A psychoanalytic reading of Hedda Gabler Attempting a psychoanalytic reading of a given text is a bit like trying to understand a city by examining its sewer system: useful, but limited. There are several reasons for using psychoanalysis as a critical literary theory; the critic might be interested in gleaning some sort of subconscious authorial intention, approaching the text as a "cathartic documentation" (my own term) of the author's psyche; the method could be useful for judging whether characters are well rendered, whether they are truly three-dimensional and, therefore, worthwhile as readers (thus satisfying the pleasure principle); Finally, in a broader sense, the psychoanalytic approach can be used to actually tell us something about our own humanity, by examining the relative continuity (or lack thereof) of the fundamental Freudian theories illustrated in the writings over the centuries. indeed, in scanning the text for what I call “cathartic documentation,” we must, first, look at the period in which the work was written. Pre-Freudian works, that is, poems, plays, short stories and novels written before the end of the 19th century, are the main candidates for the success of this approach. However, works from the 20th century, starting with modernist authors, pose a problem. How can we be sure that the writer is not consciously playing with Freud's theories, perhaps even deliberately expanding and distorting them for added effect? Herein lies the problem with Hedda Gabler: the play was written around the same time that Freud was just beginning to publish his theories. The question is “who influenced who?” » Clearly, Freud was fascinated by Ibsen's realizations of certain fundamental ideas which were to be the basis of his (Freud's) work: repression, neurosis, paranoia, the Oedipus complex, phallic symbols, etc. ; all these factors are present in Hedda Gabler. The question remains, however, whether Ibsen had learned of Freud's work and decided to use it in the play. Maybe I'm wrong, but after reading A Doll's House and An Enemy of the People, two works that predate it by about ten years, Hedda Gabler seems to embody Freudian concepts to such an extent that the possibility of a conscious effort to create a Freudian neurosis is possible. But, consciously or unconsciously, Ibsen created extremely developed characters..