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

Yes, you have all touched all the main thematic questions of the play, through the character of Miss Julie: Is this a social comment on the class structure of the late 1800s (and are we developing another class structure now? The 1% versus the 99%?)? A war between the sexes? A psychological exploration of a deeply disturbed individual?

You have all noted the following important ideas: Class structure plays a role; Strindberg seems to ask, is Julie a victim of these tension between classes, or should she be expected, nevertheless, to take control of her life? Julie seems to say that she is the literal product of her mother and father (half-woman, half-man) but is this a viable way to look at her life, or an excuse (or both)? Julie seems to be a paradox herself (as are many of Strindberg’s characters in his works) as she seems “strong” and “dominating” at some points, even abusively so, and at others utterly incapable of making a decision and “projecting” (Michael’s nice term) what Jean wants her to say. Julie’s psychology is very complex, as many of you note. She seems to long for physical intimacy with a man, and at the same time is disgusted by this. She blames her mother, largely, but we might also think about the time this was written (late 1800s).   Ruojun brings up the interesting point that Julie is actually a romantic, someone who desperately believes in love, during a time (or among people, Jean, particularly) when the idea of a perfect love was being scorned as only a fairytale by intellectuals. Ruben brings up a very interesting point when he says that Strindberg is misrepresenting his own main character; in the play, the character of Julie seems to be written sympathetically, as a complex individual, but in his comment, does Strindberg in fact reduce her to a stereotype (just something to ponder)? Think, too, about Jean’s role in all of this. He is also a very interesting, complex (and paradoxical) character.
Strindberg’s idea of the “half-woman” is quite controversial. Is he saying that Julie is not fulfilling her natural role? That she, as a woman, is only “half” the worth of a man? That there are two natures within us, as Jung would later say, the female (anima) and the male(animus)? Is Strindberg anti-feminist; does he intrinsically think of women as needing to fulfill a strict role?