This next example of her environment influencing her is after her tryst with Jean, Miss Julie realizes that she has fallen from her aristocratic upbringing, which she emphasizes “Do you suppose I’m going to remain under this roof as your whore?... Take me away from here, from the shame and the dishonor - oh, what have I done, my God, my God!” Miss Julie knows that by intercourse with a servant will bring her family and herself shame and she will be no better than the servants in her house. The final act of the environment is when takes the razor from Jean “Thank you. Now I am going to rest!” (pg 46). She knows that there is no surviving in the environment in which she has created, and therefore will kill herself rather than face the shame of her actions.
Within this context it is obvious that the heredity of Miss Julie is not in play in regards to the plot development, however the changing environment caused by her decisions is a focal point in the development of the plot. With each new decision, entering the kitchen, entering Jean’s bedroom, fear of facing shame, each has led to the plot moving forward, for each decision would have made a difference in the plot had the decisions been different. This proves the point that “…naturalism shows life as it is – only worse”.
2. Human beings have no free will, or very little of it, because heredity and environment are so powerful in determining the course of human action. Determinism is basically the opposite of the notion of free will. For determinism, the idea that individual characters have a direct influence on the course of their lives is superseded by a focus on nature or fate. Often, a naturalist author will lead the reader to believe a character's fate has been pre-determined, usually by environmental factors, and that he/she can do nothing about it. In the case of Ms Julie, the environmental factors involved here are sexual and spatial determinism - where the aristocratic Julie and her valet Jean and literally and figuratively trapped into having intercourse when, to avoid being seen together alone, they are forced into hiding in Jean’s room. This fateful concealment, which Strindberg is at pains to characterize as a fated development, renders the disruption of class roles as sexuality, and sexuality which is transgressive, forbidden and at the very end, fatal, as the inevitable outcome of a momentary enforcing of privacy. In acting according to the taboos and norms of a rigid class society, the characters are doomed by their environment to transgress two of the major orders of that society - the orders of sexuality and class.
- A literary work should present life exactly as it is, without preachment, judgment, or embellishment. In this respect, naturalism is akin to realism. However, naturalism goes further than realism in that it presents a more detailed picture of everyday life. Whereas the realist writer omits insignificant details when depicting a particular scene, a naturalist writer generally includes them. He wants the scene to be as “natural” as possible. An example of this would be Christine’s pantomime on page 7, which Strindberg specifies in his stage direction that it should be played as though the actress were actually alone, and that the actress should not hasten her movements even in the case where the audience grows impatient. This is a reflection of Strindberg’s inclination to making the play as “natural” as possible, and Christine in this scene does the typical household chores which the servants most probably did in the written present, with no attempt to hasten the actions even in the plain sight of the audience.
- Writers involved in the naturalist movement believed that actors' lines should be spoken naturally, and that mechanical movements, vocal effects, and irrational gestures should be banished. A return to reality was proposed, with the old theatrical attitudes replaced with effects produced solely by the voice. Naturalism attempts to present dialogue as spoken in everyday life. Rather than putting “unnatural” wording in the mouth of a character, the naturalist writer attempts to reproduce the speech patterns of people in a particular time and place. There was a call to individualize characters, instead of generalizing them, to produce characters whose minds and bodies would function as they would in real life at the written present. Strindberg's 'Miss Julie' is an excellent example of this movement, as it involves stress on multiple motivation of action and random, illogical dialogue.
Strindberg's naturalistic conception of theatre also extends to non-literary aspects of staging such as stage décor, lighting, and make-up. The stage space of naturalism often aims to deliver the whole truth, to dispel certain preconceptions and enigmas of past and future from a firmly set present, set to confront heredity and environment through a fixed presentation. In Miss Julie, each piece of set and prop is also symbolic of the environment of the characters. [ talk about page 3‘s initial setting - cupid, phallic symbols etc.] The kitchen is symbolic of the lower status of the servants and by Miss Julie entering this area; she is symbolically lowering herself from her aristocratic status to the lower status of a servant. Another object that is used symbolically is the high riding boots that Jean carries into the kitchen. These boots symbolizes the strong presence of the authority of the Count and his hold on the place although he is away majority of the time. The wine that Jean drinks symbolizes his superiority to other servants, and to Miss Julie herself, especially when later on, she expresses her opinion that she likes to drink beer and drinks beer herself. Also, the execution of the canary is a foreshadowing of what is to come of Miss Julie later on in the play - indirectly “killed” by Jean when he orders her to commit suicide at the end of the play.
Precisely because of Strindberg’s usage of symbolic tendencies and affects, people doubt that the drama is purely naturalistic in structure. However, Strindberg did not use anything that was not required for the development of the plot and to show the transference of authority and power from Ms Julie to Jean at the end of the play. Because of this move away from pure naturalism, many critics have said that this play is focused more on the realistic and symbolic, or expressionist theories.
4. The naturalist writer also attempts to be painstakingly objective and detached. Rather than manipulating characters as if they were puppets, the naturalist writer, inspired by the scientific method, prefers to observe the characters as if they were animals in the wild and then report on their activity. Naturalist writers generally achieve only limited success in adhering to this. The main problem is that it is next to impossible for a writer to remain objective and detached, like a scientist. After all, a scientist analyzes existing natural objects and phenomena. A naturalist writer, on the other hand, analyzes characters he created; they may be based on real people, but they themselves are not real. Thus, in bringing these characters to the stage or the printed page, the naturalist writer already brings a part of himself—a subjective part, into the story and the characters.
