Play writers often partake in many different forms of writing to create distinctive values to their characters. Character development is a very important aspect in play writing because of the important role characters have in the creation of the theme and conflicts of a play. A specific attribute that author’s often contribute to their characters are social mask. Social mask can be defined as a character portraying oneself differently in a social setting to create a different identity or engaging in actions in specific scenarios that portray different characteristics a character would not present in social situations. The identities that a character creates are often contributed to the lacking social standards or the attempt to create self-reward. …show more content…
But, her most important manipulation comes over a man named Eilert Lovborg. Eilert is recently know as a very an alcoholic but he is a very unique and intelligent man. Eilert has created a manuscript that is going to make him very famous and wealthy because of the perfection and strong ideas of the writing. Hedda manipulates Eilert knowing his weakness to alcohol and the conflictions him drinking can create and convinces him to drink and partake in a party Judge Brack is throwing. Eilert ends up drinking heavily and results in him losing his manuscript that George Tesman, Hedda’s husband discovers and brings back to show her. At the time of this discovery George discovers the new that one of his loved ones is very sick and he leaves the house. Soon after Eilert shows up to the house and claims that he has ripped the manuscript to a thousand pieces. Hedda, instead of giving the beloved manuscript to Eilert she sends him out of her home with a gun because he claims he has nothing else to live for. As Eilert leaves Hedda retrieves the manuscript and proceeds to burn it. [Throws one of the sheets into the fir and whispers to herself] “Now, I’m burning your child” (Ibsen 699). Hedda refers to the manuscript as a child because Eilert states that the manuscript is his child because of how valuable it is to him. Hedda burns the manuscript because she realizes the hard work and passion that was put into the work, and that burning it would be the worst type of pain that she could conflict on Eilert. Hedda lives up to her identity in society by presenting herself as a kind and caring person but, in all the actions she engages in she is wearing her social mask because of the way she is attempting to retrieve information and manipulate