Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler has something going for it beyond dramatic power; it is a strikingly modern play, and it is this modernity that renders any definition of Hedda herself as a femme fatale ridiculous. To refer to Hedda as a manipulative seductress is like referring to Charlie Manson as a slightly off-center individual, for Ibsen virtually invented the sociopath in drama in his creation of her.

From the moment we first encounter Hedda, she is fascinating, but only because she reveals herself to be consistently ruthless and egocentric. Every statement she makes is unfeeling, and her boredom with Tesman is painfully evident from the start, as is her using of him to hopefully render her life a little more exciting. Then, and also early on, she betrays a characteristic pleasure in deliberately inflicting insult, as when she insults her husband’s aunt by way of referring to her hat as that of a maid. These are the minor, malicious pleasures that make the days pass for her.

When her childhood “friend” Thea appears, it is obvious that the woman is frightened of Hedda, and with reason; she recalls Hedda’s physical torture of her when they were girls. That Hedda moves on to systematically destroy everything around her, and for no reason other than an innate need to cater to her own desires and ambitions, is hardly surprising. It is only remarkable that she does not induce her former lover, Lovborg, to return to drinking earlier than she does. It is not that she demands this sacrifice from him, to achieve her ends; it is more that, as it concerns other human beings, it is meaningless.

Hedda Gabler is, all this notwithstanding, not a villain in the classic sense, primarily and ironically because she is too evil. If she has a male counterpart in literature, it is Iago, equally committed to self-promotion at all costs, and equally dismissive of anything other than personal desire. Gender has little to do with this character, for its composition defies the masculine or feminine. If Hedda kills herself because she cannot bear the thought of being in the Judge’s power, it is by no means the reaction of an independent woman fighting control; it is an animal response to captivity, and the only way she as a sociopath can accept the reality. That is, by the ultimate refusal of it.