Hedda Gabler (Plot Summary)

Plot Summary

Act I

Hedda Gabler opens in the drawing room of the Tesmans’ villa in the prestigious west-end district of Christiania, Norway. George Tesman and his new wife, Hedda, have just returned from a six-month honeymoon. Juliana Tesman, George’s maiden aunt, and Berta, the Tesmans’ servant, talk about George’s invalid Aunt Rina, Hedda’s father, General Gabler, and George’s fortunate marriage and bright career prospects.

George enters, greets his aunt, and sends Berta off to store his valise while he helps Juliana remove her new bonnet. They discuss his good fortune in winning the much-admired Hedda, who, Juliana hopes, may already be pregnant. The journey and the villa and its furnishings, arranged by Judge Brack, have put both George and his aunts in debt, but Juliana assures her nephew that he is sure to get his anticipated academic appointment. Eilert Lovborg, George’s chief competitor for the position, remains in disgrace, despite his popular new book.

When Hedda enters, she is both brusque and ill-mannered. After implying that Juliana’s visit is too early, she complains about the room’s stuffiness. She refuses to take any interest in George’s favorite slippers, newly embroidered by his invalid aunt, and declares that Berta will have to be discharged for carelessly leaving her old bonnet on a chair. She also gets annoyed with George when he talks of her robust health, of how she seems to have “filled out” on their journey.

When George sees his aunt to the door, Hedda reveals her mounting frustration and rage by raising clenched fists over her head. He returns and they talk briefly about Aunt Juliana and Hedda’s refusal to become closer to her. Berta then shows in Mrs. Elvsted, who explains that Eilert Lovborg is in town; she implores the Tesmans to befriend him. After Hedda sends George off to write Lovborg an amiable letter, she begins grilling Thea about her marriage to Sheriff Elvsted and her relationship to Lovborg. Accepting Hedda’s apparent friendship, Thea confides that she has helped reform the dissolute Lovborg. She also confesses that she has left her husband, but that Lovborg has not encouraged her feelings for him because he remains emotionally bound to a former lover who had once driven him away at gunpoint.

George returns to find that they have another visitor, Judge Brack. After introductions, Hedda sees Thea out and returns to find the men talking about Lovborg, his book, and his moral reclamation. Brack then tells George that his academic appointment is not a certainty, that there is to be a competition for the post, pitting him against Lovborg — this news greatly upsets the financially-strapped Tesman. He voices his concerns to Hedda after Brack leaves, explaining that they will have to become much more frugal. She tells him that she will be bored but will amuse herself with her father’s pistols.

Act II

It is late-afternoon on the same day. Judge Brack, approaching the Tesmans’ villa from the rear, is dismayed when Hedda fires a pistol in his direction. After chiding her, Brack presses Hedda for a more intimate friendship. She reveals her disenchantment with marriage, complaining that the unexciting Tesman is simply too absorbed in his dull studies. She scoffs at the idea of love, admitting that she married George, not from affection, but because he is solid and respectable and has good prospects.

George enters laden with several books, one of which is Lovborg’s new work. When he goes into the study, Hedda confesses her dislike for Tesman’s aunts and even the married couple’s villa. She admits she had only pretended to believe that Juliana’s new bonnet belonged to Berta. She also tells Brack that she has hopes of interesting George in politics, but he offers no encouragement. His suggestion that she might find an alternative interest in raising a child makes her bristle.

When George re-enters, the talk turns to Lovborg and Judge Brack’s bachelor’s party. Shortly after, Eilert arrives, hoping to read part of his manuscript to George. He refuses an invitation to the party but defers to Hedda’s insistence that he stay for dinner with her and Thea Elvsted. He also indicates that he will not stand in the way of Tesman’s appointment, much to George’s relief.

Lovborg stays alone with Hedda while the other men go into an adjoining room to drink punch. They speak of their former intimacy, of a time when Eilert confided in her. She confesses that she dreads the scandal that their love might have occasioned, a fear she still carries. He then allays her concern by revealing that he has never told Thea of their love, that Thea was too stupid to understand it.

When Mrs. Elvsted arrives, she tells Hedda of her happiness in being a catalyst in Lovborg’s moral and professional reformation. Hedda suggests that Eilert is not really very secure, that both he and others, including Brack, suspect a possible relapse. She then betrays Thea’s trust by revealing to Lovborg that Thea had come to her in a distracted state, herself fearful of what Eilert might do. To Thea’s chagrin, Lovborg reacts bitterly, resolving to go off to the party with Tesman and Brack, with plans to read his manuscript there.

The men depart, leaving the worried Thea and exultant Hedda alone. Hedda is convinced that Eilert will return “with vine-leaves in his hair.” She admits that she desires the power to shape one person’s destiny, and, reverting to a girlhood threat, says that she will yet have to burn the frightened Thea’s hair off. At the curtain, she restates her conviction that Eilert will return in all his vine-leaf (drunken and disorderly) glory.

Act III

It is early the following day. Hedda and Thea have spent the night awaiting the return of Lovborg and Tesman. Hedda is asleep on the sofa, but Thea, restless, merely dozes in a chair. She wakes fully when Berta enters with a letter for George. Hedda also wakes, and after allaying Thea’s concern, sends her off to rest in another room.

When Tesman returns, he tells Hedda that Lovborg had read part of his new manuscript to him and that is an extraordinary work. He also reveals that he has the manuscript with him, that he picked it up after Eilert carelessly dropped it, something only George knows. Hedda insists that he leave it with her. He is hesitant, but when he learns from the letter that his Aunt Rina is dying, he prepares to go to his aunt’s bedside. Hedda stashes the manuscript out of sight, on the bookcase, just before Brack enters.

Brack describes Lovborg’s behavior of the previous night, of how the scholar had gone to Mademoiselle Diana’s room, charged everyone with stealing his papers, and, after striking a constable, been taken to jail. Eilert’s fate comforts Brack, who had seen Lovborg as a threat to his plans to ensnare Hedda in an intimate relationship.

After Brack leaves, Hedda takes the packet of Lovborg’s papers from the bookcase, but hearing voices in the hall, locks them in the drawer of a writing table. Lovborg barges in over the protests of Berta. Shortly after, Mrs. Elvsted also enters, and he tells her that she must leave him and go home again, that he is ruined. He lies to her, claiming to have torn his manuscript to pieces, scattering it on the fjord. She exits in despair, blaming Lovborg for destroying their work, their “child.”

After Thea’s exit, Eilert tells Hedda the truth, that he has lost the manuscript, and that he plans “to make an end of all.” Hedda then begs him to end it “beautifully,” and gives him one of General Gabler’s pistols. After he leaves, she retrieves his manuscript and destroys it in the drawing room’s stove.

Act IV

It is evening of the same day. Juliana talks of her sister’s death with Hedda and George. She announces her desire to find another invalid to nurse, then adds the hope that Hedda will also have another to care for, a baby. After Juliana leaves, Hedda confesses that she had burned Eilert’s manuscript to ashes. George is horrified, but when she claims that she did it for his sake, and lets on that she is with child, his regret turns to joy, and he agrees that they should keep her destruction of Eilert’s papers a secret.

Mrs. Elvsted then joins them. She has heard rumors that Eilert was taken to the hospital. These are soon confirmed by Judge Brack, who enters shortly after. He claims that Eilert is in the hospital, dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the chest, news that only slightly distresses Hedda, who had expected him to shoot himself “beautifully,” in the temple. When the talk shifts to Lovborg’s destroyed manuscript, Thea suggests that from notes she has with her, she and Tesman might be able to recreate Eilert’s work. George is at once enthusiastic, and the pair go into an adjoining room to begin what George now perceives as his life’s work.

Alone with Hedda, Brack tells her the truth about Lovborg, that he is already dead, having bled to death from a wound to his bowels accidentally inflicted while Eilert was with Mademoiselle Diana in her boudoir. George then re-enters to say that he wants to work with Thea at the writing table. Hedda, after covering the remaining pistol with music sheets, moves apart, continuing her conversation with Brack sotto voce(“under the voice,” in drama, a whispering technique that allows an audience to hear the dialogue). He reveals that he recognized the pistol that Lovborg used and warns her that a scandal could follow were he to disclose what he knows. She realizes what he is insinuating, that Eilert’s death and her fear of scandal will put her completely in Brack’s power.

As Thea and George work on Eilert’s notes, Hedda goes into the adjoining room with music sheets and the pistol. She begins frenzied playing on the piano, prompting Tesman to protest the music’s inappropriateness, given the death of Rina. George also tells Thea that they should work at Juliana’s house in the evenings, leaving Brack to keep Hedda company. Brack is immediately agreeable, knowing that he can turn such occasions into sexual trysts. Hedda then fires the pistol, and when the men jump up and go into the room, they discover that Hedda has shot herself in the temple, something, according to the astonished Brack, that people just “don’t do.”