I
live and I live the manifold lives of all the people I describe,
happy with those who are happy, evil with the evil ones, good
with the good, I creep out of my own personality and speak with
the mouths of children, of women, of old men; I am king and beggar,
I have worldly power,I am the tyrant; I hold all opinions and
profess all religions; I live in all times and have myself ceased
to be. This is a state, which brings indescribable happiness.
(Strindberg
to his third wife Harriet Bosse, 1903 in Gilman, 1987, 'The making
of modern drama,' Da Capo Press:N.Y)
Introduction
-
Strindberg
born in Stockholm the third of nine children. His father,
a shipping agent; his mother a proletarian background.
-
A
poor and miserable childhood, his mother died when he was
13. He came to hate his stepmother.
-
To
underline his background he wrote 'The Son of a Servant' in
1886.
-
Entered
university in 1867 but failed to pass his prelim in chemistry;
worked for a short time at the Royal Dramatic Theatre where
he wrote three plays which were rejected.
-
In
Stockholm he worked as a journalist and wrote the historical
drama 'Master Olof' about the Swedish reformer Olaus Petri
-
In
1877 he married Baroness Siri von Essen, a member of the Swedish
aristocracy; she was several months pregnant at the time of
the marriage.
-
Was
diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was prone to violent
alterations in mood, fits of murderous jealously and hatred
followed by demonstrations of tenderness. When he wrote the
'The Son of a Servant' he admitted that he was frightened
and remained always afraid of life and of people. (Gilman,
1987, p.86)
-
In
1887, Strindberg wrote about his difficult marriage is 'A
Madman's Defense'
-
His
first novel 'Roda Rummet (1879) made him nationally famous
and from this point on, his plays began to receive positive
responses.
Important
issues in his work
-
His
childhood and his three marriages
-
The
battle of the sexes; depiction of men's fear of changes pertaining
to the place of women in the home and society
-
Metaphysical
problems and social issues
(Strindberg)
created his experiences in order to write about them.. Interested
in exploring the frontier where jealously encroaches on madness,
he set up a model of terrain in his own home.
(Evert
Sprinchorn in Gilman, 1987, p.87)
His
style and his plays
-
Wrote
in the naturalistic style (most notable 'The Father' and 'Miss
Julie') but was one of the first major authors to transverse
the confines of naturalism by exploring symbolistic and expressionistic
techniques in his later plays. (Crawford, J. 1976. 'Acting
in Person and in Style, 'Wm.C.Brown Pub:Dubuque,IA)
-
Created
plays devoted to spiritual and psychic warfare (the jump beyond
the naturalistic genre). (Gilman 1987)
-
'A
Dream Play' written in 1911 followed a pattern of dreams in
which anything seemed possible - where time and space had
no reality; an exploration of the subconscious mind through
the forces of the conscious mind (Freud)
-
Believed
that by using imagination with memory, fantasy, absurdity
and improvisation, new patterns of existence could be created
-
Characters
could be split, doubled and multiplied, vanished and reappear
all through the actions of the 'dreamer'.
-
Strindberg
was devoted to discovering secrets of the subconscious mind
(Crawford, 1976)
Miss
Julie
-
Written
after 'The Father'; a play moving beyond traditional structures
of order and straightforward dialogue - dangerous surprises
, supple and elusive
-
A
manifesto for future dramatic and theatrical change
-
Said
to be based on a true story he had encountered about a doomed
sexual liaison between an aristocratic young woman and one
of her father's servants
-
Gilman
describes the conversations between the two main characters
A
series of instigations to internal activity (rather than an exchange
of information or a species of repartee) which then issues in speech
as further instigation. (p.102)
-
The
play's structure is one of fits and starts, reversals, leaps
and regroupings although the focus throughline is always towards
Miss Julie's loss of will and implied suicide (although there
is no clear cause and effect in the play suggests Gilman which
leads directly to Julie's suicide)
-
Central
focus is Miss Julie's seduction of Jean and the consequences
of that action
-
Julie
is faced with a self esteem which is 'split' and 'vacillating'
(rather like Strindberg himself)
-
Jean
too must face his disempowerment in life, his inability to change
his situation. As he comments to Miss Julie, You
take all my strength from me, you make me a coward.
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