The plays Miss Julie Essay Example for Free

The plays Miss Julie Essay The plays Miss Julie, August Strindberg, 1888 and A Dolls House, Henrik Ibsen, 1879 are two plays with a variety of themes and different views of life. But both plays have women as their major characters: Julie and Nora Helmer. The role of women in both plays is shown to be different. In Miss Julie, Strindberg shows women as inferior in society, as he believed that they were a secondary form of humans. In A Dolls House, at first, we think that Nora is a typical innocent wife. This leads Ibsen to relate women seen by society, as wives, mothers, and working at home. Ibsen wants to reinforce the subordination of the role of women to show the need for changes. A comparative study will be made of the lives of these two women and the role they occupy in each play. Julie is the mistress of the house, with Jean, the valet and Kristin, the cook. All the events and problems happening in the play could be a result of certain circumstances: first, her feminist mothers primary instincts about men made her disgusted and horrified about them. The absence of her father leads to an incomplete rising of herself. She had just broken off her engagement and her ex-fianci had an influence on her depravation. Also, it was in Midsummer Eve, she was in her period; she loved dancing, and was influenced by the flowers. Julie starts as superior to Jean in terms of class, as she is from an aristocratic family and Jean is her fathers servant. She manipulates him in the start: Supposing I order you to Julie (pg 81), Ill obey Jean (pg 81). Miss Julie starts making advances to Jean, who becomes worried about her reputation, becomes wild calling him to dance, and he ends up conquering her sexually. Jean thought that having sex with her would probably help him to better his social status, but he discovers she is penniless and so desists. Jean at first was in love with Julie, idealizes her at the start but once he had had her, he starts to degrade Julie. Julie becomes a sick woman, suffering from hysteria and feminine masochism, Julie had the desire to fall and be dominated by a man. Now Julie was totally dependent upon Jean. Jean was superior to Julie in terms of morality as he was a man and she was a degenerate woman. Strindberg wants to show that Jeans power over Julie is not because of the fact that he is rising socially but only because he is a man. This shows how maleness is a sign of superior status. Julie suffers a severe depression and humiliation as the sexual affair with Jean pushed her to the edge. Julie degrades herself when taking the initiative and sleeping with Jean, places herself beneath his level, destroyed the image of the woman.