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

In my opinion, Miss Julie, from “Miss Julie”, is completely misrepresented by Strindberg. From the beginning, he portrays the woman as selfish, blunt, and a slight feminist. However she expresses a completely different side of here when she is desperate for Jean’s love: “Say that you love me—else, what am I, without it? (Strindberg 15). Miss Julie makes it clear that she would be nothing without Jean’s love, which contradicts the independent woman Strindberg portrayed her as. In this moment she takes a desperate tone that was not apparent throughout the beginning of the play, and I believe this shows her true personality.

When she is about to commit suicide, she expresses: “I don’t believe in anything anymore…In nothing—nothing” (Strindberg 30). Strindberg introduced Miss Julie as strong girl whose not afraid to express her somewhat condescending opinions. Now, as it looks like she has lost all hope, it is clear that her personality revolves around her dependency of love, and this goes against the whole introduction that Strindberg set up for the audience. The specific words: “I don’t believe in anything”, prove that Miss Julie has lost her grasp on reality, and is no longer the strong individual Strindberg made her out to be. This brings up the idea of “half-woman” that the author describes Miss Julie as. I think that this means the Miss Julie has a double personality. At one moment of the story she stood as a whole individual, but once she fell in love with the servant she lost a lot of her personality, making her less of a woman.