Hedda Gabler - Linkin Park
Linkin Park’s songs “Numb” and “In the End” both have similarities with the play Hedda Gabler. In the “In the End” music video we can see thorn trees coming out of the ground and surrounding the man. This reminds me of Hedda being caged in and restrained by the society and Judge Brack’s threats. However, in the video we see the thorns suddenly shrivel and disappear, and therefore no longer holding back the man, which brings us back to Hedda committing suicide and finally releasing herself and breaking free from the hold that the society and Judge Brack had on her.
Also, in the beginning of the video everything is dark, dry and cold and the earth is barren, however as we approach the end of the video, the sun comes out, trees start to appear and grass starts to grow, and I believe that this represents how Hedda must have been feeling on the inside. When she was living with George she was cold, unhappy and bored, but committing suicide was her way out and the sun, represents that the unhappiness is over and there is no longer a reason to be dissatisfied with life.
In the song, there is a line that says “time is a valuable thing; watch it fly by as the pendulum swings; watch it count down to the end of the day; the clock ticks life away” and I believe this is what Hedda was thinking when she was “boring herself to death” at home. She felt as if she was wasting her valuable life sitting around doing nothing with a man that spends more time in his library studying than with her.
In the song “Numb” we see that the girl is isolated from everyone. This brings us back to a line in the song “In the End” which says “I kept everything inside”. This shows how Hedda kept herself from sharing how she felt with George and distanced herself from him and his family. This was not the life she was used to; having everyone trying to know her business and invading her personal space (which was what George, Aunt Julia, and Berta were constantly doing)...