Hedda Gabler and the Connections of people

In class you told us to look back on the biographers tale when doing our presentation. I went back to page 273 and the page before it. These pages talked about how a taxonomist, a statistician and a dramatist connected things and people. But it was the entire last paragraph on page 273 that got me thinking about Ibsens interpersonal connection with "Hedda Gabler." -- it states "There was also the question, beyond the shoebox, of the three fictive fragments of biography, where the biographer had quite deliberately woven his own lies and inventions into the dense texture of collected facts.... I had to insert facts about myself, and not only dry facts, but my feelings, and now my interpretations. I have somehow been made to write my own story, to write in very different ways."
I thought to look up brief biographies of Ibsen especially during the time when he wrote "Hedda Gabler." I found one site (Van Laan) that gave a short description of his life before 1890 when he wrote the play. It stated a quote that he wrote in a poem

"To live – is to war with trolls / In the holds of the heart and mind." This seems to be a metaphor for his own trolls or demons. In 1891 Ibsen returned to Norway after being gone for a couple of decades. The biography stated that he felt like a stranger in the foreign countries. He aslo was going through a rough time with his wife and looked for companionship with younger women. He seemed to like to live through their youth and new ideas. 

For me Ibsen's personal life connected with the plays that he wrote, especially in the case of Hedda Gabler. He seems to portray a little of himself in Hedda and her personality of wanting to stay at home in a place of control while she lives adventure through others experiences like Heddas relationship with Lovborg.  

This play is very popular and has been interpreted in many ways. Ibsen though seems to write the play as if he were just stating fact. Ibsen is a very realistic writer and even though he makes many interconnections between all his plays they are all complexly different from one another. He seems to observe things in life and just connect them together. It is amazing how much we can learn about the bigger picture by connecting small details beside the point. 

Reference 

“Ibsen A brief life” by Thomas Van Laan Rutgers University, Emeritus

http://www.ibsensociety.liu.edu/life2.htm