Why does Hedda give Loevborg the pistol? What does she mean when she urges him, “Can you see to it that – that when you do it, you bathe it in beauty?” How does that work out?
Hedda takes notice of Loevborg’s latest interest in killing himself. She follows by lending him her pistol, the pistol she previously had been playing around with shooting around recklessly. She gives him this pistol noticing that he feels lifeless and has nothing to live for. I feel this is when Hedda Gabler may relate to Loevborg. She herself doesn’t seem to enjoy the life she is living. By giving him the gun she is allowing him to do what she feels she really wants to do. She understands Loevborg non desire to live life. She may be putting herself in his shoes. If she had the opportunity to commit suicide she would too. When she says, “Can you see to it that – that when you do it, you bathe it in beauty?”, I feel she means that the beauty would be dying peacefully in your own way. She hopes that he goes out on his own terms the way he desires to. This eventually doesn’t workout as he accidentally kills himself with getting shot in the stomach. This could be a further foreshadow of Hedda having a child as it is still unknown throughout the play whether she is pregnant or not. Hedda did however get to go out the way she wanted to finally pulling the trigger on herself.
Shawn, Just to clarify, when Hedda gives Lovborg the pistol, he is despondent because he has lost his manuscript and he is dreading having to tell Thea that he “misplaced” it when he was drunk. Hedda actually has the manuscript in her possession, so she could have just given him back to him, but instead she gives him the gun and then burns the manuscript. Her choice to give him the gun needs to take this context into account.