” The play “Miss Julie” consists of three major characters, Miss Julie being the major one. She is the mistress, with Kristin the cook and Jean her valet. Miss Julie has just suffered from a broken engagement, which was caused by the fact that she wanted to make her husband her little puppy. This engagement problem causes her to advance over Jean, on Midsummer Eve. Other factors also may have caused her to take an action over Jean, like the fact that she has her period, her own nature, the sensual dancing and at last the man.
Her mother hates men and therefore she raised Julie to dislike them too and this is why Julie becomes so obsessed to take command over men. “Oh, I’d love to see the whole of your sex swimming in a sea of blood just like that. I think I could drink out of your skull. You think I loved you because my womb hungered for your seed. Bear your child and take your name! – Come to think of it, what is your name anyway? I’ve never heard your last name. You probably don’t even have one. I’d be Mrs. Doorkeeper or Madame Floorsweeper. You dog with my name on your collar – you lackey with my initials on your buttons!
” Miss Julie in the beginning of the play acts superior towards Jean, but this doesn’t last long. Right afterwards she begins to insinuate herself: “Supposing I order you too. ” Miss Julie then goes wild, she asks him to take her to the lake and therefore he warns her about her reputation. So they go to his room and after a while come back, implications are that they had sex. Jean wanted to benefit from the situation because he thought that by making love to Miss Julie he would raise his social status, but he then finds out that she isn’t resentful of what she’s done and therefore he gives up this idea.
While Jean wants to raise his social status, Miss Julie wants to lower it and from this it can be conveyed that she isn’t emotionally well, perhaps because she wants to ruin herself. “I’m sitting on top of a pillar that I’ve climbed up somehow and I don’t know how to get back down. When I look down I get dizzy. I have to get down but I don’t have the courage to jump. ” Towards the end of the play, in which Miss Julie is already suffering from hysteria, she has this desire to fall and be controlled by a man.
At this point, Jean has more power than Miss Julie; he is no longer dependent upon her because she has become a degenerate woman. When she makes love with Jean, she is at some point degrading herself because she’s being subject of his use and not the other way around as she wanted it to be. Both plays convey the image of women being vulnerable to the power of men hence the women are degraded. In Miss Julie, it can be conveyed that by the end of the play she is emotionally destroyed and therefore she surrenders to Jean; this is the climax of his power in the story.
“… I can’t do anything: I can’t repent, I can’t run away, I can’t stay; I can’t live, I can’t die. Help me now! Order me, and I’ll obey you like a dog. Do this last thing for me: save my honour, save my name. You know what I ought to do if only I had the will-power. Will me to do it – and command me to obey you. ” Miss Julie isn’t willing to suffer anymore and therefore she wants to kill herself, but first she must ask for the permission of Jean because she is no longer capable of doing anything by herself.
Besides understanding that Strindberg wants to convey that Miss Julie ends the play in a level lower than Jean and that the main focus is to show the conflict between genders. From the beginning of the play “A Doll’s House”, it is conveyed that Nora is a wife that is completely manipulated by her husband, Torvald. Nevertheless as we get to know her better it is suggested that Nora isn’t as innocent and pure as she looked like. Nora realized that she was living in “a doll’s house” and therefore everything was coming to an end so she should search for her individuality.
Nora realizes that Torvald isn’t devoted to her but to the idea that she is manipulated by him. At this point, Nora has enough courage to leave all her life behind and go after a new start. This suggests two different ideas; first that she was strong enough to go against Torvald and the second that she wasn’t so strong as she should have been, because instead of staying and fighting for an importance she decided to run from it. Ibsen sticks with the idea that she runs away from Torvald and from this past life as seen in previous quote.
Ibsen also conveys through his play the idea to women that they have a subordinate position in society. The title “Miss Julie” values the Miss Julie as the main element of the play while the title “A Doll’s House” gives out the idea of a “doll’s family” where everything is perfect but there’s no real feelings for each other.
