Taylor Lach

HONR 102 Whidden

Hedda Gabler Exemplifies Tocqueville’s Fears about Equality’s Oppression

In Democracy in America, Tocqueville recognizes the socially and intellectually

satisfying nature of aristocracy based on its unequal but interdependent nature. As democracies

arise, Tocqueville observes the kinds of oppression that emerge out of a collective obsession

with maintaining equality of conditions. Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler explores these problems

and by visually depicting the oppressive qualities of a society moving away from aristocracy’s

rigid class structure. For Ibsen, aristocracy allowed control over our lives and others, while

equality restricts that power.

A major critique that Tocqueville addresses in Democracy in America deals with the

obsession with equality over freedom, and Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler provides an active example of

a society moving from an aristocracy toward one overly-concerned with equality. Tocqueville

doesn’t find this preference surprising, since equality of conditions provides “a multitude of little

enjoyments daily to each man,” while “the goods that freedom brings show themselves only in

the long term” (Tocqueville481). Because of the appeal of immediate satisfaction, democratic

people swarm to the idea of perfect equality and are blind to the freedom that they forfeit in the

process (Tocqueville481). Ibsen recognizes this phenomenon as his character, Hedda, marries

George Tesman below her aristocratic class in order to reap the immediate benefits of marriage

(Discussion 3/11). Hedda says, “it was part of our bargain that we’d live in society—that we’d

keep a great house,” but it is too late that she finally realizes she will not have the freedom and

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comforts of her old aristocratic life like a “butler” or a “riding horse” (Ibsen247). The equality

she descended into took those freedoms from her.

Tocqueville observes the problem of individualism that emerges from an emphasis on

equality while Ibsen’s characters exemplify this destructive process. This problem of

individualism is a reflective and selfish isolation of a citizen who knowingly abandons larger

society to focus inward (Lecture 2/23). As long as he remains equal to his fellow citizens and

preserves his lifestyle, he “will tolerate poverty, enslavement, barbarism, but [he] will not

tolerate aristocracy” (Tocqueville482). For George Tesman, equality of conditions was

threatened when Judge Brack revealed a “competition for the post” of his professor appointment

(Ibsen245). This “unthinkable” and “impossible” matter Tesman finds “incredibly inconsiderate”

because he’s a married man who has prospects and expectations within his individual lifestyle

(Ibsen246). He then spends the rest of the scene bartering the ways he’ll accommodate his and

Hedda’s habits in order to maintain economic stability and equality to Lovborg, who’s vying for

his professorship. Tesman takes away his wife’s financial freedom and diminishes his own

ambition out of fear for competition because of the preference for equality above all else. He

tolerates this oppression because he prefers the comfort of isolation over competition. Even

Hedda notices his desire to compare, “Tesman always goes around worrying about how people

are going to make a living” (Ibsen244). Although Tocqueville saw this individualism in

American democratic society, the society in Hedda Gabler is one that is moving away from

aristocracy toward the same preference for equality.

As her lifestyle moves from the aristocratic one she’s used to, Hedda herself experiences

the separation and oppression described by Tocqueville as societies become more equal.

“Aristocracy had made of all citizens a long chain that went from the peasant up to the king;

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democracy breaks that chain and sets each link apart” (Tocqueville483). Hedda is part of a chain

when she is still General Gabler’s daughter, but by marrying Tesman, she brakes her aristocratic

link and gives up the possibility of “being wealthy enough or powerful enough to exert a great

influence over the fates of those like them” (Tocqueville484). She has forfeited control over

herself and stumbled into “this tight little world…[And] that’s what makes life so miserable! So

utterly ludicrous! Because that’s what it is” (Ibsen256). She cannot have the life she expected

because of Tesman’s obsession with equality, and she cannot control others because of that

equality’s oppression. Hedda wants to be like the nobles that Tocqueville describes as “placed at

an immense distance from the people, …[taking] the sort of benevolent and tranquil interest in

the lot of the people that the shepherd accords to his flock” (Tocqueville8). But, since

Tocqueville was referring to a power found in aristocracies, Hedda must try subtly influencing

the people around her because she has no real power. Hedda tells Thea, “For once in my life, I

want to have power over a human being,” but this oppressively equal society limits her control

(Ibsen272). The only power that remains is that over her own life, which she claims when she

kills herself at the end of the play.

Toqueville cites democratic freedoms that could prevent equality of conditions leading to

this extreme level of oppression, but he also concedes that these freedoms are not always used to

their fullest potential. Ibsen’s characters in Hedda are examples of the mediocrity that arises

from the misuse of these solutions. Tocqueville prescribes citizens with “the administration of

small affairs…[to] interest them in the public good” which will make everyone recognize their

needs for each other without the institution of aristocracy (Tocqueville487). These associations,

along with freedom of press, allow equal citizens to combat individualism and oppression by

openly discussing their own views with others. Judge Brack’s “little bachelor party” seems to

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become a sort of impromptu association as the two authors, Lovborg and Tesman, deliberate

manuscripts (Ibsen258). Tocqueville fears that these freedoms will be abused and become trivial

as citizens write about anything and everything, rather than devoting time and intellect to

profound literature and action (Discussion 2/25). Tesman perpetuates this fear because his

specialty is on the “domestic handicrafts of Brabant in the Middle Ages,” which no one in the

play seems to find very stimulating or profound (Ibsen228). Lovborg’s manuscript would have

gained approval of Tocqueville; it addressed the “forces shaping civilization and the future [and]

….what lines of development it’s likely to take” (Ibsen260). The exception to Tocqueville’s

fears, however, is eliminated upon the burning of the manuscript and the death of one of its

authors. Hedda continues to support Tocqueville’s fears about the oppressiveness of extreme

equality as characters lose control over their intellectual and social freedoms.

Of course, one must concede that Hedda’s inability to control others did not solely arise

out of a lack of aristocracy and a newfound obsession with equality of conditions. Because of her

gender, her opportunities were greatly limited as well. This form of oppression is supported by

Hedda’s necessity to marry due to her age, she claims, “I had really danced myself out, Judge.

My time was up” (Ibsen251). Hedda also had to live vicariously through Eilert Lovborg in her

youth, which he now recognizes was due to her “hunger for life” that she could not satiate

because of her gender (Ibsen266). Finally, Hedda’s “new responsibility” is often referenced in

the play, but the idea of pregnancy’s biological oppression absolutely disgusts Hedda (Ibsen256).

Therefore, while Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler contains a portrayal of the social and intellectual

oppression of equality described by Tocqueville in Democracy in America, it also unearths deep

gender role issues that oppress women in ways that equality of conditions never has. Thus, the

world of Hedda exemplifies Tocqueville’s fears for societies without rigid aristocracies, but the

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mediocrity of equality is by no means the only factor governing Ibsen’s muti-faceted

tragicomedy.

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