Going beyond the destruction that Hedda began in the previous acts, circumstances depicted in the final scene destroy the life’s work of each other character. Julia’s sister dies, leaving the old aunt with no one to care for; George relinquishes his work on medieval Brabant; Thea has definitely lost Lövborg; and Hedda confronts profound disillusion when she learns of Eilert’s ignoble death.
The secondary characters, however, all find vocational rebirth as they confront their ruined life purposes. Thea, having saved Lövborg’s notes, begins, with George Tesman, to conceive a new “child”; the professor so expert at assembling other people’s manuscripts can dedicate his abilities to reconstruct his dead friend’s brilliant ideas; and Julia can again care for her beloved nephew now that Hedda is gone.
Hedda alone faces a life without a future. Deprived of her satisfaction at the beauty of Eilert’s suicide, she learns that she was in fact responsible for the abhorrent manner of Lövborg’s death. Her ideal of freedom, courage, and beauty turns into a loathsome reality. Judge Brack applies the final vulgar touch to a situation that Hedda already finds repulsive; he alone can inform the police of the facts that would implicate her in a shocking scandal. The conventional Hedda must either succumb to Brack’s power or face a public inquiry. Now that even her husband has no further need of her, no one depends upon Hedda at this point. On the other hand, she is unwillingly enthralled by the ruthless Brack. Deprived of freedom, Hedda faces either “boring herself to death” or committing a valiant suicide.
