Library / Literature & Fiction
Plays by August Strindberg: Creditors. Pariah.
- Pages
- about 83
- Category
- Literature & Fiction
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 1.5 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
This is one of the three plays which Strindberg placed at the head of
his dramatic production during the middle ultra-naturalistic period, the
other two being "The Father" and "Miss Julia." It is, in many ways,
one of the strongest he ever produced. Its rarely excelled unity
of construction, its tremendous dramatic tension, and its wonderful
psychological analysis combine to make it a masterpiece.
In Swedish its name is "Fordringsagare." This indefinite form may be
either singular or plural, but it is rarely used except as a plural. And
the play itself makes it perfectly clear that the proper translation of
its title is "Creditors," for under this aspect appear both the former
and the present husband of Tekla. One of the main objects of the play is
to reveal her indebtedness first to one and then to the other of these
men, while all the time she is posing as a person of original gifts.
I have little doubt that Strindberg, at the time he wrote this play--and
bear in mind that this happened only a year before he finally decided
to free himself from an impossible marriage by an appeal to the
law--believed Tekla to be fairly representative of womanhood in general.
The utter unreasonableness of such a view need hardly be pointed out,
and I shall waste no time on it. A question more worthy of discussion is
whether the figure of Tekla be true to life merely as the picture of
a personality--as one out of numerous imaginable variations on a type
decided not by sex but by faculties and qualities. And the same question
may well be raised in regard to the two men, both of whom are evidently
intended to win our sympathy: one as the victim of a fate stronger
than himself, and the other as the conqueror of adverse and humiliating
circumstances.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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