# George Tesman — Hedda Gabler character guide

> George Tesman in Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen.

**Role:** major

**Also known as:** Tesman, Mr. Tesman, George

**First appearance:** 0002-hedda-gabler

## Snapshot

A tireless, good-natured scholar who has just married the beautiful Hedda Gabler and cannot quite believe his luck.

## Who they are

Tesman has spent his wedding tour grubbing among old records and returns home expecting a professorship, a growing library, and a happy wife. He adores Hedda with an earnestness that never quite reaches her, and his aunt Julia fusses over him as though he were still a boy. His cheerful obliviousness — to money, to Hedda's boredom, to the rival whose work threatens his own — makes him both sympathetic and dangerously easy to deceive.

## Relationships

### [Hedda Gabler](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/hedda_gabler_se/characters/hedda_gabler)

_family_

George is Hedda's devoted but intellectually inferior husband, whose adoration and domesticity suffocate Hedda, leading to her contempt and boredom.

### [Juliana Tesman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/hedda_gabler_se/characters/juliana_tesman)

_family_

George shares a warm, affectionate bond with his aunt Juliana, who raised him and continues to dote on him, while he remains oblivious to Hedda's disdain for her.

### [Judge Brack](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/hedda_gabler_se/characters/judge_brack)

_friendship_

George naively considers Brack a friendly social ally and frequent visitor, unaware that Brack is maneuvering to seduce his wife and undermine his household.

### [Ejlert Lövborg](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/hedda_gabler_se/characters/ejlert_lovborg)

_friendship_

Lövborg and Tesman were former academic rivals who now maintain a strained cordiality, with George admiring Lövborg's talent while feeling threatened by it.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/hedda_gabler_se/characters/george_tesman
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/hedda_gabler_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/hedda_gabler_se/characters