August Strindberg's Miss Julie (1888): The lioness that must be defeated
"Life is not so foolishly and mathematically arranged that the great always devour the small. It happens equally often that a bee kills a lion, or at any rate drives it mad."
- August Strindberg's Preface to Miss Julie (1888)
This is a playtext review. Julie in Strindberg’s eponymous play does not drive anyone mad. She is driven mad. She is driven to suicide in this class play that is also a gender power play. It reflects Strindberg's contempt for young aristocratic women and lack of faith in their ability to fashion themselves or their lives into something worthwhile. Miss Julie represents a modern woman in the late 19th century; independent and full of a would be kind of agency, based more in desire and will than in politically or ideologically sanctioned power. She wants to make her own choices in life and love. Yet, she lives in a world that demands of women a fortitude and vision that Strindberg does not give her. The tragedy of Miss Julie is made out in Strindberg's play to be a natural consequence of her own weakness as an aristocrat and a woman, and the strength of a middle class man of intellect. She is defeated by the servant Jean, who is educated and well travelled if not well heeled or well born. Julie is a lioness. Regal but somehow wanting. He is a bee. As a class play, Strindberg's story foreshadows the continued victory and ascent of the middle classes and the fall of the aristocracy. As a gender play, however, it can also be read as an attempted backlash against the late 19th parallel evolution of woman as subject and agent.
In reading Strindberg's preface (1888), he attempts to explain that this play is naturalistic in part because he has attempted to make his characters realistic. Julie is both a "relic" of the past and "a modern character." She is meant to be a representative of "the half-woman, the man-hater." This type in Strindberg's view is characterized by stepping forward "into the limelight" and making "noise." He takes his tone from the misogynistic discursive practice in the media of the 19th and early 20th century, that characterized women, who dared to write about society and politics in ways that challenged the status quo, as deluded and wanting to be men. These women were politically and socially active women advocating education, suffrage and improvement to the social conditions of women and children in the workplace. They were derided as lacking in proper control and as stepping outside their appropriate sphere - the home. What makes Strindberg's position on women ambiguous is that he was equally contemptuous of women like Christine, the cook. He describes her as "a female slave, utterly conventional, bound to her stove and stuffed full of religion and morality." There is no woman in the play that is a based on a positive social type.
The men - there are two, Jean and Julie's father - fair arguably better even if they are not sympathetically portrayed. Jean is at least granted agency and remains alive to use it. The audience never meets the father, he hovers in the background as a strong presence and influence in Julie's life and decision-making process. Jean is portrayed as intellectually superior and morally less susceptible to self-destructive impulses. He is contemptuous of his social background and wants social advancement. He is willing to be arrogant and ruthless in his opportunism. Whereas, Julie can be neither as she suffers from what in Strindberg's words is "the nobleman's hara-kiri" - a sense of obligation to a moral code even when it does not support their own individual best interests. The portraits reflect Strindberg's view of life as "harsh, cynical and heartless" and his sense that a naturalistic portrait does not leave a lot of room for positivity or compassion.
As a social portrait, the play is compelling in a fatalistic way. Strindberg argues for this as naturalistic. For a modern audience, Augusto Boal, the Brazilian drama theorist, would have argued that as a tragedy, the play conforms to social expectation and thus is conservatory rather than revolutionary in its impetus. For the 19th century, the play was innovative in form, revolutionary for its portrait of Jean in relation to the aristocracy but reactionary in its portrait of Julie in her response to her own desires and the scope of her vision for what was possible for her as a woman.
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- August Strindberg's Preface to Miss Julie (1888)
This is a playtext review. Julie in Strindberg’s eponymous play does not drive anyone mad. She is driven mad. She is driven to suicide in this class play that is also a gender power play. It reflects Strindberg's contempt for young aristocratic women and lack of faith in their ability to fashion themselves or their lives into something worthwhile. Miss Julie represents a modern woman in the late 19th century; independent and full of a would be kind of agency, based more in desire and will than in politically or ideologically sanctioned power. She wants to make her own choices in life and love. Yet, she lives in a world that demands of women a fortitude and vision that Strindberg does not give her. The tragedy of Miss Julie is made out in Strindberg's play to be a natural consequence of her own weakness as an aristocrat and a woman, and the strength of a middle class man of intellect. She is defeated by the servant Jean, who is educated and well travelled if not well heeled or well born. Julie is a lioness. Regal but somehow wanting. He is a bee. As a class play, Strindberg's story foreshadows the continued victory and ascent of the middle classes and the fall of the aristocracy. As a gender play, however, it can also be read as an attempted backlash against the late 19th parallel evolution of woman as subject and agent.
In reading Strindberg's preface (1888), he attempts to explain that this play is naturalistic in part because he has attempted to make his characters realistic. Julie is both a "relic" of the past and "a modern character." She is meant to be a representative of "the half-woman, the man-hater." This type in Strindberg's view is characterized by stepping forward "into the limelight" and making "noise." He takes his tone from the misogynistic discursive practice in the media of the 19th and early 20th century, that characterized women, who dared to write about society and politics in ways that challenged the status quo, as deluded and wanting to be men. These women were politically and socially active women advocating education, suffrage and improvement to the social conditions of women and children in the workplace. They were derided as lacking in proper control and as stepping outside their appropriate sphere - the home. What makes Strindberg's position on women ambiguous is that he was equally contemptuous of women like Christine, the cook. He describes her as "a female slave, utterly conventional, bound to her stove and stuffed full of religion and morality." There is no woman in the play that is a based on a positive social type.
The men - there are two, Jean and Julie's father - fair arguably better even if they are not sympathetically portrayed. Jean is at least granted agency and remains alive to use it. The audience never meets the father, he hovers in the background as a strong presence and influence in Julie's life and decision-making process. Jean is portrayed as intellectually superior and morally less susceptible to self-destructive impulses. He is contemptuous of his social background and wants social advancement. He is willing to be arrogant and ruthless in his opportunism. Whereas, Julie can be neither as she suffers from what in Strindberg's words is "the nobleman's hara-kiri" - a sense of obligation to a moral code even when it does not support their own individual best interests. The portraits reflect Strindberg's view of life as "harsh, cynical and heartless" and his sense that a naturalistic portrait does not leave a lot of room for positivity or compassion.
As a social portrait, the play is compelling in a fatalistic way. Strindberg argues for this as naturalistic. For a modern audience, Augusto Boal, the Brazilian drama theorist, would have argued that as a tragedy, the play conforms to social expectation and thus is conservatory rather than revolutionary in its impetus. For the 19th century, the play was innovative in form, revolutionary for its portrait of Jean in relation to the aristocracy but reactionary in its portrait of Julie in her response to her own desires and the scope of her vision for what was possible for her as a woman.
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