Driving Miss Julie (While Under Jean's Spells)



A book cover for Johan August Strindberg’s play, "Miss Julie".

Driving Miss Julie
(While Under Jean’s Spells)
Young Adult Character Analysis

Written by Sky Enchantress


While reading Johan August Strindberg’s play, Miss Julie, the audience may notice that both protagonists compliment each other-- when one provokes, the other cowers and vice versa. The play succeeds because both characters possess the ability to stir deep emotions within each another. Although the audience may perceive that both characters are in love with each other, the truth of the matter may not be so.

An important aspect of the play is the recurring dreams both of the protagonists have and what they symbolize. Early in the play, Miss Julie and Jean have a moment where they both describe a recurring dream to one another.

Miss Julie recalls her dream about rising to the top of a pillar and then finding the strength to climb down. Jean, on the other hand, dreams about rising to the top of a tree and keeping himself perched on the very first branch of that tree.

As the play continues, the audience can look back at these dreams as foreshadowing. Though they are just dreams, by analyzing what they depict, the audience becomes aware of what may be the inevitable outcome for each of the protagonists of this story.

What is also interesting is that each dream correlates with the social class each character belongs to. Miss Julie was born in a social class of high status. Because of this, she knows nothing of what it is to be “underneath” her class. Her dream reveals a subconscious urge to feel that “underneath”-ness. While she recalls her dream to Jean, she tells him: “...I must get down, but I don’t have the courage to jump.... And yet I’ll have no peace until I get down...” (Miss Julie, 392).

Such a statement reveals a hidden fear of going down the social ladder, yet a fear that is met with a certain peace, if achieved. This dream foreshadows Miss Julie’s tragic end, when indeed she does step down the social ladder and finds peace “under the earth” as she had wanted by getting totally wasted (“And if I did get down to the ground, I’d want to be under the earth...” (392)).

Jean’s dream is the complete opposite of Miss Julie’s, because he is of a much lower social class than Miss Julie. In fact, he serves as a valet for Miss Julie’s father. His dream, as he recalls to Miss Julie, deals with the need to rise to the top of a tree, or in more symbolic terms, to rise to a higher social class or stature than what he is currently in.

However, Jean never rises to a higher social class. Instead, he rises in stature when he makes the transition from an order-obliging valet to what seems like commanding officer who eventually holds enough power to govern Miss Julie’s life (as revealed in the end when he “commands” her to get shell-shocked).

Because of class status, the audience knows that Miss Julie has every right to have authority over Jean. And both characters are aware of this, as well. It is no surprise then, when in Miss Julie’s presence, Jean states that he will only sit if commanded to.

(391)
JULIE: Why don’t you sit?

JEAN: I couldn’t do that in your presence.

JULIE: But if I order you to?

JEAN: Then I’d obey.

However, one important note that the audience must make, in order to gain some insight into Jean’s true nature, is later on when he subtly mocks the filthiness of the rich, as he tells a story centered around an extravagant outhouse:

(393)
“Near the vegetable garden was a small Turkish pavilion.... I had no idea what it was used for, but I’d never seen such a beautiful building.

People came in and came out again, and one day the door was left open.... I sneaked in, saw, and marveled! But then I heard someone coming!

There was only one exit for ladies and gentlemen, but for me there was another, and I had no choice but to take it!”

In this passage, he is undeniably referring to the age-old concept of “looks can be deceiving”. In his mind, he thought that the rich had it all: money, power, and beauty. This is conveyed in the appearance of the outhouse (which he refers to as a “Turkish pavilion”) that astounded him because of its beauty. However, only moments after entering, he ends up in a pile of human waste when he tries to escape out through the bottom of it. This led him to realize that even the rich can be disgusting inside.

After having this realization, it is possible that he lost his desire to be a part of the class Miss Julie belonged to. However, his desire for power never disappeared and he uses Miss Julie as leverage to obtain the power he had always wanted. He utilizes the temptation of forbidden love created by their class differences and lures her with his soulful stories, entrapping Miss Julie in a world of no return.

This is evident during Jean’s telling of the outhouse event, when she is seen dropping a lilac to the floor while she is listening to him. By this time, she is beginning to sympathize with him and feel sorry for him. Even more so, she begins to want him and he begins to gain control.

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Miss Julie had been ordering Jean around endlessly, which included forcing him to tell her who he was in love with at one point. After Jean tells her that she was his love interest long ago, Miss Julie begins to “fall” for him. She starts to lose the power to govern Jean and begins to swoon at his feet.

Most likely, Miss Julie was still heartbroken over her broken engagement and, perhaps, even feeling a little unwanted and unloved. However, Jean’s act of telling her that he had loved her since long before, caused her to lose total control of her emotions and allowed her heart to be swayed by his stories. Now, she was willing to step down from her class in order to love him back (because it was unacceptable to marry someone out of your class in that era).

Though Jean seems to be swayed by her, he at many times pulls back, perhaps to tease her and pull her down even farther. By this time, Jean has accepted the whole situation as a game, testing to see how far he can go and what he can gain along the way.

When a multitude of servants and chorus members start heading into the kitchen where Jean and Miss Julie are conversing. It is interesting to note that in deciding on what to do, Miss Julie remarks, “Am I to obey you?” (394) where then Jean retorts, “Just this once--for your own good!” (394)

Afterwards, the audience can assume that they have done the dirty deeds together when they emerge together from the room that they had hid in. But another side of Jean surfaces, which shocks both Miss Julie and the audience.

At this point, Jean has gained what he wanted from her: dirty deeds, and no longer needs her. Thus, he makes a sudden behavioral change, where now he is in command and control, giving orders and calling the shots.

(395)
JEAN: (He takes out a cigar and snips the end, and lights it.) You sit there, and I’ll sit here. We’ll talk as if nothing happened.

JULIE (desperately): Oh, my God! Have you no feelings?

JEAN: Me? No one has more feelings than I do, but I know how to control them.

JULIE: A little while ago you could kiss my shoe--and now!

JEAN (harshly): Yes, but that was before. Now we have other things to think about.

Even before he speaks, his act of lighting the cigar can be interpreted as Jean’s coolness surfacing and his ease of relaxing, even though Miss Julie is standing on the brink of destruction. This alone conveys to the audience that Jean never held any true feelings for her. If he had, then he too would be tense and hopelessly searching for a way out of the impossible situation they have placed themselves in.

One should also note the change in Miss Julie’s behavior towards Jean. When before she perceived him to be her servant, she now begs to be heard and to be a part of his life.

The protagonists swap roles from powerful to weak, and vice versa. After they evidently have done the dirty deeds, both protagonists seem to undergo a gender and personality swap. Jean is no longer the submissive valet; rather, he is the commanding officer while Miss Julie has “fallen” from her pillar and assumed the role of a servant that must oblige.

The audience may question Jean’s motives and the amount of truth that had been in his words until this point. But another question that comes to mind at this point is, whether or not Jean knew beforehand what was going to happen. If so, did he purposely pull Miss Julie down from her pillar by doing the dirty deeds with her and then disregarding everything after getting what he wanted? The audience can only assume that the answer is, yes.

Though Jean is an individual from the lower class, his intellect does not represent his class. The fact that he allowed Miss Julie to order him around like a dog on a leash was perhaps part of his plan to rise to the top as he always wanted, and once he was there, he would be in total control.

In the very beginning of the play, Jean raves about how crazy Miss Julie is. He was also aware of her recent broken engagement, that would allow him to reel her in to him more easily, by saying the right things. More specifically, by telling her that he at one point was in love with her.

Miss Julie getting totally wasted is foreshadowed both by the beheading of her pet canary, and by the date in which the play has transitioned to: St. John’s Day, which is a holiday commemorating the beheading of John the Baptist.

Unfortunately for Miss Julie, she is at a point of no return; she has finally fallen off her pillar and like in her dream, she will find no peace until she is “under the earth”.

Though Jean is the one to first suggest the act of getting shell-shocked, one wonders if he ever had in mind dastardly deeding Miss Julie, because at the notion of picking up the dastardly device, he quickly places it back down, embarrassed to even make such a suggestion. It is possible that he imagined things would go far, but never assumed it would get so out of hand.

However, for Miss Julie, getting totally wasted is the final step she has been awaiting. As her dream foreshadowed, she fell from her pillar, got shell-shocked and achieved her peace when her body was buried “under the earth” (none of which the audience ever sees, because the play ends as Miss Julie steps out of the kitchen and presumably gets totally wasted).

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Miss Julie is a story of fame and fortune that ends in disaster. What at first appears to be a love story, ends up being a story of the search for power and control at whatever cost. The audience observes two protagonists, each with their own ambition and means of achieving it. In the end, their dreams come to fruition at the cost of dignity and death.

Jean, who in the beginning appears to be a gentleman, transforms into an almost monster-like being; first fooling and then using Miss Julie. She has the rug pulled from underneath her, never being allowed to get back up on her two feet.

Although Miss Julie may have had her own shortcomings, Jean can be blamed for her downfall. For she was bewitched under his spells.


Works Cited

Strindberg, Austin. Miss Julie. The Compact Bedford Introduction to Drama. 2nd ed.
Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. Boston: St. Martin’s Press, 1996. 389-404.




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