“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
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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
In the novel the author uses hysteria ever since the beginning when the afflicted girls are being integrated by parris, he show that he understands the hysteria that it will damage his reputation “In my house? In my house,
The heroine, Mrs. P, has some carries some characteristics parallel to Louise Mallard in “Hour.” The women of her time are limited by cultural convention. Yet, Mrs. P, (like Louise) begins to experience a new freedom of imagination, a zest for life , in the immediate absence of her husband. She realizes, through interior monologues, that she has been held back, that her station in life cannot and will not afford her the kind of freedom to explore freely and openly the emotions that are as much a part of her as they are not a part of Leonce. Here is a primary irony.
Freud’s interest in unconscious ideas was sparked in France after watching demonstrations by Jean-Martin Charcot and Hippolyte Bernheim. Charcot showed that hysterical conditions like “glove anesthesia” and blindness without a scientific cause could be cured (though often temporarily) through ideas and suggestions. The idea on the part of the patient that he cannot see or feel his hand or any other number of things can be reversed by the hypnotist’s command to do whatever he believes he cannot. His demonstrations showed that the afflicted were not suffering from a problem in the brain, but rather in the mind.
This was known to be a very effective means of treatment at the time. The narrator’s condition is a type of nervous depression that can lead to obsessive “fancies” and imaginations. From the perspective of understanding oneself and accepting the present situation’s circumstances, the main character is indeed the sanest person in the story.
Hysteria was the “go-to, catchall diagnosis” for all women, consisting of any “problem” including, but not limited to, nervousness, faintness, loss of appetite, (lack of) sexual desire, headaches, insomnia, muscle spasms, and trouble-making. For centuries, literature portrayed as submissive and obedient to men and oppressed by society, culture, and even men. In The Yellow Wallpaper, Gilman presents readers with a story of a woman suffering from depression, possibly post-partum, but whose remedy is “rest cure,” a treatment invented by Silas Weir Mitchell for neurasthenia involving isolation and rest as a cure for hysteria in all its forms. The Yellow Wallpaper is a narrative concerning the gradual demise of the mental stability of an unnamed, newly married upper-middle class woman in late nineteenth century rural America. Gilman uses psychological terror to not only portray the narrator’s fall to insanity, but also to shed light on the rather unfortunate role of women in the institution of marriage. The narrator’s husband, John, is a physician who firmly expresses disbelief in his wife’s claims of depression. From the beginning of the story, the reader can tell immediately that the narrator has absolutely no voice. John assures her and others that nothing is wrong but “temporary nervous
At first glance, Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” Susan Glaspell’s Trifles, and Henrik Isben’s A Doll House seem to have nothing in common. However, the short story and plays have many similarities. Particularly, five women from these tales— Louise Mallard, Minnie Wright, Mrs. Peters, Mrs. Hale, and Nora Helmer—make drastic decisions that appear to be motiveless. Without context, any reader could be confused by Louise’s death, Nora’s departure, and Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale’s unanimous effort to cover up the murder that Minnie Wright committed, which also seems to lack serious motive. However, all of these women’s settings, situations, and lives have connections that make their motives similar. Emotion motivates all five women—not just
The pressures show in the people many of whom become hysterical. The play examines the permanent conditions of the climate of hysteria and the consequences. The situation escalates and we watch the strange moral alchemy by which the accused become inviolable; the disrepute which overtakes the testimony of simple intelligence; the insistence on public penance; the willingness to absolve if guilt is confessed.
Throughout many of Shakespeare’s plays, one of the central themes with which he provides his readers is the topic of madness and insanity. In Karin S. Coddon’s, “Such Strange Desygns”: Madness, Subjectivity, and Treason in Hamlet and Elizabethan Culture, the author depicts the reasons behind the psychosis of Shakespeare’s characters and what led to their insanity. The author expresses insight for not only the themes of madness in Hamlet but also helps explain the aspect of madness in one Shakespeare’s other plays, Macbeth. Through her analysis, Coddon successfully offers her readers a deeper understanding of Shakespeare’s choice to portray his characters in this way and provides the
The plot of both Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” and Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll House” provides scope for a few scenes that lack the presence of all or any men. These scenes, consisting of communication between the female characters, assist in developing the theme of women openly defying the fact that the society they live in is primarily run by men. All the power and authority in their society, no matter the situation, belongs to the men while the women are simply excluded. The women in these plays defy the norms set by society and manage to evade the expectations of their patriarchal societies.
The reason behind the expression of hysteric symptoms in a mental patient, such as Anna O., is from the affect of an unpleasant memory that is not brought to the conscious mind. The conflict of repression is the explanation for physical symptoms seen in hysteria. Storr wrote, “In many instances, the physical symptom expressed the patient’s feelings in symbolic fashion. Thus, constriction in the throat might express an inability to swallow an insult; or a pain in the region of the heart might signify that the patient’s heart has been metaphorically broken or damaged” (1989, p. 13). This explains the multiple symptoms that Anna O. expressed in her case.
Ever the keen social observer, Jonathan Swift (1667 – 1745) often expressed his reservations about the competences of the female mind through satire or by employing alternate literary voices. However, his ridicule of the female condition does not entail that he was simply a crass misogynist. In reality, the satirist scorned humanity in general: both men and women were unable to escape his seething misanthropy. Swift’s moral satire includes three notorious poems: “The Lady’s Dressing Room,” (1730) “A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed,” (1731) and “Strephon and Chloe” (1731). Human beings tend to delude themselves and see order and beauty where none exists, yet in these poems both the male subject and the reader become disillusioned over the discovery of female humanity. Therefore, Swift seems to imply that life based on delusion usually ends in bitter disappointment, and thus attempts to free us from our prejudices and the futile denial of our basic nature. Furthermore, the author finds in Esther Johnson, or “Stella,” the perfect example of the redemption he aims to imbue in the rest of humanity. Thus, through his poems concerning women, especially Stella, Jonathan Swift reinforces his belief that all humans – even women – are capable of bettering themselves.
This movie brings out some interesting facts about psychoanalysis. Doctors in this field are different from others because they attempt to have rationale on the irrationality of emotions. The main aim is to analyze why behaviors deviate from the normal norm. This film shows a main idea of clinical psychology. People can go through profound amount of suffering which from outside sources or self-imposed. This movie successfully brings out the depth of emotional suffering that one can go through and brings out therapy in action. Cronenberg brings out the extent of sufferings that a patient goes through. Sabina’s behavior is seen moving from relative calmness into a violent behavior. Her eyes are seen poping out of her head, her limbs convulse, and her jaw spasms in a non-human way. Her mind tortures her in a way that this manifests physically. Dr. Jung uses his treatment “talking cure” to help Sabina find out the source of her hysteria. This treatment helps her answer the question why her mind is torturing
An exploration of Oscar Wilde's presentation of women in 'A Woman of No Importance' in comparison to John Fowles' views of women in 'The French Lieutenant's Woman', in light of the view that Oscar Wilde has a more sympathetic view of woman in his time.
the audience how Miss Y feels about Mrs X. She is intimidated by Mrs X
This suddenly reveals the characters to both Julie and Jean himself. Strindberg decides to use animals to match characters and convey the meaning behind everyone’s actions. He firstly uses “stable yard” to show a place Miss Julie and her ex-husband were at and thus brings about a horse in mind. Here we get to see Miss Julie putting his ex-husband in a horrible situation and treating him like a child. “Teach a dog to jump” [4] also shows how proud Miss Julie is and wants to show that class rules but Jean eventually shows that no matter what, whether rich or not men are superior to women when he takes control of the situation of Miss Julie and The bird. Even though Miss Julie wants to show that women too have a say in judgements, she is easily weakened by Jean “flirts” and cannot say any more. Strindberg uses Julie’s dog, Diana’ which seems to serve as an epitome of Julie’s fate or fortune. The dog get into an ‘’affair” with a pug of the lower standing, the “gatekeeper’s pug”. Using these antitheses foreshadows Julie and Jean where an aristocrat “Julie” escapes her social levels and has an affair with a commoner,