Class Notes
Hedda comes home from her honeymoon with George
Title of book is significant because Gabler is Hedda’s maiden name. Tesman is her husband’s name. This emphasizes that she is her father’s daughter more than her husband’s wife.
Rising action: expectations vs. reality
Hedda’s expectations: a certain circle of friends, pregnancy
George’s expectations: wanted a wife and mother, promised professorship
Thea Elvsted: catalyst, inflames Hedda’s sense of competition when she boasts that she has a “power” over Lovborg and the bravery to leave her husband.
Hedda says she has General Gabler's pistols to amuse herself with. Thea Elvsted said that Eilert Lovborg was in love with a woman who threatened him with pistols. This indicates that Hedda had some sort of relationship with Eilert, and is jealous of Thea.
Judge Brack comes in through the garden to visit Hedda...like a SNAKE. A snake represents temptation. He isn't as well meaning as previously thought. Sexual inuendos follow.
Hedda and Judge Brack have flirted in the past. Hedda married George for security, but she does not love him. Actually, he bores her. She wishes there was another person on the "train" (the marriage). She won't get off the train, because then "people will look at her legs." She worries what people will think of her. But Judge Brack will get on the train and "sit with the married couple."
George is a "specialist" -- he only knows one thing (one study, one woman) | 
