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An Exploration Of August Strindberg 's Life Through Its Cruel And Powerful Struggles

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“I find the joy in life through its cruel and powerful struggles” (Strindberg 57): An Exploration of August Strindberg’s Personality through Hypnotism in Miss Julie

In the preface of the “brutal... cynical... heartless drama” (Strindberg 57), Miss Julie, August Strindberg gives an in depth analysis of his play and himself. Fashioning his characters as “souls” (Strindberg 91), Strindberg permits mobility in personal development and reflects the complexity of the self. Through his drawing of the characters to be “swift and vacillating” (Strindberg 82), Strindberg reflects the temperament during the late 1800s, incorporating an “urgently hysterical” (Strindberg 91) atmosphere. During this time period, hysteria was respective to females, and …show more content…

The preface demonstrates Strindberg’s take on hysteria (alike how the character drawing can be used to reflect Strindberg’s views on psyche) as an influx of “lower, unreliable instruments of thought which we call feelings” (Strindberg 88). Although this waking suggestion brings a violent end to the play, Strindberg’s use of hypnosis can instead be seen as a reflection of his desperation and hopelessness regarding the truth of life.

Each character is unique in the play, avoiding “simple stage characters... one [which] is stupid.. one brutal... one jealous...” (Strindberg 59). Strindberg avoids the “idiotically mathematical” (Strindberg 57) ideology where the “big eat the small” (Strindberg 57), instead employing a variety of characters and plot, which mirror the irregularity of everyday life. Strindberg adds minute details to each character, justifying his premise that “[any] event in real life... springs generally from a whole series of motives” (Strindberg 58). Several of Miss Julie’s motives are attributed to her rearing as “her father 's mistaken upbringing of the girl” (Strindberg 58). Strindberg also corroborates Miss Julie’s persona with “her own nature... degenerate brain” (Strindberg 58), which decides her fate to imitate that of degenerate offspring to “succumb [in the end], either because they are

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