great works ii – 2850 jta 12:25-2:05: love letters from the world

Strindberg’s analysis on Miss Julie from “Miss Julie” is not only a misrepresentation of the character, but it is also poorly written. Besides for the writing, his analysis is a misrepresentation of the character, because he claims Miss Julie to be a “man-hating half-woman;” half-woman in the sense that she is a radical feminist who can and insists on taking care of herself. He is sadly mistaken, for Miss Julie’s mother raised her to be the epitome of Strindberg’s description, but she is anything but. Miss Julie is indecisive, dependent, and bipolar. Towards the middle of the play, after falling in love with her valet, Jean, she goes back and forth between wanting to run away with Jean and be in love forever, and spiting him and telling him to go away, “What do I care for all that—which I now cast behind me. Say that you love me . . . Thief! . . . Was I intoxicated—have I been walking in my sleep this night” (Miss Julie 16-7). We can see that she is clearly the opposite of an independent, decisive woman like Strindberg claims, in one of the last scenes when she begs Jean to help her in committing suicide: “Oh, I’m so tired—I’m incapable of feeling, not able to be sorry, not able to go, not able to stay, not able to live—not able to die. Help me now. Command me—Iwill obey like a dog . . . You know what I will have to do—but cannot do. You will it and command me to execute your will” (Miss Julie 33).