- Being frightened by one's own voice. Something strange, foreign.
- Newest Plan: The festivities in Tesman's garden—and Løvborg's defeat—already prepared for in the 1st act. Second act: the party—
- Hedda energetically refuses to serve as hostess. She will not celebrate their marriage because (in her opinion, it isn't a marriage) …
- Hedda is the type of woman in her position and with her character. She marries Tesman but she devotes her imagination to Eilert Løvborg. She leans back in her chair, closes her eyes, and dreams of his adventures.…This is the enormous difference: Mrs. Elvsted "works for his moral improvement." But for Hedda he is the object of cowardly, tempting daydreams. In reality she does not have the courage to be a part of anything like that. Then she realizes her condition. Caught! Can't comprehend it. Ridiculous! Ridiculous!
- The traditional delusion that one man and one woman are made for each other. Hedda has her roots in the conventional. She marries Tesman but she dreams of Eilert Løvborg.…She is disgusted by the latter's flight from life. He believes that this has raised him in her estimation.…Thea Elvsted is the conventional, sentimental, hysterical Philistine.
- Those Philistines, Mrs. E. and Tesman, explain my behavior by saying first I drink myself drunk and that the rest is done in insanity. It's a flight from reality which is an absolute necessity to me.
- E.L.: Give me something—a flower—at our parting. Hedda hands him the revolver.
Then Tesman arrives: Has he gone? "Yes." Do you think he will still compete against me? No, I don't think so. You can set your mind at rest.
- Tesman relates that when they were in Gratz she did not want to visit her relatives—
He misunderstands her real motives.
- In the last act as Tesman, Mrs. Elvsted, and Miss Rysing are consulting, Hedda plays in the small room at the back. She stops. The conversation continues. She appears in the doorway— Good night—I'm going now. Do you need me for anything? Tesman: No, nothing at all. Good night, my dear!…The shot is fired—
- Conclusion: All rush into the back room. Brack sinks as if paralyzed into a chair near the stove: But God have mercy—people don't do such things!
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