effect. He held Hedda's fate in his hand and she was not about to let him win that easily. Hedda didn't prove to bite as loud as her bark because she finished herself off when she lost power and control of a situation in which she started.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Hedda the Horrible
Review: Michael Russo

Hedda Gabler is a very dry, serious play. The story is basically about a woman who marries a wealthy man, only to spend his money. Not only is she a gold-digger, she is also a character that seems to derive joy on other people's misery. She is very selfish and only does something if it benefits her in some way, including insulting her husband's aunt.

The rest of the characters are two-dimensional in the aspect of we never learn anything about them, other than the contents of the play. It is hard to feel sympathy or hope for two-dimensional characters to reach their goals when we do not know them at all.

The story-line itself is fairly thin and has absolutely no bulk or depth. The story has no movement. Everything in the play is built on this dry dialogue between two or more characters. The play never takes a stand on anything and the playwright almost seems to be more focused on what will be on stage and the stage directions, rather than actually having a good script.

The setting is awful. The play takes place in only one area. Now that plays had a proscenium theatre, you might think that there would be more than one set. However, again, there is more focus on the furniture and the objects in the room, then where the story takes place. There is hearsay about a drunken character fighting outside the play, but it would be more effective if the audience can see it.

Finally, there was no true ending. Two characters fatally injure themselves, two others try to put a book back together, and one is just caught up in the middle of everything. There was a sense that the playwright just wanted the story to end, so let's kill off some people and say goodnight.

The play has no character, no setting, and worst of all, a terrible ending. This play gets 1 out of 5 stars, and if I could give ½ a star, I would do that. While easy to read and comprehend, it lacks all of the depth of a Shakespeare or a Marlowe play.


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