In the play, Miss Julie, the element that grabbed my interest was the natural behaviors of the characters, and how they interacted with each other. Especially the conversations between Miss Julie and Jean, they were two different ranked individuals, but still the upper ranked Miss Julie wanted to have an affair, or have a date with the lower ranked Jean. Jean and Kristin were both workers and helpers for Miss Julie, and from experience and common sense, it is quite surprising that the ‘owner’ falls in love with the ‘workers’.
When Miss Julie finds out that she doesn’t have a dance partner, she decides to bring Jean for her partner. However, Jean is already taken by his fianci?? , Kristin. Miss Julie, of course, doesn’t care whether Jean is taken from; she just cares about her own needs and desires. She says, “{softly} Don’t take it as a command. This evening we are all just enjoying ourselves together, and any rank is laid aside. So give me your arm – Don’t worry Kristin! I shan’t run off you’re your fianci??!
” This shows how much the author, August Strindberg, writes all of the character’s behaviors through dialogue, but not words. In the past literature works we have read, it was quite common for the author to characterize the individuals in the plot, and did not characterize much in the dialogue. However, in this work, Miss Julie, the Strindberg did not use any explanation in the plot, nor did he write a small caption how each individual behaves. From this one quote, “{softly} Don’t take it as a command. This evening we are all just enjoying ourselves together, and any rank is laid aside.
So give me your arm – Don’t worry Kristin! I shan’t run off you’re your fianci??! ” we can already see who Miss Julie is. The reader, including myself, was very into the play mostly because it made us think who the characters are, and made us find it out ourselves. Another element that caught my interest and attention was the behaviors and the actions each character took. Jean, Kristin’s fianci?? , takes good care of Miss Julie. Even though Miss Julie told him and Kristin that all ranks are put aside for the night.
It is expectable from the reader’s point of view, that Jean and Kristin will spend time together, and not be any helper for anyone, but a normal engaged couple. However, Jean took the other side of the choice, and stuck with Miss Julie. It was seen the Jean had to dance with Miss Julie, but Jean was with her and helped even after the dance. Also, Miss Julie, the fact that she fell in love with Jean was true, and this shows how she lacks in nervousness. This will catch the reader’s attention because there is a twist into the play.
