Hedda Gabler is the self-absorbed, only daughter of a military officer who has an overblown grandiose sense of her own importance, and a lack of empathy for others. She feels trapped in a world of bourgeois values full of expectations she cannot control. It is her perception that the men around her seem to enjoy much more freedom to pursue their own public and private interests with less scrutiny and fewer consequences.

Ibsen's well-crafted story reveals the inadvertent dangers of social pressure and a lifetime of pain that comes to a logical conclusion through events taking place over roughly 48 hours.