The Father is a Naturalistic

Naturalism (theatre)

Naturalism is a movement in European drama and theatre that developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It refers to theatre that attempts to create a perfect illusion of reality through a range of dramatic and theatrical strategies: detailed, three-dimensional settings Naturalism is a...

 tragedy

Tragedy

Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...

 by Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 playwright August Strindberg

August Strindberg

Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...

, written in 1887.

Plot

The story surrounds the conflict of interest between The Captain and his wife, Laura. The Captain is an ex-military hero and a well-respected scientist who fights with his wife about how to raise their daughter, Bertha. Both know Bertha cannot be raised in the Captain's household; however, the Captain wants her to be raised as an atheist in the city, whereas Laura wants her daughter to have a different destiny, perhaps as an artist. Swedish law at the time prevents Laura's wishes about her daughter's future to be followed, so she frames the Captain to be mentally insane in order to win the decision over her daughter's future. In order to make the Captain go insane, she introduces the idea that for all he knows, Bertha may not even be his daughter - implying that she had been unfaithful. Laura also intercepts his mail, and lies to the influential Doctor, in efforts to convince him of the Captain's insanity. The Captain starts to believe that Bertha is not his child, and eventually is locked in a room, with bullets emptied from all guns, so the Captain may not shoot himself. Laura, who has now swayed the long contemplative Doctor and the Pastor into believing the Captain's perhaps now legitimate insanity, attempts to put a straitjacket on him as he comes out. Rather, the Captain cites numerous times in literature where there were references to illegitimate fathers, labels all women as his enemy, sits on his Nurse's lap in a position that almost suggests that of breastfeeding, and has a stroke on her knees. Bertha runs to her mother, who now has custody of her child.

Themes

Apropos to Strindberg's recurrent themes, The Father is a play that victimizes men, and puts a negative spotlight on women and their alleged manipulation over men. Many times, the Captain, in great detail, talks about how women have become his enemy, even his long loved Nurse. At the time the play was written, Strindberg's marriage was deteriorating with his wife Siri von Essen

Siri von Essen

Siri von Essen was a Swedish-speaking Finnish noblewoman and actress. She was married to Baron Carl Gustaf Wrangel between 1872–76, with whom she had a daughter, Sigrid. After their divorce, she married the Swedish dramatist and writer August Strindberg; they were married between 1877–91...

, and situations in the play could have very loosely resembeld situations occurring in his failing marriage. Furthermore, there is a heavy religious theme in the play. The Captain, who is an atheist, constantly disparages the Nurse's and Pastor's Christian beliefs as hypocritical and cold. Almost symbolically, the play's last line is the Pastor's, with a simple, "Amen." There are also references in the play to Greek Mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

 and Shakespeare plays, such as Merchant of Venice and Hamlet

Hamlet

The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...

.

Production background

Because of blasphemous comments about Jesus Christ, Strindberg found it hard for his work to be published and produced in Sweden. Therefore, the play was the first Strindberg play to be produced outside of Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

, in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 in 1890. The Father marked a turning point for Strindberg, as he went to a style of writing he deemed "artistic-psychological writing" (Oxford World's Classics ix). The Father was yet another example of the ongoing discussion in the Scandinavian theater surrounding women's rights, marriage and sexual morality (all topics seen in the work of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...

). Strindberg did not refer to his work as a work of naturalism

Naturalism (literature)

Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...

; he strived to make literature as objective as possible, and did not want his characters to require long, detailed back stories like in the naturalist dramas of Ibsen. Instead, he preferred simple professions (The Doctor, The Pastor, The Nurse) and charactonyms (Nöjd, Svärd) to give all the necessary information in terms of character (Oxford ix). Strindberg found naturalism to be a factor of great confrontation, and not mundanity. The play is largely symbolic, as the characters in The Father are symbols of masculine heroism vs. feminine deceit. There is almost a Darwinian struggle between these two principles, as Darwin's theory is referenced in the play.

Reception in English

The play has been translated by Peter Watts (1958), Michael Meyer

Michael Meyer

Michael Leverson Meyer was an English translator, biographer, journalist and dramatist.-Life:Meyer was born in London into a timber merchant family of Jewish origin, and studied English at Christ Church College, Oxford. His first translation of a Swedish book was the novel The Long Ships by Frans...

 (1964), Michael Robinson (1998), and Gregory Motton

Gregory Motton

Gregory Motton is a British playwright, most of whose work has been done in France. -Early career:Gregory Motton's first 2 plays went on in quick succession, Chicken at the Riverside Studios in April 1987 then Ambulance at the Royal Court in September 1987...

 (2000). The role of the Captain has been played in the West End

West End theatre

West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

 by Michael Redgrave

Michael Redgrave

Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave, CBE was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author.-Youth and education:...

 (1948), Wilfrid Lawson

Wilfrid Lawson (actor)

Wilfrid Lawson was a British character actor of stage and screen.-Life and career:...

 (1953) and Trevor Howard

Trevor Howard

Trevor Howard , born Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith, was an English film, stage and television actor.-Early life:...

(1964).

External links