great works ii – 2850 jta 12:25-2:05: love letters from the world

In Henrik Ibsen’s play, Hedda Gabler, Eilert Lovborg is unlike all other characters because, regardless of his higher class, he has fallen from the top and is trying to redeem himself by being a scholar.  As Hedda and Lovborg casually talk about his near death, he says, “In beauty? [Smiles.] With vine leaves in my hair, as you used to imagine?” (827). He is the only character to acknowledge and agree with Hedda’s lunacy. It is insane that he smiles after imagining himself dying, with a person that also wishes him to die. I think that reason that he smiles about his death is because Hedda made it seem like it would be royal. The vine leaves in his hair would make him appear somewhat like a Greek god: heroic, intelligent, and beautiful. I think this thought made him happy because he sees himself as a fallen man who cannot seem to overcome the pressures of society. He plays two very opposite roles as one character. Lovborg can be seen as an elite scholar, who created a masterpiece of a manuscript with his innocent and devoted girlfriend, Mrs. Elvsted. Lovborg can also be seen as the town’s outcast and alcoholic who fell from the top, disgraced his family’s name, and is in between two women, Hedda and Mrs. Elvsted. It seems as though Lovborg does not care what society thinks of him and his bad decisions, considering he continues to get drunk and disrupt the town. However, he proves this untrue because he wrote his first books solely about what people want to hear and what they would agree with, not on his own thoughts, which he openly admits. Therefore, Lovborg is a coward for seeing death as his path to being elite and admired. I think the influence of alcohol, the pressures of society, and his desire for acceptance resulted in his death.