“Hedda Gabler” by Henrik Isben is a problematic play that addresses several social conflicts that a newly married woman experiences when she returns to her hometown from her honeymoon. As the daughter of General Gabler, Hedda Gabler was born and accustomed to being at the top of her town's social hierarchy. Due to social status and undeniable beauty, Hedda has the ability to control and manipulate those around her, but only up to a point. At the time the play is set, women didn't have much freedom to do anything other than get married, have children, and take care of the home. Hedda did not fit this model created for women of that time. She was not very maternal and reacted negatively whenever there was talk of a possible pregnancy. Hedda also had intimacy issues and avoided forming a close, personal bond with another human being. When she and Eilert Løvborg were starting to develop a friendship around the time they started to become intimate, she pointed her gun at him and told him to leave or she would shoot him. Eilert Løvborg fed his hunger for life which he lived vicariously through his stories about his less than honorable and drunken nights. Soon Eilert began to mean more to Hedda than she was willing to admit and she rejected him. Hedda is unhappy with the way her life has unfolded as she is forced into intimate relationships, her marriage to George Tesman, a possible child, and is forced to spend time with Judge Brack. Henrik Isben’s “Hedda Gabler” resolves the thematic question of social constraints through Hedda’s beautiful illusion that acts of freedom and courage exist. The beautiful illusion of Hedda lives on through the life of Eilert Løvborg. He's back... midway through the card... being a wife, a decent young woman, and now an impending affair with Judge Brack. He created this illusion out of desperation for an escape from reality and now without it he feels like there is no way to detach himself from everything he finds ugly. As a result, Hedda shoots herself in the temple to free herself. It's a little ironic that she builds this beautiful illusion about Eilert Løvborg taking his own life and sees that it's a great act of courage, but when he commits suicide it's not out of courage but out of cowardice. Hedda's beautiful illusion was that acts of courage and freedom exist in her world. Eilert Løvborg represented ideas of free will and recklessness while his suicide represented courage and boldness, all qualities Hedda sought to fulfill her illusion and create beauty in her world. Works Cited Henrik Isben's work “Hedda Gabler”