Analysis of Strindberg's Miss Julie

Analysis of Miss Julie

Miss Julie is a drama written in 1888 by August Strindberg as a response from an unbecoming critical analysis by Emile Zola for a prior drama (Sprinchorn, 119). Strindberg subtitled Miss Julie as A Naturalistic Tragedy which did not sit well with many critics and authors of the time. The reason for using the naturalistic elements in the drama were to ensure that his drama would get the recognition he believed it deserved, but what is discover ed is that Miss Julie is not as naturalistic as Strindberg argued. What is naturalistic structure in a drama, and how does it fit or not fit into the plot of Miss Julie? T he first step is to decide of a definition for naturalism. Then it is necessary to compare the drama with the definition to see of the critical theory of naturalism is an effect way to analyze Miss Julie. Naturalism has many definitions, as each playwright that used its techniques molded it to conform to their dramas. Zola was considered the definitive authority on the theory of naturalism (Sprinchorn, 119). However, it will be more productive to consolidate several ideals of this theory to ensure that the broadest definition is used for analysis. First of all, the concept of naturalism believes that each individual is created by their heredity and environment (Esslin, 69; Greenwald, Schultz, & Pomo, 841: Sprinchorn, 122 & 124; Templeton, 470). The second part of the definition is the use of actuality within the drama by the actors, with sets and props, and the truth in the plot (Esslin, 69; Greenwald, Schultz, & Pomo, 841: Sprinchorn, 122). From these two parts of the definition, the naturalistic analysis of Miss Julie in regard to plot development will be discussed. The development of the plot in Miss Julie does not seem to have as much to do with heredity as environment. For example, Miss Julie is an aristocrat that is thumbing her nose at the social norms of her time (Templeton, 470). This is very obviously part of her environment that she is dismissing as unimportant, or worth the risk. The first action that creates this snub is when Miss Julie enters the kitchen, which is also considered the servants quarters (Sprinchorn, 124). The mistress of the house should not be associating with the servants and yet not only does she associate with the servants in the kitchen, but also by celebrating mid-summers eve with the other servants at their dance. One sentence exhibits her wantonly ways for the evening, On a night like this were all just ordinary people having fun, so well forget about rank (Strindberg, 929). This next example of her environment influencing her is after her tryst with Jean, Miss Julie realizes that she has fallen from her aristocratic upbringing, which she emphas izes Oh, God in heaven, end my wretched life! Take me away from the filth Im sinking into! Save me! Save me! (Strindberg, 934). Miss Julie knows that by intercourse with a servant will bring her family and herself shame and she will be no better than the servants in her house. The final act of the environment is when takes the razor from Jean Thank you. Im going now to rest! (Strindberg, 941). She knows that there is no surviving in the environment in which she has created, and therefore will kill herself rather than face the shame of her actions. Within this context it is obvious that the heredity of Miss Julie is not in play in regards to the plot development, however the changing environment caused by her decisions is a focal point in the development of the plot. With each new decision, entering the kitchen, entering Jean bedroom, fear of facing shame, each has led to the plot moving forward, for each decision would have made a difference in the plot had the decisions been different. This proves the point that naturalism shows life as it is only worse (Greenwald, Schultz, & Pomo, 841). The second part of the definition is the use of the actors, the props, and set in which to emphasis the natural and true possibilities of the drama. It realize on costumes, lighting scenery and the tools used by the actors in their portrayal of the true to life characters (Greenwald, Schultz, & Pomo, 840). For Strindberg each piece of set and prop were also symbolic of the environment of the characters. The kitchen is symbolic of the lower status of the servants and by Miss Julie entering this area; she is symbolically lowering herself, just as her mother did before her death (Strindberg, 928). Another object that is used symbolically is the high riding boots that Jean carries into the kitchen. These boots symbolized the authority of the Count and his presence even when he is away (Strindberg, 928). The wine that Jean drinks symbolizes his superiority to other servants, and to Miss Julie herself (Strindberg, 934; Templeton 469). The canary is a foreshadowing of what is to come of Miss Julie (Strindberg, 939).

Many believe that due to the use of symbolic affects, then the drama is no longer naturalistic in its structure, however, the use of only needed props and sets is one of the biggest parts of naturalism. Strindberg did not use anything that was not required for the development of the plot and to show the transference of superiority from Miss Julie to Jean by the end of the drama. Because of these moves away from naturalism, many critics believe that the drama is more on the realistic and symbolic or expressionist theories (Esslin 73-74; Sprinchorn, 121; Templeton, 469). To answer the question of whether the naturalistic theory fits into the plot development of Miss Julie would be that it does not help with plot development. The fact is that realism is a structure that portrays real life events, but in a theatrical way. It does not rely on the struggles or taboos associated with hereditary and environment, but on the people portrayed. The other factor used in this play was the symbolism of many of the props. Symbolism and expressionism both came from the foundation of naturalism. They just took the concepts and ideals of naturalism a step further. Without the symbolis m, Miss Julie would have been a very uninteresting and possibly stagnant drama. With the symbolism and the realistic portrayals of the characters Miss Julie came to life and thereby naturalism does not help the development of the plot.

Works Cited Esslin, Martin. Naturalism in Context. The Drama Review: TDR 13.2 (Winter 1968): 67-76. JSTOR. 5 July 2009 Greenwald, Michael L., Roger Schultz, and Roberto D. Pomo eds. Naturalism. The Longman Anthology of Drama and Theater: A Global Perspective. New York:Pearson Longman, 2001. 840. Sprinchorn, Evert. Strindberg and the Greater Naturalism. The Drama Review:TDR 13.2 (Winter 1968): 119-129. JSTOR 5 July 2009 Strindberg, August. Miss Julie. The Longman Anthology of Drama and Theater: A Global Perspective. Eds. Michael L. Greenwald, Roger Schultz, and Roberto D. Pomo. New York:Pearson Longman, 2001. 927-941. Templeton, Alice. Miss Julie as A Naturalistic Tragedy. Theater Journal 42.4

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MISS JULIE
an analysis of the play by August Strindberg
The following essay was originally published in The Social Significance of the Modern Drama. Emma Goldman. Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1914. pp. 51-61.

IN his masterly preface to this play, August Strindberg writes: "The fact that my tragedy makes a sad impression on many is the fault of the many. When we become strong, as were the first French revolutionaries, it will make an exclusively pleasant and cheerful impression to see the royal parks cleared of rotting, superannuated trees which have too long stood in the way of others with equal right to vegetate their full lifetime; it will make a good impression in the same sense as does the sight of the death of an incurable."

What a wealth of revolutionary thought -- were we to realize that those who will clear society of the rotting, superannuated trees that have so long been standing in the way of others entitled to an equal share in life, must be as strong as the great revolutionists of the past! Indeed, Strindberg is no trimmer, no cheap reformer, no patchworker; therefore his inability to remain fixed, or to content himself with accepted truths. Therefore also, his great versatility, his deep grasp of the subtlest phases of life. Was he not forever the seeker, the restless spirit roaming the earth, ever in the death-throes of the Old, to give birth to the New? How, then, could he be other than relentless and grim and brutally frank? Miss Julie, a one-act tragedy, is no doubt a brutally frank portrayal of the most intimate thoughts of man and of the age-long antagonism between classes. Brutally frank, because August Strindberg strips both of their glitter, their sham and pretense, that we may see that "at bottom there's not so much difference between people and -- people." Who in modern dramatic art is there to teach us that lesson with the insight of an August Strindberg? He who had been tossed about all his life between the decadent traditions of his aristocratic father and the grim, sordid reality of the class of his mother. He who had been begotten through the physical mastery of his father and the physical subserviency of his mother. Verily, Strindberg knew whereof he spoke -- for he spoke with his soul, a language whose significance is illuminating, compelling. Miss Julie inherited the primitive, intense passion of her mother and the neurotic aristocratic tendencies of her father. Added to this heritage is the call of the wild, the "intense summer heat when the blood turns to fire, and when all are in a holiday spirit, full of gladness, and rank is flung aside." Miss Julie feels, when too late, that the barrier of rank reared through the ages, by wealth and power, is not flung aside with impunity. Therein the vicious brutality, the boundless injustice of rank. The people on the estate of Julie's father are celebrating St. John's Eve with dance, song and revelry. The Count is absent, and Julie graciously mingles with the servants. But once having tasted the simple abandon of the people, once having thrown off the artifice and superficiality of her aristocratic decorum, her suppressed passions leap into full flame, and Julie throws herself into the arms of her father's valet, Jean -- not because of love for the man, nor yet openly and freely, but as persons of her station may do when carried away by the moment. The woman in Julie pursues the male, follows him into the kitchen, plays with him as with a pet dog, and then feigns indignation when Jean, aroused, makes advances. How dare he, the servant, the lackey, even insinuate that she would have him! "I, the lady of the house! I honor the people with my presence. I, in love with my coachman? I, who step down." How well Strindberg knows the psychology of the upper classes! How well he understands that their graciousness, their charity, their interest in the "common people" is, after all, nothing but arrogance, blind conceit of their own importance and ignorance of the character of the people. Even though Jean is a servant, he has his pride, he has his dreams. "I was not hired to be your plaything," he says to Julie; "I think too much of myself for that." Strange, is it not, that those who serve and drudge for others, should think so much of themselves as to refuse to be played with? Stranger still that they should indulge in dreams. Jean says: Do you know how people in high life look from the under-world?... They look like hawks and eagles whose backs one seldom sees, for they soar up above. I lived in a hovel provided by the State, with seven brothers and sisters and a pig; out on a barren stretch where nothing grew, not even a tree, but from the window I could see the Count's park walls with apple trees rising above them. That was the

garden of paradise; and there stood many angry angels with flaming swords protecting it; but for all that I and other boys found the way to the tree of life -- now you despise me.... I thought if it is true that the thief on the cross could enter heaven and dwell among the angels it was strange that a pauper child on God's earth could not go into the castle park and play with the Countess' daughter.... What I wanted -- I don't know. You were unattainable, but through the vision of you I was made to realize how hopeless it was to rise above the conditions of my birth. What rich food for thought in the above for all of us, and for the Jeans, the people who do not know what they want, yet feel the cruelty of a world that keeps the pauper's child out of the castle of his dreams, away from joy and play and beauty! The injustice and the bitterness of it all, that places the stigma of birth as an impassable obstacle, a fatal imperative excluding one from the table of life, with the result of producing such terrible effects on the Julies and the Jeans. The one unnerved, made helpless and useless by affluence, ease and idleness; the other enslaved and bound by service and dependence. Even when Jean wants to, he cannot rise above his condition. When Julie asks him to embrace her, to love her, he replies: I can't as long as we are in this house.... There is the Count, your father.... I need only to see his gloves lying in a chair to feel my own insignificance. I have only to hear his bell, to start like a nervous horse.... And now that I see his boots standing there so stiff and proper, I feel like bowing and scraping.... I can't account for it but -- but ah, it is that damned servant in my back -- I believe if the Count came here now, and told me to cut my throat, I would do it on the spot.... Superstition and prejudice taught in childhood can't be uprooted in a moment. No, superstition and prejudice cannot be uprooted in a moment; nor in years. The awe of authority, servility before station and wealth -- these are the curse of the Jean class that makes such cringing slaves of them. Cringing before those who are above them, tyrannical and over-bearing toward those who are below them. For Jean has the potentiality of the master in him as much as that of the slave. Yet degrading as "the damned servant" reacts upon Jean, it is much more terrible in its effect upon Kristin, the cook, the dull, dumb animal who has so little left of the spirit of independence that she has lost even the ambition to rise above her condition. Thus when Kristin, the betrothed of Jean, discovers that her mistress Julie had given herself to him, she is indignant that her lady should have so much forgotten her station as to stoop to her father's valet. KRISTIN: I don't want to be here in this house any longer where one cannot respect one's betters. JEAN: Why should one respect them? KRISTIN: Yes, you can say that, you are so smart. But I don't want to serve people who behave so. It reflects on oneself, I think. JEAN: Yes, but it's a comfort that they're not a bit better than we. KRISTIN: No, I don't think so, for if they are not better there's no use in our trying to better ourselves in this world. And to think of the Count! Think of him who has had so much sorrow all his days. No, I don't want to stay in this house any longer! And to think of it being with such as you! If it has been the Lieutenant -- ... I have never lowered my position. Let any one say, if they can, that the Count's cook has had anything to do with the riding master or the swineherd. Let them come and say it! Such dignity and morality are indeed pathetic, because they indicate how completely serfdom may annihilate even the longing for something higher and better in the breast of a human being. The Kristins represent the greatest obstacle to social growth, the deadlock in the conflict between the classes. On the other hand, the Jeans, with all their longing for higher possibilities, often become brutalized in the hard school of life; though in the conflict with Julie, Jean shows brutality only at the critical moment, when it becomes a question of life and death, a moment that means discovery and consequent ruin, or safety for both. Jean, though the male is aroused in him, pleads with Julie not to play with fire, begs her to return to her room, and not to give the servants a chance for gossip. And when later Jean suggests his room for a

hiding place that Julie may escape the approaching merry-makers, it is to save her from their songs full of insinuation and ribaldry. Finally when the inevitable happens, when as the result of their closeness in Jean's room, of their overwrought nerves, their intense passion, the avalanche of sex sweeps them off their feet, forgetful of station, birth and conventions, and they return to the kitchen, it is again Jean who is willing to bear his share of the responsibility. "I don't care to shirk my share of the blame," he tells Julie, "but do you think any one of my position would have dared to raise his eyes to you if you had not invited it?" There is more truth in this statement than the Julies can grasp, namely, that even servants have their passions and feelings that cannot long be trifled with, with impunity. The Jeans know "that it is the glitter of brass, not gold, that dazzles us from below, and that the eagle's back is gray like the rest of him." For Jean says, "I'm sorry to have to realize that all that I have looked up to is not worth while, and it pains me to see you fallen lower than your cook, as it pains me to see autumn blossoms whipped to pieces by the cold rain and transformed into -- dirt!" It is this force that helps to transform the blossom into dirt that August Strindberg emphasizes in The Father. For the child born against the will of its parents must also be without will, and too weak to bear the stress and storm of life. In Miss Julie this idea recurs with even more tragic effect. Julie, too, had been brought into the world against her mother's wishes. Indeed, so much did her mother dread the thought of a child that she "was always ill, she often had cramps and acted queerly, often hiding in the orchard or the attic." Added to this horror was the conflict, the relentless war of traditions between Julie's aristocratic father and her mother descended from the people. This was the heritage of the innocent victim, Julie -- an autumn blossom blown into fragments by lack of stability, lack of love and lack of harmony. In other words, while Julie is broken and weakened by her inheritance and environment, Jean is hardened by his. When Jean kills the bird which Julie wants to rescue from the ruins of her life, it is not so much out of real cruelty, as it is because the character of Jean was molded in the relentless school of necessity, in which only those survive who have the determination to act in time of danger. For as Jean says, "Miss Julie, I see that you are unhappy, I know that you are suffering, but I cannot understand you. Among my kind there is no nonsense of this sort. We love as we play -- when work gives us time. We haven't the whole day and night for it as you." Here we have the key to the psychology of the utter helplessness and weakness of the Julie type, and the brutality of the Jeans. The one, the result of an empty life, of parasitic leisure, of a useless, purposeless existence. The other, the effect of too little time for development, for maturity and depth; of too much toil to permit the growth of the finer traits in the human soul. August Strindberg, himself the result of the class conflict between his parents, never felt at home with either of them. All his life he was galled by the irreconcilability of the classes; and though he was no sermonizer in the sense of offering a definite panacea for individual or social ills, yet with master touch he painted the degrading effects of class distinction and its tragic antagonisms. In Miss Julie he popularized one of the most vital problems of our age, and gave to the world a work powerful in its grasp of elemental emotions, laying bare the human soul behind the mask of social tradition and class culture.

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Strange Bedfellows: Woolf's Feminism and Strindberg's Misogyny

by Faye Kasemset

When Virginia Woolf calls on Mary Carmichael, a fictional woman writer of the new era in A Room of One's Own, to laugh at the "peculiarities" of the opposite sex, she offers a couple of models from which to work:

Think how much women have profited by the comments of Juvenal; by the criticism of Strindberg. Think with what humanity and brilliancy men, from the earliest ages, have pointed out to women that dark place at the back of the head! (Room 90)

The jest is at once comic and instructive. Woolf offsets the seriousness of her claim - that women writers are urgently needed to offer an alternative critique of men - with humor, choosing two obviously over-the-top examples from the other sex. She is also demonstrating the appropriate method for such critiques. In earlier chapters, Woolf's narrator (that nebulous "I") is frequently enraged, scribbling angrily over the face of "Professor X", fuming outside the closed door of the Oxbridge library, and envisioning a horrific tale of abuse by men for Shakespeare's sister. By this penultimate chapter, however, she is in full control of her temper. Juvenal's scathing Satire on women and Strindberg's diatribes on the inferiority of women are far crueler than most of the comments by Johnson and others which infuriated her earlier on. Yet here she is, finding levity in this "spot" at the back of two men's heads (for if misogyny is not a dark place in the male psyche, what is?).

Her evocation of August Strindberg is particularly intriguing; she and he championed antithetical philosophies not only on women,1 but on fiction as well. Yet their viewpoints intersect at odd places, and the sentiments they express share more, no doubt, than either would care to admit. His work is a perfect example of the tradition of literature whose perspective she labels incomplete in A Room of One's Own. Strindberg was not a figure from the distant past, like Juvenal, but he was not quite her contemporary, either. He was of an older, already-venerated literary set; his most famous play, Miss Julie, was published 40 years before A Room of One's Own. As such, his was the generation of naysayers whom it was Woolf's duty to disprove.2 Strindberg, a naturalist, was obsessed with capturing the complexity of "the human psyche" (Miss Julie xv) - in that respect, his work can be seen as a precursor to Woolf's own writing.3 Though not necessarily scholarly, any one of her novels may be read in part as an "elaborate study of the psychology of women by a woman" (Room 78); lacking, however, Strindberg's "qualification" (being a woman herself [see Room 27]), what can Woolf profess to offer that is missing from Strindberg's portrait of women? Is Strindberg's well-publicized hatred of women sufficient to discredit his account of them?4That Woolf assumes her readers' familiarity with his work suggests otherwise. In the introduction to her translation of Miss Julie, Helen Cooper writes:

It is, ironically enough, through his obsessive revenge against women that Strindberg created the most wonderful parts for women.... Strindberg pulls his women down from pedestals and subjects his female characters to the same ruthless and skeptical observation, which had, of course, long been accepted in the creation of male characters. (Miss Julie x)

Cooper justly celebrates the character of Miss Julie for her complexity. Conflicted and contradictory, she definitely does not seem "wanting in personality and character" (Room 43). The daughter of a feminist, she struggles to live up to the equality ideals of her

mother while battling lust and human fallibility (to be equal to man, it would seem, a woman must be perfect - as he is?). In the importance he places on female characters, Strindberg resembles Euripides, a Classical playwright and putative 'misogynist' to whom Woolf dedicates a footnote (Room 43) - of the characters in Miss Julie (in which he intends to demonstrate the inequality of the sexes), two out of three are women.

Ironically, in their attempts to illustrate opposing viewpoints, Woolf and Strindberg offer eerily similar paradigms: both Shakespeare's sister, Woolf's invention in A Room of One's Own , and Miss Julie commit suicide in the aftermath of a socially forbidden liaison. For Strindberg, the tragedy of Miss Julie is caused by ambitions beyond her abilities:

She is the victim of a false belief...namely that woman - this stunted form of human being compared to man, the lord of creation, the creator of civilization - is equal to man or might become so. Embracing this absurd ambition leads to her downfall. Absurd because a stunted form, governed by the laws of genetics, will always be stunted and can never catch up with the one that is ahead.... Not by means of equal education, not through equal voting rights, not after disarmament, not even if men stopped drinking.... (Miss Julie xvi)

The sentiments he expresses in this preface to his play may seem absurd, even humorous, in the current social climate. As Woolf said of Lady Bessborough, though, "what is amusing now... had to be taken in desperate earnest once" (Room 55). We can deduce from Woolf's frustration that the sentiments Strindberg expresses here had not been quite eradicated in her time. But perhaps we can accept Strindberg's characterization of Miss Julie as plausible (in the body of the play itself) without endorsing his psychological account of it. Miss Julie may not be a literary genius of Shakespearean proportions, but we might see in her the same struggle against conventionthat destroyed Shakespeare's fictional sister. Julie, like Judith, commits suicide out of fear of the consequences of her sexual licentiousness - repercussions unique to the female position in her society. Her death could have been prevented, we might surmise, not by a switch of gender (as Strindberg suggests), but by a switch in the demands upon her gender. Had Julie been a nobleman's son, she need not have killed herself to avoid the disgrace of sleeping with the kitchen maid. Had Judith been a William, she would have become a Shakespeare.

These parallel fables carry the distinct imprints of their respective authors in their plotlines. Woolf focuses on the career, passion, and ambition of her heroine; men in her tale are presented as obstacles - suppressors of genius. Strindberg's Miss Julie is seen exclusively in her relationship to her footman Jean; though Strindberg claims ambition causes her death, he never shows us Miss Julie attempting any traditionally male occupations. If any attempt to rectify an inequality is responsible for her demise, it is more likely her desire to cross the boundaries of social class than of gender roles. By limiting his portrayal of Miss Julie to the context of her romantic entanglement with Jean, Strindberg supports Woolf's claim that "man is terribly hampered in his knowledge of women," and that women in fiction by men are "seen only in relation to the other sex"; a lover's eyes present "the astonishing extremes of her beauty and horror; her alternations between heavenly goodness and hellish depravity" (Room 83). Right after Jean's "passion awakens again," he calls Miss Julie "a glorious woman, far too good for the likes of [him]"; only moments earlier, he was denouncing her as a "servant's slut" and "footman's whore," likening her to an animal (Miss Julie 25-6). When, in A Room of One's Own, Woolf bemoans the lack of female friendship in literature (such a topic being beyond the scope of a woman's relationship with a man), she cites the jealous dynamic between Cleopatra and Olivia in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (Room 82); the usage is slightly unfair, given the amicable relationships Shakespeare portrays between Cleopatra and her female attendants. In the case of Miss Julie, the accusation would be just; there is no love lost between his Julie and Christine.

Just as Woolf and Strindberg predict the same tragic fate for a woman struggling against her position of subordination and oppression (though they differ on its cause), both affirm the existence of real differences in the natures of men and women. But what Strindberg believes is inherent weakness, Woolf views as an alternative (and irreplaceable) "creative force... won by centuries of the most drastic discipline" (Room 87). Like Strindberg, Woolf sees danger for a woman who attempts to model herself directly after men: Bront, according to her, "stumbled and fell" endeavoring to write with "a sentence that was unsuited for a woman's use" (Room 76). Rather than relinquish the right to write (acknowledging herself unworthy, as Strindberg would have her do), Woolf declares that a woman must create her own sentence, "some new vehicle... for the poetry in her" (Room 77). She envisions a woman writer who will write a poetic tragedy through prose, creating a new genre (and laying claim to the streams of consciousness style which some might credit James Joyce, a male writer, with employing to admirable effect). Although she purports to desire more, not fewer, sexes, Woolf still champions the concept of an "androgynous" mind. In her vision of art, a woman too manly (or a man too womanly, though the rarity of the occurrence precludes severe castigation) cannot succeed, because in too actively seeking the masculine dimension, she will never attain a state of balance, in which the male and female halves of her brain are so in harmony as to be unintrusive (Room 98-102).

According to Woolf, pure masculinity does not suit men, either. She complains about the male writer whose "virility has now become self-conscious"; he "protest[s] against the equality of the other sex by asserting his own superiority." If there was ever a male writer conscious of his gender, it was Strindberg. Does his sentence then fall "plump to the ground - dead"? Is he completely "impeded and inhibited" in artistic ability (Room 101)? Cooper, a woman, would probably disagree. The masculine "I" is omnipresent in Strindberg's work; his Miss Julie is not just an example of feminine weakness - she is a demonstration of female inferiority to man. Strindberg's chronicle of female deficiency is written "in protest... against the equality of the other sex," so why doesMiss Julie continue to fascinate? Unlike Mr. A, the imaginary novelist whose tales of passion and exploit fail to titillate in A Room of One's Own, why doesn't Miss Julie seem "somehow dull" (Room 101)?

Perhaps the answer lies in the writer's own passion - in his anger. Like Woolf, Strindberg is angry at the situation of his sex. But while Woolf downplays the creative function of anger in art (leaving unacknowledged the powerful role it plays in drawing the reader into her own essay), Strindberg embraces it. When Strindberg was encouraging his first wife to become a writer (before he had truly begun to hate women),5 he advised her, "If you get angry your style acquires colour, for anger is the strongest of all spiritual emotions.... Think of an injustice, get angry, bring forth invisible enemies, create adversaries... be 'mad'" (Miss Julie viii). Woolf, in contrast, blames anger for obscuring art; it is responsible, she alleges, for preventing Charlotte Bront from realizing genius beyond Jane Austen's. The differences in Woolf's and Strindberg's attitudes are stereotypically gendered: she preaches moderation (self-renunciation), he advocates a focused rage (valor). But for all her reservations about anger, Woolf's character in A Room of One's Own is often furious. Behind both her and Strindberg's anger lurks a fear of oppression by the opposite sex. We can see this fear at the beginning of Miss Julie, when Jean describes his mistress "training" her fianc: "She made him jump over her riding whip like a dog. Twice he jumped and twice she lashed him but the third time he grabbed the whip out of her hand and broke it" (Miss Julie 4). Woolf's self-characterization in A Room of One's Own echoes this image: "so cowardly am I, so afraid of the lash that was once almost laid on my own shoulders" (Room 90). It is probably this very comparison, between her feminism and his misogyny, that Woolf seeks to avoid when she calls for the artist to possess an androgynous mind, in which "there must be freedom and there must be peace" (Room 104). Woolf and Strindberg may be alike in reaction, but they are opposites in response - for she disowns her less harmonious thoughts with the same vehemence with which he cultivates his. Woolf wants Mary Carmichael to do what Strindberg cannot - learn to laugh from a distance. Her allusion to him in A Room of One's Own is more than a joke; it is a warning.

Works Cited
1. Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own. San Diego: Harcourt, 1929. (Room)

2.

Strindberg, August and Helen Cooper (trans.). Miss Julie. London: Methuen Drama, 1992. (Miss Julie)

3.

Woolf, Virginia and Joanne Trautmann Banks (ed.). Congenial Spirits: The Selected Letters of Virginia Woolf. London: The Hogarth Press, 1975. (Letters)

4.

Lagercrantz, Olof and Anselm Hollo (trans.). August Strindberg. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1984. (Lagercrantz)

5.

Strindberg, August. "De l'inferiorit de la femme [et comme corollaire de la justification de sa situation subordonne selon des donnes dernires de la science]." In La Revue Blanche (Tome VIII, 1895, pp. 1-20). Genve: Slatkine Reprints, 1968. (Revue)

Footnotes
1. Woolf was only thirteen when Strindberg published "De l'inferiorit de la femme [On the inferiority of woman]" in La Revue Blanche (in which he claims to provide justification for woman's subordinate position through science, laying out the reasons for her physical, intellectual, and moral inferiority to man [Revue 1, 11-12]); she would have been unable to argue with him at the time (at least publicly). She could and did, however, vigorously refute similar claims by Arnold Bennett, her contemporary, on male superiority, through letters to the New Statesman in 1920 (Letters 122-127); she addressed these letters to a favorable reviewer of Bennett's Our Women, citing, in her arguments, Sappho and a number of other illustrious women who then reappear in A Room of One's Own.

2.

If Arnold Bennett's works were still read in 40 years, there would be time enough for the live audience of A Room of One's Own to disprove them.

3.

If, of course, you read her novels as psychologically mimetic (the case can be made for Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, at the very least). On the other hand, Strindberg also demands realistic situations ( Miss Julie is based on a true story), while Woolf mocks such rigid realism: "Fiction must stick to facts, and the truer the facts the better the fiction - so we are told" (Room 16).

4.

Strindberg's play stands out for its frank discussion of "forbidden" women's topics; his characters openly discuss female lust and menstruation (Miss Julie, according to the cook, is "always a bit strange, when she's got her period" [Miss Julie 8]). Woolf, conversely, has been accused by some critics of being overly fastidious about bodily functions (not just the feminine variety). She herself wrote tastefully, as became a well-bred woman of her time, and was critical of writers who were less delicate in tone (such as James Joyce).

5.

At the time, Siri von Essen (his first wife) was married to another man; she had dreams of becoming an actress, impossible with her social standing at the time. Strindberg suggested writing as an alternative outlet for artistic expression (Lagercrantz 56). He also dismissed reservations about her qualifications, declaring, "You say you lack education! God preserve us from writers who retail what they have read in books" (Miss Julie viii). Although we might be tempted to imagine Woolf disagreeing (if women should

be given money and a room of their own, surely they need education as well?), she herself was not formally educated, and A Room of One's Own does not explicitly claim education (of the Oxbridge variety) as a prerequisite for art.

http://web.mit.edu/wgs/prize/fk05.html (14-08-13)