Point 1: Is Hedda a positive or a negative character?
I was interested by the text's comment on whether Hedda is a positive or a negative character in the play. Based on the text there are different perspectives on the character of Hedda; others describing her as "horrid miscarriage of the imagination, a monster I female form to whom no parallel can be found in real life", others think that her "soul is acrawl with the foulest passions of humanity".
In my opinion, the problem of Hedda Gabler portrays the universal problem of women in a society built by men. Hedda has to make an independent decision about her life, however women in most societies at the time, apart from the most progressive ones, had been bared from participating in the world outside their household and family. Therefore, Hedda despite her strong desire for freedom and independance, lacks the personal resources and necessary to achieve self-responsibility. She does not have any positive impact on the world. Instead, she has proven to be more of a negative character as she destroys what she cannot accept. She undermines Tesman's work, destroys Løvborg's and Thea's manuscript, denys her pregnency etc.
Point 2: Comparison of Hedda to Lady Macbeth
Another comment that piqued my interest was the comparison of Hedda Gabler's charcater to the one of Lady Macbeth for the Shakespearean tragedy 'Macbeth'. Through both of these two female protagonists, both Shakespeare and Ibsen aimed to portray the current then state of the female community. The way in which the two protagonists - Lady Macbeth and Hedda - are similar is that they have begun a dreadful revolution against patriarchical rule, power, and dominance in order to achieve self-power and self-dominance.
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