Who is the Stronger in the Play of August Strindberg
The Swedish writer August Strindberg (1849-1912) is generally recognized as the first expressionist playwright. August Strindberg was born on 22 January 1849 at Riddar-Holms-hammen 14 He ancestors came from Angermanland Province in northern Sweden. The first twenty years of Strindberg's life was a period of great economic and industrial growth for Stockholm. During high school, he led a classroom rebellion against school religion. He refused to attend school prayers. After graduation from high school, he joined two universities and he became a member of the privileged class.
He married three times. His first wife was the Swedish actress Sirivon Essen (married in 1887, divorced in 1880s), his second wife was the Austrian author Fridauli (married in 1893; divorced in 1896), his third wife was the Swedish actress, Harriet Boss (married in 1901, divorced in 1904). He wrote plays and letters but he couldn't write verse. He started to write a comedy set in Rome earlier in the nineteenth century, and a tragedy about Christ. (Lindberg, 2000: P.50)
Strindberg himself, writing to his wife, Siri, who was to play Mrs X in the opening performance, instructed her to play Mrs X as the "Stronger, that is to say, the softer". For, he continued, "the rigid person breaks while the supple person bends, and rises again."
Strindberg is a Swedish playwright, novelist and short-story writer, who embodied in his works psychology, naturalism, and other element of new literary forms. Strindberg was married three times - several of his plays draw on the problems of his marriages and reflected his constant interest in self-analysis. Sensitive and controversial writer; who suffered from hostile reviews. Strindberg represented the 18th century ideal of artist as a free personality, unrestricted by convention. (Carlson, 1993: P. 40)
"My souls (characters) are conglomerations
of the past and present stages of
civilization, bits from books and
newspaper scraps of humity, rags
and tatters of fine clothing, patched
together as is the human soul
and I have added alittle
evolutionary history by making the
weaker steal and repeat the
words of the Stronger, and by
making the characters borrow
the ideas "suggestions" from one another."(1)
(Authors forward to Miss Julie in Six Plays of Strindberg, 1995: P.20)
He is a painter, essayist, and photographer. He explored a wide range of dramatic methods and purposes from naturalistic tragedy, monodrama, and history surrealist dramatic techniques. He is considered the "father of Modern Swedish Literature" (Adam, 2002: P. 15). His view on psychological power struggles may be seen in works such as "The Stronger" (1889). It is his notable contribution.
Who is the Stronger, Mrs X or Miss Y?
Eric (1958: P. 918), mentions things about the characters and said that there are two women, ran into each other in a restaurant on Christmas Eve. One is married and has been at shopping for presents for her family, the other is unmarried and is sitting alone in the restaurant reading magazine and drinking. Those two women are not even important enough to have names; Strindberg calls them simply: Mrs X and Miss Y.
"The comer of aladies' café. Two little iron
tables, a red velvet sofa, several chairs.
Enter Mrs X, dressed in winter clothes,
carrying a Japanese basket on her arm.
Miss Y sits with a half-empty beer
bottle before her, reading an illustrated
paper, which she changes later for another."(2)
Here, the entire play consists on nothing more than a single conversation between these two women. There is no action, no real plot development, nothing particularly out of the ordinary. In fact, one of the women, Miss Y, doesn't even speak in the entire performance.
"Mrs X Do you know it really hurts
me to see you like this, alone in a café's,
and on Christmas Eve, too. It makes me
feel as I did one time when I saw abridal
party in a Paris restaurant, and the
bride sat reading a comic paper, while
the groom played billiards with the witnesses."(3)
Explanation:
