Reading Order
Miss Julie Reading Order
Miss Julie (1888) by August Strindberg is the founding text of Naturalist drama — the count's daughter Julie and the valet Jean on Midsummer's Eve, the seduction that destroys them both, and the question of who has destroyed whom. Strindberg wrote the play in a single week in 1888 and attached a long preface describing his formal innovations: the introduction of 'naturalistic' staging (real props, real set pieces, no footlights), the use of the intermission for a dance sequence rather than a break, the elimination of explicit exposition. The play is also Strindberg's most explicit statement of his view of the battle of the sexes: Julie is the daughter of a feminist count who has raised her to compete with men; Jean is the valet who both desires her and despises her; their night together is a battle in which both win (sexually) and both lose (socially, psychologically). The ending — Jean giving Julie his razor and the hypnotic instruction 'go' — is one of the most disturbing stage directions in the drama.
Where to start
Miss Julie (1888) — any modern translation, but always read with Strindberg's preface, which is as important as the text. Best Strindberg reading order: Miss Julie → The Father → A Dream Play → The Ghost Sonata → The Dance of Death
Complete Miss Julie Book List
- 1Buy
Miss Julie
August Strindberg·1888·The founding text of Naturalist drama — the count's daughter Julie and the valet Jean on Midsummer's Eve, the seduction, and the razor. Strindberg's most performed play; the preface is essential. Premiered in Copenhagen in 1889 after being refused a license in Sweden for its shocking content - 2Buy
The Father
August Strindberg·1887·The companion Strindberg play — the Captain and his wife Laura's battle for control over their daughter's upbringing, which the Captain loses. The Father and Miss Julie are companion explorations of the battle of the sexes in Strindberg's terms: The Father is the battle seen from the man's perspective (the woman wins through guile); Miss Julie is the battle seen from both perspectives (both lose in different ways) - 3Buy
Hedda Gabler
Henrik Ibsen·1890·The companion in the Scandinavian dramatic tradition of the psychologically intense play about a woman who cannot live within the constraints her society imposes — Hedda Tesman and the offstage shot. Ibsen and Strindberg are the two masters of the Scandinavian dramatic 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 - 4Buy
A Doll's House
Henrik Ibsen·1879·The companion feminist play in the Scandinavian tradition — Nora Helmer's departure. A Doll's House and Miss Julie are companion investigations of women's position in bourgeois society: Ibsen's is sympathetic to the woman who refuses her role; Strindberg's (written partly in response to A Doll's House) shows the woman who has been given freedom by her feminist father and uses it to destroy herself and the man she seduces - 5Buy
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Edward Albee·1962·Albee's companion in the tradition of the play organized around the battle of the sexes — George and Martha's terrible night of games and warfare. 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 - 6Buy
Thérèse Raquin
Émile Zola·1867·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 - 7Buy
Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert·1857·Flaubert's companion in the literary tradition of the woman destroyed by the gap between her desires and what her social position can provide — Emma Bovary in provincial Normandy. Madame Bovary and Miss Julie are companion literary investigations of the destructive desire of women who cannot be satisfied by what their world offers them - 8Buy
The Dance of Death
August Strindberg·1900·Strindberg's later companion — the sustained marital warfare of Edgar and Alice on their island. The Dance of Death is 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
Miss Julie — Frequently Asked Questions
What is Miss Julie about by Strindberg?
Miss Julie is set on a single Midsummer's Eve in the kitchen of a Swedish estate and follows three characters: Miss Julie, the daughter of the count who owns the estate; Jean, the valet; and Kristin, the cook who is Jean's girlfriend. Over the course of the night, Miss Julie descends to the kitchen during the servants' Midsummer celebration, becomes increasingly drawn to Jean, and eventually seduces him (or is seduced by him — the play is deliberately ambiguous about the direction of agency). The aftermath of their encounter is the play's central section: Jean and Julie discuss what to do, consider running away to start a hotel together, and gradually reveal the violence beneath the surface of their interaction. The play ends with Jean giving Julie his razor and hypnotically instructing her to go — an ending that implies (but does not show) Julie's suicide. Strindberg's preface describes Julie as a victim of multiple forces simultaneously: her class (the aristocrat who has fallen); her sex (the woman who has been given false freedom by a feminist father); her time of month (Strindberg specifically mentions menstruation as a contributing factor, in the language of 1888 science); and her own psychological constitution. Jean is simultaneously the victimizer and the victim: he has everything he wanted (sex with the count's daughter) and is destroyed by the fear that she might return from her walk
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