Mrs. Thea Elvsted Character Analysis

Mrs. Elvsted is a slight woman with soft attractive features, large blue eyes that tend to protrude with a scared, questioning expression, and almost whitish-yellow hair that is unusually rich and wavy. She is a couple years younger than her old schoolmate Hedda, and was once romantically involved with Jörgen Tesman. After Ejlert Lövborg’s fall from social grace, Mrs. Elvsted and her husband, a sheriff, welcomed Lövborg into their home as a tutor for their children. During that time, Mrs. Elvsted served as Lövborg’s helpmate and muse, and also seemed to fall in love with him, committing herself to him, body and soul. When Lövborg returns to the city where the Tesmans live, Mrs. Elvsted follows him without her husband’s permission (she is repelled by her husband) in order to deliver him from his temptation to drink. She is as conventional as Tesman, in her way, and somewhat timid, but Mrs. Elvsted also has a capacity for passionate, courageous commitment that is rare in Ibsen’s world—even Hedda is afraid of scandal—and this makes her, however quietly, somewhat heroic.