Femininity is a strong yet destructive force when taken for granted. Hedda Tessman may appear to be powerful woman, who manipulates the characters of lower ranks, but Mrs. Elvsted is ultimately the powerful woman, who holds power through her femininity. Mrs. Elvsted’s power of femininity is evident when Hedda runs her fingers lightly through Mrs. Elvsted’s hair and says “doesn’t it seem strange, Thea. Here you are, sitting together with Tessman – just like you used to sit with Eilert Løvborg” (837). Hedda, who has a domineering attitude, pretends to be strong by touching Mrs. Elvsted’s hair. However, this scene portrays Hedda’s jealousy towards Mrs. Elvsted’s feministic character because, unlike her, Mrs. Elvsted has “remarkably light, almost a white gold and exceptionally rich and full” hair, that Hedda wanted to burn since her childhood. In addition, Mrs. Elvsted inspired Løvborg with his manuscript and tried to preserve his death by putting the lost manuscript together. It is evident that Tessman was inspired by her too because Tessman, who praised Hedda, suddenly turned his back against his wife and sat next to Mrs. Elvsted to help her recreate Løvborg’s manuscript. Hedda, unable to deal with her insecurity and jealousy, committed suicide. Mrs. Elvsted may be of a lower rank than Hedda, but her femininity is more powerful than Hedda’s pride.
Assignment 3
September 25, 2015 Written by y.kim | 3 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized
3 responses so far ↓
s.kazinets // Sep 25th 2015 at 1:20 pm
This is interesting because I actually wrote the opposite in my blog post. Where I talked about how she is a manipulative person and do to that trait it’s what control the whole play. Whatever she says goes, and that’s how most of the play turns out to be. She is a character that always wants to be in control and even she says that she doesn’t like scandal and usually during a scandal you can’t be in control of what is said about you. It’s that moment that she doesn’t want to happen to her, and I feel like that is why she takes her own life. Taking her life puts her back into control of herself and not having someone else destroy her.
mf152788 // Sep 26th 2015 at 10:06 am
I really enjoyed this character analysis because it brought to me a new perspective. I originally thought that Mrs. Elvsted’s character was weak and uninspired, but reading this post made me consider her as strong, powerful and intelligent. The examples used in this post to back it up are great examples, as well. There was strong symbolism in the scene where Tessman turned his back against Hedda, and I never would have noticed its significance if I didn’t read this post that scrutinizes this passing image.
Hedda is like a bully, who is all talk and no action. Mrs. Elvsted rises up from her low point and empowers herself through the proliferation of her and Eilert’s work. It just goes to show that power comes in all forms, and perhaps what seems like power on the surface actually isn’t.
JMERLE // Sep 26th 2015 at 4:01 pm
Rose,
This is an excellent paragraph, up until the sentence, “In addition . . . ” Avoid switching to another incident in one paragraph, as you then broach up another topic to be explored. Although you use two quotes, they are very closely connected, and so this works, I think.
Grade: 9/10