One of Ibsen’s mature plays, Hedda Gabler (1890) is a dark domestic drama. By turns, its protagonist fascinates, repels, and bewilders with behavior rooted in an upbringing at odds with the role prescribed for middle-class Norwegian women in her day.
Norwegian society in the nineteenth century. The nineteenth century saw Norway undergo some transformative political developments. In 1814, following a brief struggle with Denmark, Sweden won control of Norway, then went on to rule both nations through the time of Ibsen’s play until the union was dissolved in 1905. At the outset, Norway adopted its own constitution (established in 1814 at Eidsvoll) and assembled its own parliament, undergoing a vigorous period of political change that prompted social and economic changes as the century progressed. These changes, reflected in Hedda Gabler, bespoke greater power for formally disenfranchised groups.
• Farmers and labor groups became a political power in Norway.
• The country granted its citizenry full religious freedom.
• Parliament revised Norway’s Poor Laws several times over.
• Criminal laws and punishments grew increasingly humane.
• Primary education law decreed seven years of compulsory schooling for all.
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