Hedda Gabler more important than the rational one. Ibsen was interested in the then-embryonic science of mental illness and had a poor understanding by present-day standards. His "Ghosts" is another example of this. Examples of the troubled 19th-century female might include oppressed, but "normal", wilful characters; women in abusive or loveless relationships; and those with some type of organic brain disease. Ibsen is content to leave such explanations unsettled. Bernard Paris interprets Gabler's actions as stemming from her "need for freedom [which is] as compensatory as her craving for power... her desire to shape a man's destiny." The play was performed in
Hedda Gabler This". John Cale, Welsh musician and founder of American rock band The Velvet Underground, recorded a song "Hedda Gabler" in 1976, included originally on the 1977 EP "Animal Justice" (now a bonus track on the CD of the album "Sabotage"). He performed the song live in 1998, with Siouxsie Sioux, and also in London (5 March 2010) with a band and a 19 piece orchestra in his Paris 1919 tour. The song was covered by the British neofolk band Sol Invictus for the 1995 compilation "Im Blutfeuer" (Cthulhu Records) and later included as a bonus track on the 2011 reissue