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FEMALE CHARACTERS.
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Analysis of their social roles.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Analysis of their social roles. Leading character of Hedda in Henrick Ibsen's play HEDDA GABLER and of Germaine in Michel Tremblay's LES BELLES SOEURS. How both women are recognizable types in bourgeois culture. How each deals with her given role as guardian of the sanctity of the family.
Paper Introduction:
This research examines the leading female characters in Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler and Tramblay’s Les Belles Soeurs. The plan is to compare and contrast the respective responses of Hedda and Germaine to the cultural mandate that women are guardians of the sanctity of the family, with a view toward showing the degree to which they adhere to or depart from the social role prescribed for them by custom and practice.
Both Hedda Gabler and Les Belles Soeurs present portraits of women who are recognizable “types” in the scheme of bourgeois culture. Although the social position of Hedda, daughter of General Gabler, is at the aristocratic end of the bourgeois social spectrum and that of Germaine, one among many working-class women in what is presumably Montreal, what the characters share is a situation of socially sanctioned confinement and a profo
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Vancouver, British Columbia: Talonbooks, 2 1. She can no longer be active; she must wait upon events to act uponher. Now that she has married (the fact thatTesman is a paragon of respectability adds insult to injury), suchsensibility is not readily available to her future. Lacking the magnetism, brilliance,or imagination of aesthete Lovborg, the decent, narrow, plodding, andcompetent scholarly specialist Tesman is a perfect exponent of what Heddacalls "this tight little world I've stumbled into . But her assumption all along has been that getting "the works"will fix whatever is wrong with her life. Hedda cannot even retreat to the General Gabler shrine room torelease her frustrations on her piano without disturbing that importantwork. She avoids acting in her own best interest,preferring instead that others perceive that she is acting for others. Both Hedda Gabler and Les Belles Soeurs present portraits of women whoare recognizable "types" in the scheme of bourgeois culture. Les Belles Soeurs. Meanwhile Hedda watches Tesman and Thea form an alliance to nurturethe "child," Lovborg's philosophical masterpiece. The choices are intolerable:unwanted motherhood and the insufferable bourgeois respectability ofdomestic life with Tesman, along with acquiescence in Brack's sexualblackmail, or the public scandal that she not only burned Eilert Lovborg'smanuscript but also goaded the former lover into taking her father'spistols for what she hoped would be a Romantic suicide "done beautifully"(Ibsen 287). The plan is to compare andcontrast the respective responses of Hedda and Germaine to the culturalmandate that women are guardians of the sanctity of the family, with a viewtoward showing the degree to which they adhere to or depart from the socialrole prescribed for them by custom and practice. 217-3 4.Tremblay, Michel. New York: Signet/New American Library, 1965. Theft of the stamps by family and friends is enormously disheartening,and Germaine achieves insight into how similar she is to her family andfriends. That exercise will seeTesman at his best, "collecting and ordering," as Miss Tesman remarks(228). Meanwhile, the pull of receivedwisdom persists, which explains why she refuses comfort and support fromPierette, whom the family considers a "whore" for departing from the familytradition of choosing an everyday working man for a husband. Even the most high-bornbourgeois lady in Hedda's universe must become preoccupied with hearth andhome unless she courts a reputation as a demimondaine, and lovers with vineleaves in their hair like the magnetic Lovborg were never the marryingkind. Bored, confined to her tight world, and envious of Lovborg'saggressive embrace of both brilliance and decadence, she vicariously enactsa Romantic-Gothic fantasy on Lovborg, destroying his and Thea's "child,"the great manuscript, and becoming the prime mover of his final dissipationand death. And I'm getting them all," she says, braggingabout what she will buy with the trading stamps, "the works!" (Tremblay11). The death is of course not beautifully done, and the ironies multiplyfor Hedda: Mrs. Elvsted produces the manuscript notes from her cloak,symbolically giving rebirth to the child. Complicating everything for Hedda is the implication that Tesman is asobtuse about Hedda's desperate restiveness as he is of her honeymoonpregnancy; she is as horrified as Miss Tesman is thrilled about the baby.Between Romantic, decadent aestheticism and the bourgeoisie, Hedda made thewrong choice for her spirit, which cannot be contained but which lacksjudgment. This research examines the leading female characters in Ibsen's HeddaGabler and Tramblay's Les Belles Soeurs. Trans. Hedda faces the prospect ofactual motherhood and further domestic confinement, as well as beingmistress of cock-of-the-walk Brack, who knows how Lovborg got the pistoland who could cause the kind of scandal respectable people always want toavoid. Hedda's educationand background position her as socially gifted and self-possessed,increasingly self-aware, and emotionally sterile individual whosedesperation and insight grow over the course of the play. Although thesocial position of Hedda, daughter of General Gabler, is at thearistocratic end of the bourgeois social spectrum and that of Germaine, oneamong many working-class women in what is presumably Montreal, what thecharacters share is a situation of socially sanctioned confinement and aprofound level of discontent with their living situation. Four Major Plays. For all itshistrionic force, therefore, Germaine's anger is not personally empowering,and she is opaque to enlightenment. Rolf Fjelde. Germaine and the other middle-aged women in Les Belles Soeurs do whatthey can to relieve their own sense of confinement, but they do so in a waythat actually entraps them in a culture that values acquisition abovefellow feeling. Indeed, she never reaches enoughinsight into her own emotional destructiveness to contemplate suicide, andthat emotional superficiality may save her life. Hedda explains to Brack that she made the practical choice in partbecause she wasn't getting any younger. Hedda finds within herself, in response to unfoldingcircumstances, a personal strength that Germaine could not recognize, astrength that enables her to decisively break confining social rules. Germaine is emboldened by the dream of acquiring a housefulof new furniture, appliances, and accessories: "You won't believe all thelovely things they've got. Brack says that people--meaning respectablebourgeois--don't do such things, but Hedda rejects respectability, possiblyin favor of pagan decadence, definitely in favor of self-determined action. . Suicide is the only way in which she can claim active participation inand ownership of her life. Remaining alive andperpetually angry may even function as a kind of resilience in the face ofmaterial disaster. The Romantic sensibility of Hedda's and Lovborg's personal historybelongs solely to Hedda's past. Trans. Sheis also too vulgar not to seek social approbation for her good fortune andtoo self-absorbed to share that fortune. Hedda Gabler. John Van Burek and Bill Blassco. [that] makes lifeso utterly miserable" (Ibsen 256). Hedda's resilience is of a far different character than that ofGermaine. Germaine lacksHedda's education and social sophistication, which may have contributed toa narrow emotional range that moves chiefly from anger to anger but thatalso entails social envy of the kind induced by borderline poverty and thepious certainties of received wisdom, which betray contempt and fear ofanything that smacks of social unconventionality. But there is a bleakness about her acquiescence in themiserable permanence of her socially constructed role. Works CitedIbsen, Henrik. . ForHedda, who is no less self-absorbed than Germaine, the cost of breakingaway is high. But the cost of conforming to social expectation is so highthat suicide becomes her only release. Moreover, it never occurs toGermaine to guard and own the benefits of the stamps by taking on the hardwork of pasting them herself.
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