Miss Julie is a one-act, naturalistic play set in Sweden on Midsummer's Eve. Miss Julie is the daughter of a count. Despite her higher social class, she dances with the servants and flirts with Jean, a valet. Julie and Jean's flirting is actually a battle for power and control. Their battle is made more complicated when they sleep together. The two make a plan to run off together, but are stopped by Kristine, the cook. With Jean's help, Miss Julie decides that her only option is suicide.
Darwinism
The major theme of the play is Darwinism, a theory that was a significant influence on the author during his naturalistic period. This is stated explicitly in the preface, where Strindberg describes his two lead characters, Miss Julie and Jean, as vying against each other in an evolutionary“life and death” battle for a survival of the fittest. The character, Miss Julie, represents the last of an old aristocratic breed about to die out as well as a characterization of women in modernity, whereas Jean represents one who is clambering upwards, and who is more fit to thrive because heis better able to adapt in terms of the “life roles” he can take on.
The play contains a variety of themes, partly because Miss Julie’s actions are motivated by a range of factors and influences: Her class, her desires and impulsive nature, her father, and the dynamic traumas of her family histories. She is given a number of motivations because the author, in wanting to be naturalistic, realizes that in life people can be motivated in a number of ways, and also because the author is taking a stand against the dominant theatrical idea that says that characters should be written with only one primary motivation.
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