Hedda Gabler is not an easy character to get to know. At first reading she seems a bitter personality portrayed in an old-fashioned script set in an out-outmoded and foreign society. How could a woman in 102-year-old play possibly be understandable or relevant to the late-twentieth-century student? However, upon further examination,Hedda Gabler's fictional reality not only offers us the opportunity to observe the art and social concerns of Ibsen's day, but extends to us a paradigm by which we may compare and evaluate the principles of our day. In approaching this play, it is important to recall that Hedda was written as a theatrical