When Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler opens, Hedda and her husband Jorgen have just arrived in their new home from an extended – five or six months – honeymoon. Jorgen’s aunt, Julle, is keen to know whether Hedda is already pregnant and drops many hints on the subject, such as “I don’t expect you wasted your time on your honeymoon, did you, Jorgen?”. At first Jorgen completely ignores her. When he later wonders what they are going to do with their spare rooms, Julle says “You might find a use for them, when the time comes”. He perks up at the idea that the rooms could be used to store his books and papers! As she is preparing to leave, Jorgen says of Hedda, who has by this point joined them, “Have you noticed how well and bonny she looks? I declare she’s filled out beautifully on the trip.” “Filled out” is a strange expression to use of a 29 year old woman (obviously a potential translation issue) but is typical of the way Jorgen infantilises Hedda. It would not be surprising for a nineteenth-century couple to fall pregnant on their honeymoon given the lack of readily available effective contraception (and the long cold Scandinavian nights!). But Hedda angrily rejects any such suggestion: “Oh, do you have to…“. When Julle leaps eagerly on the hint: “Filled out?“. Tesman replies “Yes, Aunt Julle, you don’t notice it so much when she’s wearing that dress. But I…well, I have occasion to….” Tesman is scandalously suggesting he has seen her naked and is therefore better able to judge whether she has ‘filled out’. Hedda again rejects the idea, insisting “I’m exactly the same as I was when we left“. Is this because she is indeed not pregnant, or is she in denial?
Act One ends with Hedda playing her favourite game of winding up those around her. She says to her husband “Oh well, I’ve got one thing at least that I can pass the time with“. He leaps to the assumption that she is hinting at a pregnancy and is crushed when she reveals she is talking about “My pistols, Jorgen“. This scene is also the reveal that Hedda was Lovberg’s secret lover, the punchline to Mrs Elvert’s earlier reference to “a shadow of a woman that stands between us (her and Lovberg). Someone from his past…He said that when they parted, she threatened to shoot him with a pistol”.
In Act two, the Judge joins in the hectoring of Hedda about her putative pregnancy, condescendingly telling her that her boredom with married life will pass “When you’re faced with…what may I … perhaps a little pompously…refer to as a sacred and ….and exacting responsibility? (Smiles). A new responsibility, my little lady.” Such language again infantilises Hedda, denying her agency, and once again, she rejects the idea immediately: “(angry) Be quiet! You’ll never see anything of the sort!” The Judge is as keen as Julle on the idea and won’t let it lie, responding “(carefully) We’ll talk about it in a year’s time… at the very latest”. This is met with yet another absolute rejection: “(shortly) I’ve no aptitude for any such thing, Mr Brack, No responsibilities for me, thank you!” And when he tries to continue the conversation, she shuts it down once more: “Oh, be quiet I say!”
If Hedda treats her pistols as substitute children, for Lovborg and Thea, the manuscript is their ‘baby’, one Hedda manically destroys, saying as she does so: “Now I am burning your child, Thea!—Burning it, curly-locks! [Throwing one or two more quires into the stove.] Your child and Eilert Lovborg’s. [Throws the rest in.] I am burning—I am burning your child.”
Lovborg and Thea agree that this manuscript was their child: (Mrs Elvsted): “Do you know, Lovborg, that what you have done with the book—I shall think of it to my dying day as though you had killed a little child.
Lovborg. Yes, you are right. It is a sort of child-murder.
Mrs Elvsted. How could you, then—! Did not the child belong to me too?”
In the play’s final act, there is a scene which is almost universally interpreted as confirmation that Hedda is indeed pregnant. She has just confessed to Tesman to having burnt Lovborg’s manuscript and continues:
“Well, I may as well tell you that—just at this time— [impatiently breaking off.] No, no; you can ask Aunt Julle. She will tell you, fast enough.
Tesman. Oh, I almost think I understand you, Hedda! [Clasps his hands together.] Great heavens! do you really mean it! Eh?
Hedda. Don’t shout so. The servant might hear.
Tesman. [Laughing in irrepressible glee.] The servant! Why, how absurd you are, Hedda. It’s only my old Berte! Why, I’ll tell Berte myself.
Hedda. [Clenching her hands together in desperation.] Oh, it is killing me, —it is killing me, all this!”
If this ‘confession’ is intended to ensure Jorgen’s continuing devotion, it is short-lived, as he almost immediately throws himself into the attempt to recreate the burnt manuscript with Mrs Elvsted. His hypothetical child-to-be is quickly forgotten. But it is far from explicit.
If you google ‘Is Hedda Gabler pregnant?’ all the online sources agree – yes, she is pregnant, but she is in denial about it. But wait a minute – have you spotted the irony there? This argument suggests that Hedda doesn’t know her own body. All the characters who assume she must be pregnant after her honeymoon are quick to pick up on any indications she might be gaining weight (and some productions add detail such as her having morning sickness, to press the point home). Both characters within the play and critics seem to agree on this point – but Hedda herself has no agency in this issue. We are told very little about the honeymoon or the characters’ intimate life, other than the fact that Hedda finds her husband “horribly tedious”, (his academic focus is on “An Account of the Domestic Crafts of Medieval Brabant”) but we go along with the nods and the winks, the innuendo implicit in phrases such as ‘blossoming‘. Are we the audience being cast as avatars of Aunt Julle and others, clucking over an anticipated ‘happy event’ without ever once listening to Hedda?
Why does this matter? Hedda’s decision at the end of the play is usually interpreted as a form of escape, a decision to leave a situation in which she feels trapped without any other option. I tis worth remembering that the murder (as they would have seen it) of an unborn child would have been an abomination to a Victorian audience. Norway was a largely Evangelical Lutheran society (so the internet tells me) but most nineteenth century audiences would have been shocked and appalled at Hedda’s actions, both towards herself and her unborn child. While generalisations are difficult I expect she would have attracted little sympathy. This is borne out by the initial critical reactions to the play which were a mixture of bewilderment and hostility, with critics calling its 1891 premiere in Munich a “hideous nightmare of pessimism,” ‘immoral’, and Hedda herself a “beast”. Despite this reception audiences kept coming, compelled by the drama of the piece.
This is of course one of those literary puzzles to which there can never be a definitive answer. Ibsen leaves enough evidence for the reader to conclude that Hedda both is and isn’t pregnant, with the actors and producers being given a form of casting vote in terms of how they portray the character. But I would suggest this is not a simple choice and is one which can potentially influence the impact of the whole play on audiences.
Postscript
It occurred to me a while after writing the above that it treats the issue of pregnancy in a very binary way. Technically that may be true – a woman is either pregnant or she is not – but in reality the situation can be and often is more complicated. For instance, a woman may be pregnant but not realise it – quite possible in Hedda’s case. Equally the reverse can be true. More commonly, a woman might simply not be sure whether she is pregnant or not. In the days before modern pregnancy testing that must have been an almost universal experience in the early weeks of pregnancy. It is also quite possible that Hedda is unable to have children – this would explain her attempted ‘confession’ to Jorgen in Act Four – or that she had been pregnant but had miscarried – again, something that she would probably feel merited a confession. It is also not beyond the bounds of possibility that Jorgen is not the father of Hedda’s hypothetical baby, which would go some way to explaining her cry that it is killing her. So the ‘Hedda is pregnant but in denial’ interpretation of this aspect of the play is one of many supported by the text if the reader and performers are prepared to open themselves up to alternative and arguably more interesting readings.
The Reading Bug 