Play Analysis: Miss Julie
In the play, Miss Julie, by August Strindberg, three characters, Miss Julie, Jean, and Kristin, sit in a large kitchen of a Swedish manor house in a country district in the 1880’s. The three of them hope for the future and try to escape their present situations. It’s a love story. Regarding the plays exposition, the first character is Miss Julie who’s the leading lady, at age twenty-five, is depressed and trying to distract herself with parties and dancing. She is very well off, rich and recently she has split up from her engagement to her fiancé because she was simply too board with him. The second character is Jean, he’s the valet and at age thirty has an informal engagement with Kristin, talks about marrying her, but does so with one eye on Miss Julie the whole time. Kristin is the cook of the house Miss Julie owns, and Kristin is thirty-five years old. I find it interesting that Jean is torn between his infatuations for Miss Julie, a bit younger than he, while promised to Kristin who is a bit older than him. The play begins with a point of attack where Jean and Miss Julie stay up late drinking beer secretly in the kitchen. Jean confesses to her how he has been in love with Miss Ju
The conflict between Julie and Jean thickens when Kristin discovers the two have been up all night long talking about their plans, and that they want to run away. At the end of the play, Jean goes to serve Miss Julie’s father, the Count has summoned his valet. Miss Julie exits with a razor in her hand. They never run away together, Jean is going to continue to serve as he has his whole life. Miss Julie is going to get her escape. Julie ultimately has a triumph at the end. She has felt trapped in her house and in her social class, and Jean has put so many ideas into her head. She fell in love with him, and asked him to tell her what to do at the end, instead of her telling him. Jean submissively continues to serve as a valet and looses his love and his dreams of building a Hotel with her by the end of the play. This makes it a tragedy. I think Julie and Jean should have run away together, it never could have worked, but when I was reading it I was rooting for them the whole time. The degree of loss for Jean was great. His dreams were all he had, and he gave them to Miss Julie. The language of the play is very serious. There are no jokes; a lot of confessions take place between Julie and Jean. I think it’s probably because they are drinking. Their language would be in everyday use. There is a few references to music in the play. A chorus of people walks by Jean and Julie when they are outside hiding not to be seen. And when Julie and Jean dance, an orchestra plays waltz music. The information given about costumes shows that Kristin wears an apron, Jean a black suit, and Julie is dressed nicely in fine clothes. lie since he first saw her. The dramatic action is set into motion when Jean confesses that as a young boy working
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Julie Jean,
Naturalistic Tragedy,
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Jean Kristin,
Kristin Jean,
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play jean,
play miss julie,
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Approximate Word count = 1181
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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