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Strindberg's Miss Julie and Beckett's Waiting for Godot Essay

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Strindberg's Miss Julie and Beckett's Waiting for Godot

The motivations and behavior of key characters in Strindberg's Miss Julie and Beckett's Waiting for Godot will be analyzed according to Eric Berne's method of transactional analysis. Eric Berne deals with the psychology behind our transactions. Transactional analysis determines which ego state is implemented by the people interacting. There are three possibilities which are either parent, adult, or child. The key characters in Waiting for Godot are Vladimir and Estragon. Vladimir is the more intellectual of the two and Estragon is more emotional. Their ego states are always shifting from minute to minute. In Miss Julie the key characters are Jean and Miss Julie. Jean shifts his ego …show more content…

A simple complementary transaction would be any transaction where the lines do not cross. It could be a transaction between psychological equals; these transactions are gossip (parent-parent), problem solving (adult-adult), or playing (child-child).

If the lines of communication in the transaction are crossed, the communication will cease unless one of the participants alters their ego state to compliment the ego state implemented by the other communicant. If the responses of the people interacting continue to cross they will no longer be communicating but instead there will be fruitless arguing. An example is "I can't find my shoes do you know where they are?" response "why don't you keep track of your things, you would lose your head if it wasn't attached". The question was an adult one but the response was parent to child so the lines are crossed. There was no positive that came out of the transaction and the conversation cannot be sustained.

Ulterior transactions are more complex and more than one ego stat is involved at one time by a participant. An ulterior transaction can be used to take advantage of a vulnerable ego state in someone else. An example is a car salesman sees a middle aged family man that appears to be having some sort of a midlife crisis. The car salesman shows him an expensive sports car and says " young people love these flashy cars, but you look like more of a Lincon town car type". The middle aged man then turns around and buys

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