In Henrik Ibsen's play Hedda Gabler, the main character, Hedda Tesman represents a manipulative and powerful young woman seeking to control the lives of those around her. Although Hedda lives in the Victorian era where the women are to live in the shadow of the men, she defines herself negatively. Hedda destroys the things which she cannot accept.
The critic John Northam defends Hedda's character when he states in Ibsen: A Critical Study, "Hedda is caught in the contradiction of being simultaneously a person whose deepest urges are towards a poetry of living "defined at least approximately by her recurrent use of key terms "but whose social position has educated her to accept [. . .] the restraints demanded by society. The basic conflict is between the self and society (180). Though Hedda lives in a society that suppresses restraints on the women, it gives her no right to be an unworthy, detestable, repulsive, despicable human being. .
In Act I, it demonstrates a pathological quality of Hedda's personality early on. Hedda cruelly insults Aunt Julia by complaining that the servant left her bonnet lying in the chair, "Look there! She has left her old bonnet lying about on a chair- (9). Hedda is never satisfied with anything and she always feels a need to stir up some sort of commotion. By complaining about the bonnet left on the chair, Hedda tries to undermine Aunt Julia's sense of worth.
Again in Act I, Hedda shows more of her negative side when she demonstrates characteristics of manipulation and control. When Hedda and Thea are conversing in the parlor, Hedda insist that they use the familiar form of you when speaking to each other, "No, not at all! I can remember quite distinctly. So now we are going to renew our old friendship. There now! You must say du to me and call me Hedda- (15). As old schoolmates, Hedda and Thea were merely acquaintances. She wants to renew their friendship with purposes only to benefit her.