Miss Julie By Johan August Strindber

Miss Julie by Johan August Strindber

Type of Work
.......Miss Julie is a stage play in the form of a naturalistic tragedy. The drama centers on a twenty-five-year-old aristocratic woman who becomes the victim of hereditary and environmental forces.

Setting
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.........The action takes place in the kitchen of a count’s country estate in Sweden on Midsummer Eve, June 23, and early Midsummer Day, June 24. Midsummer Day is a secular and religious holiday in Europe, celebrating the summer solstice, agricultural traditions, and the feast of St. John the Baptist.

Characters

Miss Julie Twenty-five-year old daughter of a count. She hates men, thanks to her mother’s influence on her, and believes her high social station makes her superior to her servants. Nevertheless, her instinctual female sexual urges drive her into the arms of a valet, Jean, who is all that she despises–a man and a lowly menial.
Jean Thirty-year-old valet of the count. Though of the servant class, he is articulate and even can pepper his speech with French phrases he learned while working as a wine steward in Switzerland. He seems to represent the lower classes of the late 19th Century in a world that was casting off class distinctions and allowing the lowly to become equals of the high and the mighty.
When Miss Julie entices him with her charms, he invites her to his room—and the boundaries separating social classes, and Miss Julie’s clothes, droop to the floor.
Christine Thirty-five-year-old cook. Through her interaction with Miss Julie and Jean, she helps to define them and illuminate their motives. Christine accepts her role as a menial and entertains no notions of rising above her station.
Miss Julie's Mother: Woman who reared Julie to hate men. (The mother does not appear on the stage.)
The Count: Miss Julie's father. (The count does not appear on the stage.)
Count Attorney: Man who broke off his engagement to Miss Julie. (The county attorney does not appear on the stage.)
Servants (They do not appear on the stage.)
Diana: Miss Julie's dog.
Serena: Miss Julie's finch.

Themes
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Theme 1 A woman’s attempt to overcome the gender, cultural, and environmental forces acting upon her brings about her downfall. Miss Julie first orders her fiancé to perform a silly trick, like a trained dog, and loses him. She then crosses forbidden social and sexual boundaries and ends up losing her life to her own hysteria, paranoia, and panic.
Theme 2 The centuries-old barrier between the aristocracy and the common folk is beginning to collapse. Miss Julie, confused about her social and cultural identity, attends a barn dance for servants, drinks beer instead of wine, and submits sexually to a valet, Jean. Jean learns French, drinks wine, speaks of purchasing a title to elevate his status, and sometimes treats Miss Julie as an inferior. But he, too, exhibits a measure of confusion about his role, indicated by his willingness to snap to the commands of the count. The cook, Christine, does not venture outside her traditional role as a menial, indicating that the old system—though dying—is dying grudgingly.
Theme 3 All men and women are mercurial creatures, sometimes acting impulsively in response to hereditary and environmental influences on them. Both Miss Julie and Jean act unpredictably from time to time, suggesting a certain course of action one moment and disavowing it the next.
Theme 4 Every man and woman is psychologically and physiologically complex. This theme is similar to Theme 3. Often, it is not clear which motive rules a person at any given time. Is it lust that motivates Jean to invite Julie to his room? Or does he want to lower her to a reduced social status? Is it cruelty? Is it the desire to dominate? Does Miss Julie kill herself out of fear of her father? Or does she do it out of wounded pride, loneliness, or a feeling of powerlessness in a male-dominated world?
Theme 5 Only the fittest survive. Unlike Jean and Christine, Miss Julie fails to adapt to the circumstances over which, ultimately, she has little or no control. This Darwinian motif is in keeping with Strindberg's literary naturalism.

Climax
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.......The climax of a play or another narrative work, such as a short story or a novel, can be defined as (1) the turning point at which the conflict begins to resolve itself for better or worse, or as (2) the final and most exciting event in a series of events. The climax of Miss Julie occurs, according to the first definition, when Miss Julie accepts Jean's invitation to go to his room. (Their conversation when they later return to the kitchen implies that they had sexual relations in the room. However, because Strindberg does not depict this implied encounter on the stage, it cannot technically be regarded as the climax of the play. Consequently, it is Julie's decision to go to the room that is the turning point of the play.) According to the second definition, the climax occurs when Miss Julie takes up Jean's razor to commit suicide.

Symbolism

Miss Julie's Dog

.......Miss Julie’s dog, Diana, mates with the gatekeeper’s pug and becomes pregnant. Diana symbolizes Miss Julie, an aristocrat; the pug symbolizes Jean, a commoner. The mating of the two dogs foreshadows the sexual union of Miss Julie and Jean.

The Remedy for the Dog

.......Christine makes a "remedy" for the dog. When Jean asks about it, Christine explains in euphemistic language that the concoction she is cooking will abort the unborn offspring that developed when Diana mated with the pug. The concoction symbolizes the “easy way out” that Miss Julie seeks in order to overcome the shame resulting from her sexual encounter with Jean.

The Horsewhip

.......Miss Julie makes her fiancé jump over a horsewhip. This action symbolizes hers desire to dominate men, whom her mother brought her up to despise.

Wine

.......Jean drinks wine, a claret. It symbolizes the upper classes, to which he aspires.

Beer and Wine

.......Miss Julie drinks beer, a lower-class drink, and wine, an upper-class drink, symbolizing her confusion about her self-identity. Her mother came from the lower class and her father, the count, from the upper class.

The Handkerchief

.......Christine smells the handkerchief left behind by Miss Julie, then folds it, actions symbolizing her curiosity about the upper classes (the smelling) and her acceptance of her status as menial (the folding).

The Hawk

.......Because it soars above the earth looking for prey, the hawk symbolizes the status of the upper class and its exploitation of the lower class.

The Caged Finch.

.......The caged finch symbolizes Miss Julie, who is a prisoner of her heredity and environment. Jean’s killing of the finch with an axe foreshadows Miss Julie’s killing of herself with Jean’s razor.

Boots and the bell.

.......The counts boots and bell are symbols of the authority of the count, to whom both Miss Julie and Jean must answer.

Razor

.......The razor with which Jean shaves and with which Miss Julie kills herself is a male instrument that symbolizes the fatal power of males over Miss Julie.

Dog, Finch

These animals symbolize Miss Julie. The dog, Diana, mates with a mongrel, representing Miss Julie's sexual intercourse with Jean, a valet. Jean later kills the bird and provides Miss Julie the razor that she uses to kill herself.

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Irony

.......Miss Julie says her mother believed strongly in women's rights and women's independence. However, her mother appeared to be just as tyrannical as the men she despised in her effort to force Julie into a precast mold. Julie tells Jean,

My mother wanted to bring me up in a perfectly natural state, and at the same time I was to learn everything that a boy is taught, so that I might prove that a woman is just as good as a man. I was dressed as a boy, and was taught how to handle a horse, but could have nothing to do with the cows. I had to groom and harness and go hunting on horseback. I was even forced to learn something about agriculture.

Allusions: Don Juan, Joseph
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.......While Miss Julie trifles with Jean, she suggests that he may be a “Don Juan” or a “Joseph.”
.......Don Juan was a fictional womanizer in Spanish folk tales who seduced a young woman of Seville and killed her father in a duel. Later, the spirit of the father, springing to life from a statue of him, gained revenge by taking Don Juan to hell. The first published account of the tale was a 1630 play, The Seducer of Seville, believed to have been written by Tirso de Molina. Subsequently, Don Juan became the central character in numerous other works, including Molière’s Don Juan, or The Stone Feast (1665), Thomas Shadwell’s The Libertine (1675), Mozart’s Don Giovanni (1787), Lord Byron’s Don Juan (1819-1824), and Shaw’s Man and Superman (1903).
.......Joseph is a biblical figure who refused to yield to a woman’s temptation. The story of the incident and its consequences is in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 39, Verses 1-23. Here is what happened: While in Egypt, Joseph works for Potiphar, the Pharaoh’s chief steward. Potiphar’s wife is attracted to Joseph, a very handsome man, and repeatedly attempts to seduce him. Just as often, he rejects her advances. In retaliation, Potiphar’s wife tells her husband that Joseph tried to ravish her, and Potiphar imprisons Joseph. Joseph later gains his freedom after interpreting the Pharaoh’s dream.
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Study Questions and Essay Topics

Why does Miss Julie want to run away with Jean? (Your answer should consider whether she is seriously interested in him or whether she simply wants to escape the wrath of her father when he finds out that she was intimate with Jean.)
Read Theme 4. Then write an essay that takes a stand on this question: Why did Miss Julie kill herself? Support your thesis with quotations from the play and with library and Internet research.
To what extent do you believe hereditary and environmental forces influence your behavior and the decisions you make. Explain your answer.
Write an essay that argues for or against this naturalist tenet: Human beings have no free will, or very little of it, because heredity and environment are so powerful in determining the course of human action.
Write a short psychological profile of Miss Julie. Support your views with quotations from the play and with library and Internet research.

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