ceives satisfaction from affecting their actions. Hedda is pregnant but refuses to recognize it because again that would mean less control for her. Towards the end of the play Judge Brack tells her that he knows it was her gun that Lovborg shot himself with. He knows she is afraid of a scandal. Hedda replies, "So I'm in your power, Judge. You have your hold over me from now on." Shortly after saying this, and seeing Tesman and Thea working together, she buries herself in a room with her fathers' picture and the piano, then shoots herself. Tesman lives through others by borrowing ideas. He lacks any imagination, so he uses others ideas in place of his own. He lacks control over his work, because none of it is really his. It seems that anytime anyone mentions an idea he remarks, " Imagine that", in a bewildered sort of way. He can't even carry on an interesting conversation because he has no ideas or original thoughts to share. Tesman wants to be recognized and respected for his work, but his work and research is nothing new, and in fact meaningless. Tesman's book would be filled with regurgitated facts. He spent his entire honeymoon in a library; this shows much about his character. He is very ambitious; almost everything he does is used to further his recognition. Even his marriage to Hedda is used for this purpose; he marries her because she is a trophy to him. Thea Elvsted is closest to self-realization but doesn't quite make it because of her dependence on men. She gets much farther than anyone else in play, because she is taking herself to another level by writing the book with Lovborg and later Tesman. She leaves her husband to cling to Lovborg. One could argue that it isn't her fault to be dependent on men because there was no other way of having an income back then. Therefore, her dependence is not completely her fault but a pressure from society. Thea is Hedda's opposite because she works for moral improvement but not only for h...
