Demonstration of the Male Dominance and Superiority

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Recommended: Literature and power

August Strindberg’s naturalistic tragedy Miss Julie, plays on the shifts in power and authority. Whether staged between the Count’s influence over his servants or his daughter, the aristocrat Miss Julie over Jean, the Count’s valet, or more interestingly the vice versa of the latter relationship. The playout of the dominant character in the relationship is constructed not only by the constraints of class, social status, and often gender within context but also the fluidity of dialogue and tone within the play. Literary focus of speech length, tone, and the implication of what is said in context may highlight the imbalance of power centering on Miss Julie’s character. In doing so, the playwright’s usage of such literary techniques specifically on page 22 of Miss Julie, reveals his intentions to impose specific perceptions of the characters within the play on the audience.

When Jean romanticizes about setting up a hotel by a lake overseas somewhere in Romania, it is an exaggerated fantasy in which Miss Julie will serve not only as his financial support but also his personal servant, inverting their roles and reinforcing the idea of patriarchy and male dominance. Though Miss Julie was born into the upper stratum of society granting her authoritative power, Jean faces a superiority complex and declares that he “wasn’t born to cringe” (Strindberg 21) with his inferior social status and adds, using a hyphen, that he is a man. Thus, Strindberg’s identifies one of society’s widely shared assumptions on gender behavior and fulfills what is believed to be socially acceptable behavior and promoting gender inequality. The continuation of Jean’s reasoning punctuates how the oppressive verb “to cringe” is not an act a male character would po...

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...e is represented as inferior to Jean’s character despite her social standing but due to her actions and nature she has become a tool for exploitation for men. Her behavior – deemed unfitting according to the traditional thoughts of society at the time given her gender – paves the way for her degradation and humiliation in front of the audience. Male dominance and superiority takes form in both the manipulative nature and luring of Jean, her father’s valet, and the authoritative power and fear in her father, the Count.

Works Cited

Chin-Yi, Chung. The role of sex in the depiction of gender and class conflict in Miss Julie by August Strindbergand The House of Bernada Alba by Federico Garcia Lorca. Diss. National University of Singapore, 2013. Web. .

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