Character Flaws of Lyuba Ranevsky and Hedda Gabler - Essay Example

?Lyuba Ranevsky and Hedda Gabler: Character Flaws. In Henrik Ibsen’s ‘Hedda Gabler’, and Anton Chekhov’s ‘The Cherry Orchard’, the action of the drama revolves round the female protagonists: Hedda Gabler and Lyuba Ranevsky respectively. The unfolding, and final denouement, of the two plays is the direct result of the personalities and actions of the heroines. At the very outset, when the period of the plays’ settings is taken into consideration, it is evident that both Hedda and Lyuba are impacted by the constraints of their respective ages and social milieu. Hedda’s boredom, which has tragic results, and Lyuba’s irresponsibility, which also ends in serious consequences, are both the products of the ages in which they live. Hedda is a highly intelligent and headstrong girl who lives in the Victorian era of the late nineteenth century. She is expected to conform to the stereotypical role of the Victorian woman: merely to look pretty, and to be a charming hostess and a submissive wife. She cannot entertain Eilert Lovborg without the presence of a chaperone; she is not permitted to attend Judge Brack’s party. In every way, she is straitjacketed into a role which gives her no room for self-expression, and leads to ennui. In the case of Lyuba, the play is set in the aftermath of the Emancipation of the Russian serfs in 1861. As a member of the Russian aristocracy, Lyuba is unaccustomed to the new social and economic order. She is unable to make the transition to the new age, which calls for an end to the extravagant lifestyle of the past. Her irresponsibility is the result of this inability to confront the changes facing her. Thus both heroines reflect the cultural settings chosen by Chekhov and Ibsen for their respective plays. In many ways, Hedda Gabler and Lyuba Ranevsky differ in their personalities. Hedda is a strong, intelligent, and absolutely ruthless young girl, who is on the threshold of married life. On the other hand, Lyuba is the tender-hearted, middle-aged mother of two young women. Hedda marries George Tesman with and the realization that the days of her youth are over: she confesses “I had positively danced myself tired, my dear Judge. My day was done.” (Ibsen, 1890, p.{act ii}). With grim practicality, she judges that he is her best bet of security, “since he was bent, at all hazards, on being allowed to provide for me” (Ibsen, 1890, p. {act ii]). She sneers at the idea of love. In marked contrast to this, Lyuba marries for love, antagonizing her aristocratic family by marrying beneath her. Both Hedda Gabler and Lyuba Ranevsky have deep flaws in character, which have serious consequences in their lives. Hedda Gabler’s fatal personality defect is her ruthless manipulative streak. This can be attributed to the boredom, which she professes is the ruling characteristic of her world. She repeatedly declares her boredom: “Oh, my dear Mr. Brack, how mortally bored I have been,” (Ibsen, 1890, p. {act ii}); “Oh, my dear Judge—you cannot imagine how horribly I shall bore myself here” (Ibsen, 1890, p. {act ii}). Victorian constraints prevent Hedda from overcoming her ennui through any participation in the world outside her home. Hedda’s answer to the tedium of her life is to derive entertainment from the manipulation of the people who cross her path. She plays with peoples’ emotions as a child would play with toys for entertainment. Her dangerous search for excitement makes her fire her father’s pistol as a sport to frighten people. She admits to George that she will use them “to kill time with” (Ibsen, 1890, p. {act i}).She deliberately sets out to hurt Aunt Julia’s feelings, by pretending to think that Julia’s new bonnet belongs to the servant. Hedda admits that “these impulses come over me all of a sudden; and I cannot resist them” (Ibsen, 1890, p. {act ii}). Hedda manipulates George with ease: she contemplates making him enter politics – not because he is suited for it, but as a vicarious means for herself to find “A vocation—that should attract me” (Ibsen, 1890, p. {act ii}). As a part of her manipulative skills, Hedda is a past master at extracting confidences from people. She has absolutely no scruples in resorting to false pretensions of friendship with Thea Elvsted, in order to make her confess her feelings for Eilert Lovborg. Similarly, her roundabout questioning makes Lovborg confide in her: “Oh, Hedda—what was the power in you that forced me to confess these things?” (Ibsen, 1890, p. {act ii}). Hedda admits that her friendship with Lovborg is only a ploy to vicariously glimpse the exciting masculine world which always remains shut to her: she wishes to “to have a peep, now and then, into a world which—which she is forbidden to know anything about?” (Ibsen, 1890, p. {act ii}). She does not balk at falsehood in her dangerous games, as in the case of hiding, and then destroying, Lovborg’s papers. As Hedda goes about her manipulation, she is drunk on the power this gives her. She ruthlessly pushes Lovborg towards alcohol only because she wants “for once in my life to have power to mould a human destiny” (Ibsen, 1890, p. {act ii}). She envies Mrs. Elvsted’s influence over Lovborg:  “So that pretty little fool has had her fingers in a man's destiny” (Ibsen, 1890, p. {act ii}). Hedda’s toying with people reaches its height when she gives Lovborg her pistol, and implicitly encourages him to commit suicide: “Take it-and do you use it now” (Ibsen, 1890, p. {act iii}). This fatal flaw in Hedda’s character makes her selfish, and indifferent to the pain she inflicts on others. Finally, it leads to her own death. Unlike Hedda Gabler, Lyuba Ranevsky is a soft-spoken, tender-hearted woman. The glaring defect in her character is her total lack of responsibility, particularly in financial affairs. Although everyone accepts that Lyuba is “a good sort – an easy, simple person,” (Chekhov, 1904, p. {act I, Lopakhin}), it can be argued that this irresponsibility is as selfish, in its own way, as Hedda’s self-absorption. Lyuba indulges in sentimentality and vehemently professes her love for Anya and Varya. At the same time it is clear that, in spite of all her demonstration of affection, she is a source of trouble to her daughters. Anya laments, “And mother won’t understand! We had dinner at a station; she asked for all the expensive things, and tipped the waiters one rouble each” (Chekhov, 1904, p. {act I}). Lyuba dresses in Paris fashions, and persists in her profligate spending habits. She drops her purse, and allows the untrustworthy Yasha to collect the gold coins. She dispenses gold coins to the tramp, to the horror of Varya, who is unable to feed the domestic servants. Lyuba then attempts to pacify her daughter by promising to give her everything she has on her return home, and then asks Lopakhin for a loan. On the other hand, she instructs her brother to lend Pischin money. Gaev complains, “My sister hasn’t lost the habit of throwing money about” (Chekhov, 1904, p. {act I, Gaev}). In spite of their love for Lyuba, her family cannot but deplore her spendthrift ways. On her part, Lyuba Ranevsky, in her usual effusive style, confesses to this defect in her character: she professes her sympathy for “poor Varya, (who) feeds everyone on milksoup to save money” (Chekhov, 1904, p. {act II, Lyuba}). In the same breath, she admits, “I spend recklessly” (Chekhov, 1904, p. {act II, Lyuba}). She claims to hold her extravagance to be a sin and an act of insanity: “I’ve always scattered money about without holding myself in, like a madwoman” (Chekhov, 1904, p. {act II, Lyuba}). However, as she does not make any attempt to break out of this habit of extravagance, one cannot help but suspect that she only pays lip service to her family with these confessions. She dissuades Gaev from taking up the offer of work in the bank: “Stay where you are” (Chekhov, 1904, p. {act II, Lyuba}). Her refusal to listen to Lopakhin’s proposal to lease out villas only reinforces the fact of her deliberate obtuseness over financial matters. In her fastidious aristocratic manner, she says, “Villas and villa residents – it’s so vulgar, excuse me” (Chekhov, 1904, p. {act II, Lyuba}). In what can only be termed the height of frivolity and irresponsibility, she arranges a ball on the day the estate is to be sold. Lyuba Ranevsky refuses to confront the fact of her financial ruin. This is line with the facet of her personality which makes her flee from any unpleasantness: she runs away from the estate when her son dies; she flees from her husband’s debts and her widowhood by running away with another man; she attempts suicide to escape her sorrow when her lover jilts her; finally, when the estate is sold, she runs back to her lover in France. It is Lyuba’s deliberate, blind, extravagance which brings about the irrevocable sale of the Cherry Orchard and the entire house. Hedda Gabler and Lyuba Ranevsky are the cause of the disastrous consequences which constitute the climax of ‘Hedda Gabler’ and ‘The Cherry Orchard’ respectively. In a way, they share each others’ flaws. Hedda shares Lyuba’s extravagant lifestyle. She insists on an expensive honeymoon trip, demands a luxurious house, wants a saddle horse and a footman, and wishes to entertain lavishly. She rebukes Thea Elvsted for not being expensive: “That is stupid of you” (Ibsen, 1890, p. {act i}). Her husband is driven to deep debt, and borrows money from his aunt, in order to indulge Hedda’s expensive tastes. Hedda scorns his financial scruples: “Tesman is for ever worrying about how people are to make their living” (Ibsen, 1890, p. {act i}). In another point of similarity to Lyuba, Hedda is also deliberately blind to unpleasant facts: she denies the fact of her pregnancy. Like Lyuba, Hedda abhors responsibility and declares, “No responsibilities for me!” (Ibsen, 1890, p. {act ii}). On the other hand, although Lyuba is apparently kind, she exhibits traces of Hedda’s scorn for others. Lyuba calls Varya a nun, tells Lopakhin that he leads a drab life, and criticizes Trofimov as a freak and a bungler for not being in love. She professes to love her daughters but shares Hedda’s selfishness, by refusing to do anything to avoid financial bankruptcy. Ultimately, Hedda and Lyuba are unable to overcome the constraints of their times. Hedda takes her own life, fearing to face the scandal that is hanging over her head. Lyuba is financially ruined, and her land, including her beloved orchard and home, is bought by Lopakhin, a former peasant. Hedda Gabler and Lyuba Ranevsky are directly responsible for the tragedies of their lives, and for the outcome of ‘Hedda Gabler’ and ‘The Cherry Orchard.’ References. Chekhov, Anton, 1904. ‘The Cherry Orchard’, in P. Carson (ed.), Plays by Anton Chekhov, 2002, Penguin Classics, London, pp. 281-346. Ibsen, Henrik, 1890. ‘Hedda Gabler’, in U. Ellis-Fermor (ed.), Hedda Gabler and Other Plays, 1950, Penguin Classics, London, pp. 261-364. Read More