This essay describes guns generally; describes the .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol, and discusses the theme of guns in “Hedda Gabler” and “The Wild Duck.”
IIntroduction
Henrik Ibsen is one of the most gifted playwrights ever to work in theater, and his plays are so strikingly modern in their themes that they resonate even today, though he wrote in the 1800’s.
However, he’s not the first person we’d think of in connection with guns. Mysteries like “Sleuth” or other such stories come to mind long before his observations of society. He uses firearms sparingly, but when they are present in a play, we know they’ll be used, to devastating effect. Perhaps that’s why they have so much more impact in his stories of morality and social issues than they do in works where we are expecting violence and mayhem.
IIGuns
Guns, no matter whether they are handguns, rifles, or automatic weapons, on up to the crew-served weapons like howitzers, have several things in common: they have a chamber of some sort to hold the ammunition; they have a barrel to help direct the round; and they have a trigger mechanism. Guns have one basic purpose: they are designed to kill. Whether they are used to kill an animal for its meat or another human (or oneself), they are weapons deliberately designed to destroy. Target shooting is a secondary purpose.
Some would argue that they are beautiful, and in a way I suppose they are, because their shape and design so exactly tell us what they do. They are machines of destruction, and they look like it.
The Essay on Gun Control 34
"In order to reduce gun vilolence in the U.S., there should be stricter gun regulation." Violence and crime in today's society is inevitable. Human nature is full of hatred, jealousy, and chaos. Throwing guns into the equation adds security for some, and vulnerability for others. Gun regulation is a topic of debate that has been going on for years and looks to be going on for many more to come. ...
They are the weapons of cowards (I’ll make allowances for people in combat, but not for the ordinary citizen sneaking around in the dead of night), because it’s possible to take a pot shot at someone from hiding without ever risking oneself in the attack. They are weapons of brute force, giving whoever has the gun with the most firepower a decided advantage. The only truly elegant weapon is a sword, because opponents have to come close enough to one another to actually “cross steel”; thus swordsmen must be both brave and skilled. Shooters need only be faster than the other person, or, as I said, find a safe place from which to ambush others.
Let’s look at one gun in particular, since I’m familiar with it: the .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol. The .45 is a dark, heavy weapon that weighs three pounds when it’s loaded. It’s black, or dark steel gray, with a wooden grip, and it’s hard to hold steady at arm’s length because of its weight. It’s 8.6 inches long overall; the barrel is 5 inches in length, and it’s been the standard issue pistol for the U.S. Marines since World War I until at least the 1980’s, when all the U.S. armed forces began standardizing their equipment and turned to the 9mm Beretta to align themselves with the armed forces of our allies. (“M1911A1,” PG).
The .45 is a “single-action only” handgun, which means that one round goes off each time the trigger is squeezed; before that, however, the pistol must be cocked either by the shooter’s thumb, or by the slide coming back. It’s the automatic action of the slide that makes rapid fire possible, at least until the clip is empty. (“M1911A1,” PG).
The front sight, on the tip of the barrel, is little more than a bump of steel, but if you line it up so that the top of the front sight is even with, and centered between, the two rear sights, you’ll hit the bull’s-eye—provided you don’t wobble, or jerk the trigger.
The gun feels cold in the hand, though the barrel soon heats up with repeated firing, and the ejected shell casings are blazing hot. The smell of burned cordite is pungent but not unpleasant, but the pistol has a loud report and the recoil is like the kick of a mule: it’s possible to hit yourself in the face with your gun hand if you don’t keep your elbow locked.
The Essay on Guns Were Not Invented Gun Criminals Weapons
TAKING AWAY OUR FREEDOM The legalization of concealed weapons for the purpose of self protection has and will decrease the number of gun related crimes. Guns were not invented for the purpose of robbing a bank, or mugging someone in a dark alley. Guns were not invented by criminals or by people looking for a way to murder or intimidate. The invention of the gun was directed at making hunting ...
Guns have a tremendous psychological hold on the American imagination, with the result that America is a gun-loving culture—so much so that we murder thousands of each other with guns every year. Guns also seem to appeal more to men than to women, and the observation that they generally resemble the erect phallus, and are thus a direct extension of male sexuality, is hardly original with me.
IIIIbsen and Guns
When we think of guns and Ibsen, “Hedda Gabler” comes to mind instantly. Hedda’s father was a general (although she’s married to George Tesman, everyone seems to think of her not as Hedda Tesman but as Hedda Gabler), and there is a pair of dueling pistols in the house. They are, in fact, Hedda’s pistols. The guns and the military culture form a significant backdrop for the play; indeed the theme of the pistol is woven throughout.
In the first act, Mrs. Elvsted comes to see Hedda, and soon confesses that she has left her husband because of her love for Eilert Loevborg. But, says Mrs. Elvsted, there is someone between the two of them, someone Loevborg cannot forget, and no wonder: “He said when he left her she tried to shoot him with a pistol.” (Ibsen, p. 462).
Of course the “her” referred to is Hedda, and even though it’s early in the play, the audience understands that Hedda is a violent and dangerous woman. If they had any doubt of her nature, it’s confirmed at the end of the first act when Hedda reminds George that even though they will not be able to live as well as they first thought, she still has something to amuse herself:
TESMAN (joyfully) Thank goodness for that. What’s that, Hedda? What?
HEDDA (in the open doorway, looks at him with concealed scorn) My pistols, George darling.
TESMAN (alarmed) Pistols!
HEDDA (her eyes cold) General Gabler’s pistols.
(Ibsen, p. 465)
At the beginning of Act Two, Judge Brack comes to call, and Hedda gives him a very warm welcome indeed as he walks up through the garden:
HEDDA (raises the pistol and takes aim) I’m going to shoot you, Judge Brack.
BRACK (shouts from below) No, no, no! Don’t aim that thing at me!
The Essay on Hedda Gabler Henrik Ibsen
Hedda Gabler's personality type is of a different character than Nora Helmer's. She expresses herself wickedly, for her own enjoyment; not caring of other peoples feelings. Hedda has feelings of confinement and frustration, with her life, and directs her bottled up energy at people with an ill temperament. 'Life becomes for Hedda a ridiculous affair that isn't worth seeing to the end. Life isn't ...
HEDDA This’ll teach you to enter houses by the back door. [Fires].
BRACK (below) Have you gone completely out of your mind?
(Ibsen, p. 465)
A very good question, I think. Brack, who is both angry and amused, takes the pistol from Hedda and puts it in its case with its mate. It turns out that Hedda is merely amusing herself because she’s bored, though her “games” could have deadly consequences. But it’s apparent by now that she knows how to handle guns, and is a good shot.
In fact, the pistols begin to stand for everything Hedda once had and has now lost: the status she enjoyed as the daughter of a general; a better lifestyle; and intellectual stimulation. Her husband bores her because he’s not exciting and wild as Loevborg was when she knew him. Tesman is hardly a dolt, but he’s conservative and plodding, a scholar, where she longs for an active, adventurous man; a man, perhaps, who’s the equivalent of a loaded gun.
There are references to pistols throughout the third act, which ends with Loevborg resolved to “put an end to it all.” Hedda hands him one of her pistols and tells him to “Do it beautifully!” She has a romantic, if sick, dream that he will shoot himself through the head, dying in a manner suitable for a poet. When the news comes that he’s been shot, she is first ecstatic, but then Judge Brack tells her the truth: he shot himself, but it was an accident; he was hit in the lower stomach, not the head; and he was not in a hospital where people might say good-bye, but was already dead. The worst blow comes when he tells her that he saw and recognized the pistol Loevborg carried as one of hers. But he says he’ll hold his tongue about her involvement in Loevborg’s death—for the usual price. Hedda cannot stand the idea of being in someone else’s power, and so she uses the pistols for the last time, and shoots herself—through the head—and the play ends with Brack’s astonished cry, “But good God! People don’t do such things!” (Ibsen, p. 493).
A pistol comes into play as well in “The Wild Duck,” where the young girl, Hedvig, kills herself in a misguided attempt to win her father’s love. But there the pistol is seen only twice before she actually uses it; it isn’t a sort of underlying theme that runs through the play as it does here.
Gun Control. Controversial Essay
A salient issue of controversy is gun control. Gun control is the regulation of sales and uses of firearms. Firearms include handguns, rifles, and shotguns.40% of all United State homes have guns. As of 2010, 300 million people in the United States own a firearm. There are different laws regarding the right-to-carry. 40 states have the “shall issue” which means carry permits are issued to all ...
IVConclusion
Ibsen and guns are a powerful combination, mainly because he (unlike today’s filmmakers) knew that less is more. But the guns in these plays are more than weapons, they are symbols; in Hedda’s case, the gun set her free; and Hedvig’s saw it, strangely enough, as an instrument that would bring her the love she craved. Ibsen’s use of these deadly weapons is most unusual, and extremely compelling.
VReferences
Ibsen, Henrik. “Hedda Gabler.” Classic Theatre: The Humanities in Drama. Boston: Educational Associates—Little, Brown and Company, 1975: 446-493.
_____________. “The Wild Duck.” Classic Theatre: The Humanities in Drama. Boston: Educational Associates—Little, Brown and Company, 1975: 386-442.
“M1911A1 .45 Caliber Pistol.” [Web page]. 18 Apr 2003. Accessed: 26 Apr 2003. http://www.rt66.com/~korteng/SmallArms/M1911A1.htm
