Hedda's interest in how Ejlert died proves that she cares more for the beauty of his death than for his well-being. This is contrasted by the behavior of Mrs. Elvsted, who is deeply sad.

Hedda clearly keeps Ejlert in a fairly high regard, yet she does not refrain from manipulating him, causing him to drink after years of abstinence. She seems to enjoy semi-adulterous relationships with men not because she admires the men but because she wants to control them. A key method in controlling Brack and Ejlert, apparently, is to make them think that she wants to keep them in her confidence without letting Tesman know: when Tesman nears the couch where she and Ejlert are talking, she quickly changes the subject.

Brack is surprised to learn that Ejlert has destroyed his manuscript. Mrs. Elvsted announces that she has some notes from the book left over. Tesman and Mrs. Elvsted decide to try to reconstruct the book, and they immediately sit down at the writing table in an inner room to sort through the notes. Brack and Hedda begin to talk. Hedda goes on and on about the dignity of Ejlert's suicide, until Brack interrupts her. He reveals that he did not shoot himself in his lodgings, but was fatally wounded by the accidental firing of a pistol that was in his breast pocket. To make matters worse, at the moment he died he was in Mademoiselle Diana's bedroom, still looking for his lost manuscript, and he was shot not in the chest but in the stomach. Hedda is disgusted.

Brack leaves and Ejlert arrives. Hedda admonishes him for coming so "late" to pick up Mrs. Elvsted, and he apologizes for coming so early in the morning. He asks what Hedda has heard about the party; but she replies that she knows only that it was very merry. Mrs. Elvsted enters. She is relieved to see him, but Ejlert tells her that their paths must part, as he has stopped work on his writing and is thus no longer of any use to her. Mrs. Elvsted protests passionately, but he explains that he has destroyed his manuscript. He claims to have torn it into a thousand pieces and thrown it into the fjord. Mrs. Elvsted says that this is tantamount to killing a little child, and he has to agree. Mrs. Elvsted is bewildered and leaves immediately. Ejlert doesn't want her to be seen with him, for her sake, so he doesn't escort her. He then tells Hedda the truth--that he has lost the manuscript. He also says that he no longer has the courage to face life. He leaves, intending to commit suicide, , and Hedda makes him promise to do so beautifully, giving him one of her pistols. After he leaves, Hedda is alone in the room. She takes the manuscript over to the fire, sits down, and begins to burn it, page by page, saying that she is burning the child of Ejlert Lovborg and Thea Elvsted.

When Hedda learns of the ugliness of Ejlert's death, she is disgusted for the second time in Act 4-the first time being when she was repulsed by Tesman's joy. She commits suicide in the belief that there is no escape from a disappointing life. (An additional interpretation would be that she wants to demonstrate what a beautiful death is, assuming she has shot herself in the head.) The events of the act have been hinted at throughout the play, beginning with the end of Act 1 when Hedda goes to play with her pistols out of boredom; once again she has turned to her pistols to alleviate her world- weariness and sense of tedium.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 5217
Approximate Pages = 21 (250 words per page double spaced)