How Does Henrik Ibsen’s Use of the Huldre in Hedda Gabler Influence the Characters of the Story?

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Sara Sugi Block 7 February 4, 2013 How Does Henrik Ibsen’s Use of the Huldre in Hedda Gabler Influence the Characters of the Story? The gender roles of women in Victorian Norway differ from today’s standards, but, nonetheless, are still somewhat upheld. Female roles in Victorian society included being the wife, the mother, the household manager and the societal missionary. The aspects of social-self versus essential-self come heavily into play in terms of gender roles, because Victorian society was conformist and rigid. Ibsen choses to incorporate into the female characters elements of the Huldre, a potentially malevolent female fairy with a cow’s tail and maiden’s glow, which fuses the theme of social-self versus essential-self and gender roles in the conflict of the main character’s Huldre-like traits. The play contains several references to Huldre-like traits that the female characters exhibit. For example, in Act II, Hedda refuses to show her ankles: Hedda: I’ll never jump out. Brack: Are you quite sure? Hedda: Yes. Because there’s always someone there who’ll…. Brack: …Who’ll look at your legs, you mean? Hedda: Exactly. Ibsen could hardly provide Hedda with a cow’s tail. But he seems to have come close. “The exposure of her legs compromises her desire to live respectably in society as effectively as the disclosure of the huldre’s tail comprises hers (Leavy pg. 173).” From this example, we can see that Hedda purportedly has something to hide on her legs, a quality that the Huldre also possesses. There is an undeniable similarity between Hedda’s attempt to hide her legs and the Huldre’s attempt to hide her lower half. Ibsen If they are as similar as they appear in this regard, their motivation for doing so would be to assimilate successfully with humans and seem as human-like as possible. Hedda is clearly a human, but because she is so closely linked to

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