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)
Pishkan (2000: P.915), mentions that Miss Y seems the stronger:
"Well, they are not altogether the same thing, looks up scornfully. Now you shall see what I bought for my piggy
wigs up a doll. Miss Y laughs aloud,
shrinks with laughter. I won't sit at
the same table with you." (Ibid: P.
915). These are such considerable
evidence that show the capable person who can stay worthless in the face of an
uncontrolled spate of words is both strong and wise. A babbler, especially a female babbler, is
supposed inevitably to wind herself into a cocoon on her own words and become
entrapped. We need only reflect that Mrs X, however unwittingly, has remade
herself in limitation of rival to become convinced that Miss Y, the rival,
somehow evictions, even though she had lost both her fiancé and the man who
formed the apex of the love triangle.
Miss Y's position as the true victor - the stronger - seems even more
convincing. Mrs X embroidered tulips,
which she hates, but it is Miss Y's favourite flowers. Mrs X tries to imitate Miss Y's father
name. Mrs X tries to wear Miss Y's
colours, reads her favourite authors, eats her favourite foods, and drinks her
favourite drinks as it is shown in the following lines:
"That is the reason I had to embroider tulips
which I hate on his slippers, because you
are fond of tulips; we go to Lake Malarn in
the summer, because you don't like salt
water; that's why my boy is named Eskil-
because it is your father's name; that is why
I wear your colours, read your authors, eat your
favourite dishes, drink your drink, chocolate..."(4)
There are many women who resemble Mrs X and her sudden flash of
insight, and this shows how powerful Miss Y's influence has been on her and her
life, wants to acknowledge the superior strength of her adversary. Indeed, for a few moments Mrs X seems to be
making such acknowledgement. She begins
to compare Miss Y with different things.
She compares her to a worm eating an apple (Mrs X) from the inside and
leaving nothing; but Mrs X means that she lives inside her all the time so the
soul is that of Miss Y; but the body is that of Mrs X because she imitates her
as part of her plan.
Besides, she compares her to a snake because Miss Y cheats by seducing
her husband and she had watched her with black eyes. This means that Mrs X can not get ride of the
influence of Miss Y; therefore, Mrs X regards herself as a bird caught by that
snake. Also, she (Miss Y) compares her
to a giant crab lying under water catching the bound feet of Mrs X by its
powerful claws. The following lines show
the weaknesses of Mrs X, they are:
"Your soul crept into mine, like a worm
into an apple, ate and ate, bored and
bored, until nothing was left but the
wind and a little block dust within I
wanted to get from Xou, but I could
not I left that when I littled my wings
they only dragged me down; I lay in
the water with bound feet and the
stronger I strove to keep up the deeper I
worked myself down, down, until I sank
to the botton, when you lay like a giant
crab to clutch me in your claws -and
there I am lying now."(5)
Strindberg creates an episode of incredible, poetic power - a snapshot
of life so intense, so powerful that it rivals Beckett at his best. The Stronger is rich in allegory and lends
itself to many layers of interpretation; it is a play that takes little more
the ten minutes to read / perform, but that can easily spend hours thinking
about afterwards. It is, moreover, a
powerful play, one that makes a deep impression, and leaves one with the
illusion that has travelled for and seen much, even though the entire thing is
actually incredible short. (John, 1985:
P. 10)
What is it that makes the play so powerful? To begin with, it is an immaculate piece of
stagecraft. It is a tribute to
Strindberg's genius that despite the father that Miss Y says nothing right
though the play, the interaction between her and Mrs X is inevitable sense of
the term dialogue. Strindberg uses a
combination of stage directions and reactions from Mrs X to ensure that Miss Y
is more than a passive listener and that her responses influence and guide the
thread of the scene.
Kia (2001, P.22), states that the purpose of Mrs X in using different
thins in the play is her desire to degrade Miss Y. But there is a more serious reason that, it
is that the man is originally an animal.
Therefore, Mrs X uses different images of animals to explain the
behaviours of Miss Y: "I hate you, hate you, hate you!" she cries after a passionate speech, her
recognition of the true meaning of past circumstance Mrs X's character is
changed and grown before an eyes. Her
angry outburst is followed by scornful vituperation: "you only sit there
... as quiet as a stroke by a rat hole ... and read the papers ... to see if
someone has not been given notice at the theatre."
This gives place to pity: "you are unhappy, unhappy like one who
has been wounded." And pity gives
place to triumph. You are angry because
you are wounded, I can't be angry with you; no matter how much I want to be
because you come out the weaker one.
(Ibid: P. 30)
In fact, "The Stronger" is one of those fascinate pieces of
writing that lend themselves to multiple and conflicting interpretations. As the play progresses, we discover that Miss
Y and Mrs X are rivals for more than theatre roles - Miss Y is having / has had
an affair with Mrs X's husband. Except
that the play never really corroborates this - we only know that by the end of
the scene Mrs X believes that this is true.
(The Element of Drama, P. 22)
Frequently, Mrs X learned to drink chocolate from you. But, Miss Y is now sipping (drinking) beer,
forget her awful life and run away from her better reality. This refers to Mrs X changes towards the
best; while Miss Y lost. Mrs X to Miss Y
that she is stronger than her due to Miss Y learned Mrs X how to love her
husband and these are the means by which Miss X was watching Miss Y all the
time and was taking useful thing of her.
Mrs X thanks Miss Y for her good lessons. The following lines show Mrs X's strength:
"Everything is worthless and sterile in your
hands; you can never keep a man's
love with your tulips and your passions.
But I can keep it. You can't
learn how
to live, as I have learned. You
have no
little Eskil. You are always
silent?
I thought that was strength, but perhaps
It is because you have nothing to say!
Thank you, Amelia, for all your good
lessons. Thanks for teaching my
husband
how to love. Now I am going home
to
love him."(6)
The debate in the play is about gender roles. The divergence of interpretations brings us
to the first of the allegories implicit in the play. Strindberg captures wrongfully the
fundamental duality of the role women play in society. In Mrs X, we have the woman as caring mother
and devoted wife, a person who has lost all individuality and been completely
reshaped by the demands of her husband a woman who glories in the stability and
warmth of the family life she had achieved on the other hand, we have Miss Y,
who is the independent woman, who lives her life her own way and is able, because
of her independence to shape others to her personality, but who ultimately ends
up alone in a restaurant on Christmas Eve.
(Julia, 1975: P.22)
Edwin (1979, P.5), illustrates that there is a deeper allegory in the
play in choosing to silence the character of Miss Y and showing us how Mrs X is
able to carry on a conversation with someone who never actually speaks to her
at all, Strindberg has created an image of man's interaction with God. In the play, Miss Y is not really an
individual, but more a sort of human mirror that Mrs X uses to understand and
interpret her own life, surfacing her discontent and insecurity and reconciling
herself to them by means of dialogue that is entirely one sided Miss Y doesn't
need to say anything, and what she thinks or knows has no part in the
development of the story.
The Theme of the Play "The Stronger"
Pishkan (2000, P. 612), states that expressionism is generally applied
to 20th century view point that proclaims the primacy of emotion in all the
arts. Expressionism signifies all modern
art, it is actually a recurring tender linked to romanticism. It is traced back to developments in France
during the 1880s in reaction against impressionism. Expressionism, in literature, as, art was an
attempt to widen the frontier of aesthetic consciousness by exploring aspects
of mind unaccounted for by realism or naturalism.
The term "expressionism" was first used to describe the world
painters who departed from the value and techniques of the impressionists; but
soon extended to describe a variety of experimental techniques in all the
arts. Expressionist writers often
distorted objects and actions from the outer world in order to represent them
as they appeared in the inner mind. The
Swedish writer August Strindberg is generally recognized as the first
expressionist playwright. This theme
seeks to give artistic shape to inner, often revolutionary tendencies; his
belief was that the economic and social conditions of the age were constant
driving women into an increasingly selfish and immoral position. He was violent hatred of women in
general. The play "Stronger"
is about many aspects of two ladies, Mrs X who is an actress, married and Miss
Y an actress, unmarried. We have seen
Mrs X's anxiety about her husband, and Miss Y shows ignorance and careless
which means that this form of dialogue without answering is one of the
characteristics of the expressionism theatre.
Mrs X has an inner problem and Miss Y does bad deeds by attracting me;
which is another characteristic of the expressionistic theatre to take revenge
from society. (Ibid: PP.222-224)
In fact, the theme is about women that economic and social conditions
of the age were constant driving women into an increasingly selfish and immoral
position. Therefore, we can say Mrs X
disgusts from Miss Y and the deeds of Miss Y can be the cause of poor
conditions of their social life.
Strindberg Mrs X in the opening performance, instructed her to play Mrs
X as the stronger; that is to say, the softer.
He stays the rigid person.
Conclusions
On the surface, there's nothing particularly complicated about
Strindberg's play "The Stronger". Two women - two actresses - run
into each other in a restaurant on Christmas Eve. One is married and has been
out shopping for presents for her family, the other is unmarried and is sitting
alone in the restaurant reading magazines and drinking. We are told almost
nothing about these women - they are not even important enough to have names;
Strindberg calls them simply Mrs. X and Miss Y. And the entire play consists of
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.
The play is filled with irony.
One reason Mrs X is not thought
to be the stronger is that she goes back to her husband after she concludes
that and affair has existed ironically thinking that an affair will not disable
her marriage, and she says: "That only gave me a stronger hold on my
husband."
notes
(1) Ekman, Has Gorm, (2000). Strindberg and the Five Scenes: Studies in Strindberg's Chamber Plays London and New Brunswick, New Jersey. P. 54.
(2) Falker, Fanny, (1921). August Strindberg. P.17.
(3) Innes, Christopher, (2000). A Source Book on Naturalist Theatre. London New York. P.11.
(4) Meyer, Michael, (1985). Strindberg: A Biography. Oxford. P.77.
(5) Paulson, Arvid, (1970). World Historical Plays. By August Strindberg. New York. P.60.
(6) William, Paymond, (1952). Drama from Ibsen to Bretch. London. P.20.
References
Adam (2002). Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol. 259. Twentieth-Century
Swedish Writers before World Was II.
Carlson, M. (1993). Theories of the Theatre: A Historical and Critical survey from
the Greeks to the Present. London: Cornel University Press.
-------------- (1993). All August Strindberg's Life.
Lane, S. (1998). The Sons of a Servant.
Lindberg. (2000). The Swedish Theatre.
Modernism: Against the New Conformists. London and New York.
Benttey, E. (1958). The Brates. United States of America.
Perrine, L. (2001). Drama: The Elements of Drama. Ltd.
Peter, V. (2000). Stylistic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Piskhan, K. (2000). A Readers' Guide to English Literature. Oxford.
Strindberg, A. (1985). The Stronger. New York. Ltd.
Word, J. (1980). The Social and Religious Plays of Strindberg. London
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