Analysis of the Character Miss Julie in Miss Julie
Analysis of the Character Miss Julie in Miss Julie
Miss Julie is one of August Strindberg’s masterpieces, a remarkable tragedy of naturalism. Strindberg projects himself into the main character Miss Julie, which is undoubtedly the main representation of the tragic factors. To have a better understanding of this famous tragedy, it is necessary for us to take a specific analysis of the main character Miss Julie. This paper aims at analyzing Miss Julie’s characters in three aspects: strong sense of insecurity, dual sexuality and social concept oppression.
To begin with, Miss Julie’s tragedy starts with her strong sense of insecurity, which represents in her loneliness and lack of love. Born in a noble family, Miss Julie enjoys great material life and high social rank. However, her spiritual life is really poor. At the age of 10, her mother teaches her to mistrust and hate all men. Her mother never truly loves her and she feels that she is cut off from everything that’s life. She is eager for freedom and care. Those beautiful walls and gardens are trapping her like a prison. Julie expresses this loneliness directly to the valet Jean: “Life is strange, people—everything. We’re just foam floating on water until we sink. Sometimes I dream that I’m on top of a column and I can’t get down. I’m almost fainting when I look down but I must get down. I’m so scared to fall. I can no longer hold on and I long to fall. But I don’t fall. Yet there is no place, no rest till I come down. I would be descending. I would fall. And if I reach the ground, I want to go further down, deep into the earth itself” (Strindberg, 437). Her loneliness comes from her high rank and she is eager to “get down” contacting other people and to be loved and accepted. This is the reason why she dances with the gamekeeper and the servant. When Julie orders Jean to dance with her, she says: “I have chosen to forget all rank, and so must you. Come, give me your arm. Thank you, Jean. I really don’t want to treat you as an inferior” (Strindberg, 436). Meanwhile, She does a lot of “improper” behaviors regardless of her social rank. She orders Jean to sit down in front of her, drink beer with her and dance with her again. Clearly, her behaviors are not elegant and proper, even in her servants’ eyes. The main reason for the improper behaviors lies in her strong sense of insecurity. Miss Julie naively thinks that in this way, the mobs will love her and she will be accepted. However, Jean directly points out that the mobs don’t love her. They just like her fortune and food. Meanwhile, this insecurity, on the other hand, contributes to Jean’s dirty trick towards Julie. Miss Julie easily believes that Jean falls in love with her from a very young age when he unburdens his adoration for her and she is touched deeply because she feels cared and loved. But after she has intercourse with Jean, she is frightened with what might happen after her father comes back. Different from Jean who concentrates on picturing the bright future of them after they fled to Switzerland, Miss Julie puts her hope entirely on Jean and keeps confirming if Jean truly loves her, even in a begging way. For her, finding a dependable person who truly loves her is more important than a decent life. Since the author Strindberg mirrors his life in Miss Julie, we may also find some clues from Strindberg’s real life. Strindberg’s mother died when he was only 13 and his father remarried the child’s governess in the next year. His father showed him indifference and his stepmother treated him viciously. So Strindberg had a deep mental shadow towards both men and women, which had a passionate impact on his three marriages. He held a negative attitude towards the interpersonal relationship and filled this attitude in this tragedy. Miss Julie is eager for love so she easily accepts Jean’s love, but this love is just a dirty trick. When her hope of love is crushed, there is only death waiting for her.
In addition to Miss Julie’s sense of insecurity, her dual sexuality also plays a great role in this tragedy. Physiologically, there is no doubt that Miss Julie is a woman, but at her debut, we see more of a man than a woman. Regardless of Kathleen’s feelings, she keeps flirting with her finance Jean by order him to dance with her, sit down in front of her, drink with her, toast her and pick flowers for her. She even orders Jean to kiss her shoe. Apparently, Miss Julie is from a higher rank and has the right to order her servants. Nevertheless, it looks more like a sexual abuse. At this moment, Miss Julie’s behaviors have nothing like those of a young lady from the noble family. Julie promises to her mother that she will never be a slave to any man. So instead of being the salve to any man, she tries to treat men as her servant. She keeps pushing Jean to accept those improper orders until he finally says “no”. As what Jean says “She thinks she can control everyone” (Strindberg, 435). Before Julie has intercourse with Jean, her position is much higher than Jean. A normal noble lady from the higher rank should behave with elegance, maintains her dignity and keeps distance from the servant, avoiding any physical contact. However, Miss Julie forces the valet to stay with her, touch her and flirt with her. In this sense, Miss Julie is definitely not a “lady”. She behaves more like a man and pursues gender equality. Nevertheless, after she has intercourse with Jean, she suddenly turns back to a little woman. She cries when Jean tells her that his love is not true. Her position sinks far below her own cook. Jean calls her “whore” and she couldn’t fight back. Miss Julie wants to lower her position to seek acceptance from Jean by telling her family tragedies. Unexpectedly, Jean holds the scandal to against her. “You see, I come from better stock than you. There’s no arsonist in my family” (Strindberg, 443). She is ashamed of her losing virginity to a servant who refuses to love her. She begs Jean to order her and behaves like a slave. Along with Jean, she even demeans herself in front of Jean “Yes, I’m dirt. I’m nothing. I don’t belong. I know. But please, please help me, Jean. I need to find a way out of this. Please help me” (Strindberg, 439). At this moment, Miss Julie behaves like a woman, a desperate woman who begs his valet for love, a helpless lady asking her lover for help. These two sexual characters both exist in Miss Julie. This complexity partly causes her tragedy. If she could insist the female characters and behave like a noble lady, she will not be abandoned by her finance. She will marry a gentleman of her rank and lead the normal noble life. If she could insist her male character and keep fighting for her love, she will not submit to the social concept and demeans herself lower than her servant. In spite of having intercourse with the valet, she could still keep her social rank and will not give up her life that easily. However, she is not strong enough to fight against the social rule or weak enough to submit to the social rule.
Last but not least, the social concept oppression also plays an important role in this tragedy. At that male dominant society, woman’s virginity is crucial to a lady. Even though Miss Julie tries to pursue that gender equality, she is still deeply influenced by the social concept. At the first several scenes, Miss Julie orders Kathleen to feed the dog “abortive poison” because the dog may be pregnant due to the gamekeeper’s dog. She is ashamed of this mixed feed so she prefers to give the dog this abortive poison that might even kill the dog than accept the mixed breed. This alludes to the relationship between Miss Julie and Jean. After having intercourse with Jean, Miss Julie treats herself as a “whore” and begs Jean for his love. In the bottom of her heart, she couldn’t accept this kind of “mixed breed”. She acts heavily after the intercourse “You think I’m going to stay in this house as your woman? Do you think I’ll let people point their fingers at me, laughing at me? Do you think I can ever look my father in the face after this” (Strindberg, 443)? Clearly, Miss Julie is deeply influenced by the social concept. But the eager for love pushes her to put all her hope on his lover. However, her lover crushes her hope and persuades her to kill herself. Without the support of her lover and the tolerance of this society, she has no choice but to kill herself to maintain the dignity of her father. So the social concept oppression also contributes to Miss Julie’s death.
To sum up, Miss Julie’s complex characters, her sexuality contradiction and the social concept contribute to her tragedy. She is eager to love, but too desperate to believe in a valet. She could neither follow the social rule as a noble lady, nor fight for her love like a man. She is eager to get rid of the social rules of her rank, but she can’t get rid of the social influence from her rank. Strindberg succeeds in penetrating this complexity into this masterpiece and making Miss Julie a world-famous tragedy.
Works Cited
Strindberg, August. Miss Julie. The Compact Bedford Introduction to Drama. Sixth Edition. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. Print.