I think Hedda is the forerunner of the quintessential film noir chic--simultaneously tough and weak, scheming, continuously dissatisfied, and bored with her own lot in life. She never really loves, but rather consumes. She needs attention and has a pathological fear of being rejection. She designs the entire plot that culminates in her old flame's suicide because it is something to do--a game--and one that revolves around her. Her own suicide galvanizes this idea--she notes …showed first 75 words of 431 total…

…showed last 75 words of 431 total…someone who made active decisions about what she wanted. She saw herself as the master of her destiny. Her affair with Rudolphe was made after her decision to live out her fantasies and escape the ordinariness of her life and her marriage to Charles. Emma's active decisions though were based increasingly as the novel progresses on her fantasies. The lechery to which she falls victim is a product of the debilitating adventures her mind takes.