Recommendations
Books Like Miss Julie
Best books to read after Miss Julie by August Strindberg
Readers who love Miss Julie by August Strindberg are drawn to its combination of psychological intensity, sexual politics, Naturalist precision, and the question of who is the victim and who the victimizer in a confrontation where class, gender, and desire all pull in different directions — they want plays and novels that deal with the battle of the sexes, the relationship between class and sexuality, and the Naturalist literary tradition.
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The Father
by August Strindberg
The companion Strindberg play — the Captain and his wife Laura's battle for control. Companion explorations of the battle of the sexes: The Father from the man's perspective (the woman wins through guile); Miss Julie from both perspectives (both lose in different ways)
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Hedda Gabler
by Henrik Ibsen
The companion in the Scandinavian dramatic tradition of the psychologically intense play about a woman who cannot live within the constraints her society imposes. Ibsen and Strindberg are the two masters of the Scandinavian tradition; Miss Julie and Hedda Gabler are companion explorations of the woman who cannot fit the role her society assigns her, from opposite political positions
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A Doll's House
by Henrik Ibsen
The companion feminist play in the Scandinavian tradition — Nora Helmer's departure. Miss Julie was written partly in response to A Doll's House: where Ibsen's is sympathetic to the woman who refuses her role, Strindberg's shows the woman who has been given freedom by her feminist father and uses it to destroy herself
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Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
by Edward Albee
Albee's companion in the tradition of the play organized around the battle of the sexes. Albee knew Strindberg well, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is the American version of the Strindbergian battle-of-the-sexes play: both are organized around a confrontation in which the weapons are intelligence, sexuality, and cruelty
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Thérèse Raquin
by Émile Zola
Zola's companion in the Naturalist literary tradition — the murderous relationship between Thérèse Raquin and Laurent. Zola was the theorist of Naturalism; Strindberg's Miss Julie applies Zola's principles to the drama. Both are organized around the destructive sexual relationship between people whose desires exceed what their social positions can satisfy
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Madame Bovary
by Gustave Flaubert
Flaubert's companion in the Naturalist tradition of the woman destroyed by the gap between her desires and what her social position can provide. Companion literary investigations of the destructive desire of women who cannot be satisfied by what their world offers them
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The Dance of Death
by August Strindberg
Strindberg's later companion — the sustained marital warfare of Edgar and Alice on their island. The continuation of Strindberg's investigation of the battle of the sexes beyond the single explosive night of Miss Julie into the long war of a marriage that has become a sustained campaign of mutual destruction
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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
by Tennessee Williams
Williams's companion in the tradition of the American play about the violence concealed in domestic relationships and the question of what is actually happening beneath the surface of sexual tension. Both Miss Julie and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof are organized around the question of what is really going on between the people who desire and fear each other at the play's center
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