A Comparison between Strindbergs Miss Julie and Henrik Ibsens A Dolls House

by negar6 (student)

University Degree Linguistics, Classics and related subjects

A Comparison between Strindberg’s Miss Julie and Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House

Miss Julie which was published nine years after Ibsen’ realist play A Doll’s House, is an example of naturalist movement which tried to show that heredity, environment and social conditions rather than hard work shape an individual’s fate. Strindberg considering himself a naturalist and being an opponent of Ibsen’s ideas in A Doll’s House, wrote Miss Julie with a naturalist pessimism and rejected the idea of women being independent and liberating themselves from the unfortunate situations they were in.

The physical worlds of the two plays are somehow the same. In both cases the space is an interior one and the scene is a single room fully described by the author. However Ibsen has used more props on the stage in order to make it more lifelike. Time plays an important role in the two plays. As the time passes the peaceful happy mood of the beginning of the play changes to a nervous one and the protagonist approaches her doom. We can feel the same anxiety that the central characters feel from passing of the time.

However, the social worlds of these two plays are different. Strindberg has portrayed the world of aristocrats and their servants where the differences between the social classes is important and referred to continuously while Ibsen has chosen people who are almost of the same class. They are all working people who have reached their present situation with hard work and the social classes seem not to be important here. In this case A Doll’s House, a realist play, is more believable and like the everyday life of its audience.

Symbolism is an important feature of the naturalist theatre and Strindberg has used this in several cases. The first symbol that we see in the play is the Count’s boots. From the beginning of the play we hear about the Count, the master of the house but he never appears on the stage. When Miss Julie have had sex with Jean, and by doing so has dishonored herself, they are afraid of the Count’s reaction and it’s this fear that causes Miss Julie to commit suicide when her father comes home. In all this time the presence of his boots somehow symbolizes the Count’s himself although he is not present, but he has his authority. The second symbol is Miss Julie’s thoroughbred dog which has consorting with the gatekeeper’s dog and Miss Julie herself is angry at her because she believes that her well-bred animal should mate with one of the same breed. The dog may symbolize Miss Julie because she who is considered to be from noble blood and the mistress of the house engages in a relationship with Jean who is her servant. And her reaction to her dog may represent her father’s reaction to what she has done. The dreams of Jean and Julie which are symbols in nature give us an account of every character’s point of view. Julie in her dreams is falling and descending which can mean that in her real life she is descending from her position. Jean on the other hand is going upward and ascending which is a result of his personal wish to grow to a higher social class. Another symbol may be Miss Julie’s canary which is killed by Jean. The bird is in cage and as it is the only thing Miss Julie wants to take with her it may symbolize herself and her identity. As she prefers to kill the bird rather than leaving it behind, she prefers to kill herself rather than staying in the same situation. The last symbol can be the fact that Julie commits suicide with Jean’s razor. Because earlier in the play Jean used that razor to shave, the razor can symbolize Jean’s strength and sexuality and his decision not to accompany her that led to her killing herself. It can also represent the male authority and dominance that has caused Miss Julie to be so wretched to choose death.

From the characteristics of naturalism and realism which can be seen both in A Doll’s House and Miss Julie one can refer to the long description of the scenes that may not be useful to the whole plot of the play. For example the scene of Christine cooking in the kitchen in Miss Julie and the scene where Nora is playing with her children in A Doll’s House may not be of any importance in the progress of the plot but they are necessary to create a lifelike sense in the play.

Both Julie and A Doll’s House’s Nora are depicted ...

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Both Julie and A Doll’s House’s Nora are depicted as having identity problems and they both put the blame on their parents specially their fathers. But they are different in many ways. First of all, when Miss Julie starts talking to Jean we see that she is aware of her problems and that is why she acts strangely causing Jean to call her mad She clearly states that she was brought up like a boy by her mother and then by her father taking control of her upbringing she is completely confused with her true identity:

“he brought me up to despise my own sex, to be half a woman and half a man. Who is to blame for what has happened? My father, my mother, I myself? I myself?

I haven't got a self at all, I haven't got a thought which I don't get from my father, I haven't got

a passion which I don't get from my mother, and the latest phase the equality of men and women that I got from my fiance, whom I called a scoundrel for his pains. How then can it be my own fault?”

But Nora doesn’t understand her problem until the last pages of the play when she observes the reaction of her husband to her secret. The second difference between these two characters is their treatment of the problem. Miss Julie completely knowing her problem never takes a chance to leave her father and to find her true identity. Even when she is obliged to leave the house and flee because of the so called shame she has brought to her father, she asks Jean to accompany her although she hates him. She can’t be independent from men, she finds it impossible to leave home and live on her own, she can’t think and act independently and she even begs Jean to give her orders. In this case she is the exact opposite of Nora. She is begging for something that Nora is trying to escape from. Miss Julie asks for someone who orders her:

Julie: “I can't travel, I can't stay. Help me! I am so tired, so infinitely tired give

me orders, put life into me again or I can't think any more, and I can't do any more. “

But Nora declines such offer:

Helmer: “Nora; only be frank and open with me, and I will serve as will and conscience

both to you”

On the other hand Nora after understanding that her husband is not who she thought he was acts very reasonably and very calmly. She decides to leave her husband that immediate moment and is not willing to spend one more night under the same roof as him. The fact that she takes her time to change to suitable clothes and is able to explain for her husband the reason behind leaving him, proves that unlike Miss Julie who decides (actually obeys what Jean orders her) in a moment of panic, she is completely conscious and aware of what she is doing. While Strindberg pessimistically suggests that once you made a mistake there is no way back and you are doomed to accept your fate, Ibsen shows that after eight years of marriage and having three children, still the best thing to do is to leave that unpleasant situation. Finding who you are and finding your goal in life is the most important duty on has in her life.

Upbringing of Nora and Miss Julie suggests a great difference between the points of views of the two authors. Nora, as she says herself was like a doll first to her father and then to her husband. She was thought and expected not to have any idea about serious subjects and was brought up in a completely feminine way. From the beginning of the play we see that Helmer controls every aspect of her life as if she was a child and needed constant care:

“Helmer (wagging his finger at her): Hasn't Miss Sweet Tooth been breaking rules in town today?”

How Nora talks about money and life suggests that she is still immature in her world view. Even her reaction to the law systems is immature:

“Krogstad: The law cares nothing about motives.

Nora: Then it must be a very foolish law.”

Mrs. Linde who is an independent woman and has had a life completely different from that of Nora, thinks that she hasn’t grown up. She sees that something in Nora and Helmer’s relationship is wrong and that’s why she insists that Nora tell her husband the secret. Nora has done only one thing independently which she is proud of and that is saving her husband’s life. When she sees that Helmer reproaches her for saving his life and that he wouldn’t do the same thing for her, her illusions are shattered and for the first time she understands that she has to change her life. On the other hand Miss Julie’s mother has brought her up in a way not to be like Nora. She has grown up doing what boys do and having the same opportunities as them. Her mother teaches her to hate men and she does so. Strindberg has tried to show that this kind of education is wrong and it cannot end well. At the beginning of the play Miss Julie is superior to Jean because she is aristocrat. But as we go on we see that Jean becomes superior because he is a man. His language changes, he insults her. He even proudly suggests that he has better ancestors than her:

“Jean: I've got better ancestors than you have: I haven't got any incendiaries in my pedigree.

But I read in a book on the drawing-room table about your pedigree. Do you know what the founder of your line was? A miller with whose wife the king spent a night during the Danish war. I don't run to ancestors like that. I've got no ancestors at all, as a matter of fact, but I can be an ancestor myself.”

Strindberg mocks Ibsen’s idea that women should be independent and that they may easily relieve themselves from the mail dominant environments, by showing that Miss Julie doesn’t have any other way except committing suicide because of her upbringing. She suggests that changing the places of males and females in society or even mixing them causes catastrophe, and he also elaborates the naturalistic belief that one has no role in making his or her own future.

Another difference between the two plays may be in the approach the writers have taken to build up to the final incidents of the plays. Strindberg uses not logically organized dialogues as it may happen in natural life. But in A Doll’s House there are lots of carefully chosen sentences uttered by character that all in all may give us a clue what the character will do in the future. For example Helmer’s fine speeches about how he hates borrowing money and being in debt and his criticizing Krogstad for the crime he has committed, all ironically point to his possible reaction to finding out about Nora’s secret.

As a conclusion, we can say that Miss Julie written as a response to A Doll’s House tries to question the feministic values of Ibsen’s work and for this reason either intentionally or no has been influenced by A Doll’s House.