Which of the two characters is stronger? Answer in Detail.

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Which of the two characters is stronger? Answer in Detail.

Britain’s empire is rapidly expanding. With colonies such as India, we are the most advanced, wealthy and powerful state in the world. However, despite the fact that our Monarch was a woman,  we had a primitive view as to the sexual equalities in life.

The Queen, Victoria, was synonymous with the phrase ‘we are not amused’ and branded unmarried actresses as ‘ the line between entertainment and a whore, a line which is often crossed’

Even in everyday middle to upper class life, people were literally living by the ideals that women were second class citizens, inferior to men in all respects. With British books such as Oliver Twist depicting strong, heroic women such as ‘Nancy’, and the suffragette movement steadily gathering pace, it was inevitable that women were determined to be seen as equals.

The Stronger was written by a Swede, August Strindberg and when first read it was met by differing degrees of acceptance by many who still held chauvinistic values. It is basically a monologue piece, with two characters but only one speaker. Both are actresses, one respectably married, and one not, and as unmarried actresses were seen as ‘whores’ it’s an interesting mix.


Straight away we see the unmarried ( Miss Y ) drinking from ‘a partly emptied bottle of beer’ which straight away shows an attitude that, even in public, shows she does not care what people think, as it wasn’t usual for a woman to drink beer. She is however reading an unworthy ‘illustrated paper’ as Mrs. X appears, so perhaps Strindberg was still trying to pander to the more traditional views of the time.

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‘ Fancy seeing you like this!’ this leads me to believe that X expected to see Y here, ‘what an earth are you doing here, all by yourself?’ what Mrs. X doesn’t understand is that while playing on the loneliness of Miss. Y, she is in fact being hypocritical, as she is also on her own. Miss. Y doesn’t rise to this petty abuse, though one can only assume it hurt, leaving her stronger than an immature X.


When X states her false concern ‘ You know, I’m really quite concerned, it’s dreadful to find you on you’re own ...

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