ISSN: 2226-6348
Open access
The examination of female reactions to patriarchal institutions in August Strindberg's Miss Julie and The Father may be framed using Walby's approach, which emphasizes the interaction of social, cultural, and economic variables. This research demonstrates how Julie's character represents the battle against patriarchal tyranny and cultural expectations. The play Miss Julie delves into female hysteria and patriarchy, which may represent the influence of 19th-century neuroscience, demonstrating how cultural beliefs of mental illness overlap with gender roles. The two Strindberg plays emphasize that even aristocratic society engages in unethical behavior. The two plays are loaded with class strife and repressive reality, exposing the psychological effects of their social status. This interplay of deception emphasizes the constraints imposed by patriarchal and class hierarchies, distorting their relationships and personal identities. While Strindberg's work criticizes patriarchal standards, it also raises questions about the more significant implications of gender and class in literature, implying that the fight against oppression is multidimensional and deeply established in societal conceptions. Contemporary versions of Miss Julie use cinematographic techniques to explore these topics, highlighting the unseen tensions and complexity of gender and class in modern society. While Strindberg's writings usually depict women as victims of patriarchal oppression, they also encourage a closer examination of female agency and resistance within these boundaries, revealing a more complicated picture of gender relations during his time.
Alanazi, M. S. (2023). Examining the Impact of the Advancements in Nineteenth Century Neuroscience on Drama: An Analysis of Jean-Martin Charcot’s Stages of Female Hysteria in August Strindberg’s Miss Julie. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 13(9), 2347-2355.
Cardullo, B. (2011). An Idea of the Drama: Six Modern Playwrights in One Movement: Essays in Revisionism. Peter Lang.
Carr, N. R. (2016). Misreading Mammy: Towards a Sexual Revolution of Contemporary/Third Wave Black Feminisms (Doctoral dissertation, University of Miami).
Davari, H., & Sadeghi, M. (2017). A Dialectical Reading of Strindberg's Miss Julie. Journal of Humanistic and Social Studies, 8(2), 65-79.
Demiray, M. (2022). Vital lie in Strindberg’s Miss Julie: Illusion versus reality. RumeliDE Dil ve Edebiyat Ara?t?rmalar? Dergisi, (31), 1236-1244.
Hussain, A. (2021). A Critical Analysis of the Creditors: A Play by August Strindberg.
Kareem, S. A. (2024). The Defective Image of Man in Modern Drama: A Critical Study of August Strindberg's The Father. International Journal of Literature Studies, 4(1), 52-63.
Lisovskaya, P., & Naumova, A. (2022). The clash between the sinister and the sublime in Strindberg’s The Father and Miss Julie.
Mohammed, Z. T., & Jassim, A. K. (2023). Self-Denial and Forceful Social Engagement in Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler and Strindberg’s Miss Julie. International Journal of Research in Social Sciences and Humanities (IJRSSH), 13(II).
Olenina, A. H. (2020). Psychomotor Aesthetics: Movement and Affect in Modern Literature and Film. Oxford University Press.
Strindberg, A. (2013). Miss Julie. A&C Black.
Szalczer, E., & Stenport, A. W. (2012). Stockholm–Berlin–Moscow: Strindberg and Avant-Garde Performance in the 1920s. The International Strindberg: New Critical Essays, 27-49.
Walby, S. (1990). Theorising Patriarchy (Basil Blackwell, Oxford).
Walby, S. (2023). What is femicide? The United Nations and the measurement of progress in complex epistemic systems. Current Sociology, 71(1), 10-27.
Xu, X. (2019, May). The Subversion of Gender, the Immensity of Desire: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation of Strindberg’s Miss Julie. In 2nd Symposium on Health and Education 2019 (SOHE 2019), 483-487.
Alyousif, S. H., & Sallehuddin, A. K. B. (2025). The Female Response to the Walby’s Patriarchal Model in the August Strindberg Plays the Father and Miss Julie. International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, 14(1), 09–29.
Copyright: © 2025 The Author(s)
Published by HRMARS (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode