Mikael Hansén Goobar
ISSR
October 2012
Stockholm
Reflections on Miss Julie in a cultural context
The following reflections were written by students as ISSR, International School of the
Stockholm Region, in Stockholm. The students at ISSR attend the International Baccalaureate
Diploma Programme, a rigorous, international high school programme in English (see
http://ibo.org/diploma/ for more information about the IB DP). In the IB DP, all students need
to take one course in which they study literature in the language in which they are the most
academically competent. This course is referred to as Language A: Literature. The students
who wrote the reflections below take English as their best language.
In the IB DP all courses are examined externally, meaning that the teachers do not set the
students grades. This means that there are some assignments which all teachers are required to
carry out with their students. One of them is the Written Assignment, where the students
partake in a number of activities and then write an essay about a literary work translated from
another language than the one that they study as their best language. In English, we have
studied, among other works, August Strindberg’s Miss Julie. The first activity in the Written
Assignment process is the interactive oral – that is, a group discussion about the work
focusing on its cultural context, which is then followed by the writing of reflections. Below
are the instructions from the IB Language A: Literature guide:
Stage 1: The interactive oral
The interactive oral is a focused class discussion in which all students and the teacher participate.
Each student should be responsible for initiating some part of the discussion in at least one of the
interactive orals for one work. Students may participate as a group or individually, and teachers may
organize the discussion in a variety of different ways.
The discussions should address the following cultural and contextual considerations.




In what ways do time and place matter to this work?
What was easy to understand and what was difficult in relation to social and cultural context
and issues?
What connections did you find between issues in the work and your own culture(s) and
experience?
What aspects of technique are interesting in the work?
Formal requirements
At least one oral must be completed in relation to each work studied in part 1.
The suggested minimum time for discussion of each work is 30 minutes.
1
Mikael Hansén Goobar
ISSR
October 2012
Stockholm
Stage 2: The reflective statement
The reflective statement is a short writing exercise and should be completed as soon as possible
following the interactive oral. Each student is asked to provide a reflection on each of the interactive
orals. The reflective statement on the same work as the student’s final assignment is submitted for
assessment.
The reflective statement must be based on the following question.

How was your understanding of cultural and contextual considerations of the work developed
through the interactive oral?
Formal requirements
Length
300–400 words. If the limit is exceeded, assessment will be based on the first
400 words.
The texts you find in this document are reflective statements produced by my (Mikael Hansén
Goobar) students in English A: Literature. The statements have not been edited except for
spelling errors, as I feel that editing them to much would counteract the point of including
student examples. Have a good read!
2
Mikael Hansén Goobar
ISSR
October 2012
Stockholm
Miss Julie - Reflective statement
In our interactive oral about the play Miss Julie the group that I was in talked about a number
of things including, how Julie and Jean’s relationship grows throughout the play, the roles of
different classes in the play and the meaning of having French in the play. The topic that
caught my eye most was how Julie and Jean’s relationship grows through the play and also
how the French was used between Miss Julie and Jean.
Jean has been in love with Julie since she was small but she has never really seen him. After
Miss Julie’s fiancé had left her she became more desperate and because of that she turned to
the lower class people like Jean. Jean is therefore trying to keep Miss Julie’s reputation up and
not letting her sink to “servant level”. When Jean does this he is playing with fire and could
lose his job. In theory Jean might also have sex fantasies about Miss Julie; if he had sex with
her then he could say that he is “closer” to his goal of becoming higher-class. Maybe Jean is
only using Julie to get to higher-class; maybe there is no love at all.
The language in the play was mixed a little bit. Some French words came in at random
moments and Jean does speak French quite allot with Miss Julie. The French at that time had
begun as a higher-class language but then dropped to lower class throughout time. Because
Jean speaks good French this is a good way for Julie to communicate with him without
Kristin really knowing what they are saying. At the time of the play Kristin has fallen asleep
in the kitchen completely worn out and it is therefore Miss Julie makes her move on Jean.
Reflective statement Miss Julie
When we discussed the play Miss Julie we talked about the different cultural and contextual
considerations in the play. Miss Julie is a woman of a higher class who tries to run away with
the servant of her house, Jean. We discussed that Miss Julie had just gone through a
separation from her fiancé which must have been publically humiliating for her. We thought
that she was probably feeling sad and lonely, or perhaps looking for excitement in her life
when she tried to seduce Jean.
We discussed how this play is different to others, especially as it is the woman seducing the
man, which is not normal for older plays. Something else that makes this play shocking is that
it is an old play that separates sex from love. We paid attention to the fact that Mr. Strindberg
was going through a divorce at the time that he wrote this play, which could conclude in the
way that he portrays men to be the better sex, by making the woman insecure. When Miss
Julie separated from her fiancé, she probably lost a lot of self-esteem, which is probably why
she seduced Jean. Maybe she did this because she was lonely or sad, or perhaps she really
loved Jean. Either way, it is difficult to say whether her actions were out of love or loneliness.
Jean is a servant in this play - however he is portrayed as someone with good education
because he speaks French. In these days the only people that spoke French were high class
people. As the play goes on, Jean loses respect for Miss Julie, as do all the other servants
3
Mikael Hansén Goobar
ISSR
October 2012
Stockholm
because of her antics. She doesn’t care about rules or what other people think of her, and that
results to what we assume to be suicide.
Miss Julie
During the reflective oral on Miss Julie we talked about how the author, Strindberg shows the
class and gender differences. As the play takes place at 1888 we can already try to picture
people’s lifestyle at that period of time. Strindberg uses many different techniques to show the
class difference. One of which is Miss Julie’s and Jean’s clothing where Miss Julie has fine
holiday clothes and Jean is wearing his livery. Another important tool to indicate the
difference is the language. At that time being able to speak a foreign language was considered
to be highly intelligent which is why Miss Julie is quite surprised when she hears Jean
speaking French. The class difference is even reminded several times by Miss Julie herself
during her conversation with Jean. Therefore even at the moments when they both seem to be
at the same level the reader is still reminded of the characters status. Jean himself is also very
well aware of his position despite his self-admires. Ex: ¨My natural modesty forbids me to
believe such a compliment to a man in my station¨. The gender difference is also one of the
important issues in this play. It was unacceptable for a young girl from a high status family to
let herself be seduced by a servant. And that is where Jean gets the power over Miss Julie.
The conversation between them is somehow confusing for the readers. At some point it is
easy to believe that despite the differences their feelings bring Jean and Miss Julie to the same
level yet by the end of the story each character remains at their initial position.
Reflective statement on miss Julie
In our interactive oral discussion in the class we discussed Miss Julies play in many different
ways. The play takes place in the counts kitchen. the counts did not appear on the stage so he
is not one of the characters in the play, the main characters of the play are Miss Julie, Jean,
and Kristine, the story teaches us a variety of things such as class differences, gender equality
and also culture, as I have mentioned earlier Julie is the main character in the story, recently
Julie has been broken up with her fiancé hence she is behaving in a way that cannot be
controlled, the reason why she ruin her relationship with her fiancé is due to her sickness,
meaning that she basically has sadomasochism which means she can only get sexual pleasure
from hurting someone or being hurt, we also know from text that miss Julie wants to control
over her fiancé which she failed to do so, all that she inherited from her mother which raised
her a full hatred to men, there was obviously gender conflict, the author describes miss Julie
as a women with a" weak and degenerate brain" while Jean also comment on her crazy
behavior. During her separate with her fiancé she was enforced to spend most of her time with
her father’s servant namely Jean and his fiancée Kristine. Jean suppose to be the second main
character of the play and he is the valet of miss Julie he describes miss Julie as wild and
making advance shameless to him, at any rate Julie and Jean belongs to different social
classes, high class and low class respectively while Jeans fiancé Kristin is the minor character
4
Mikael Hansén Goobar
ISSR
October 2012
Stockholm
of the play and she shares the gossip about the Julie with her fiancé. Furthermore Jean has
dreams and he is prepared to do whatever it requires to achieve his goal. He dreams about
changing his statues from low class to high class the opposite is true for Julie. Jean
mesmerized Julie so she asked him to go and dance with him while he made some excuses to
be away from her by saying that she will injure her reputation if people see him with her and
that will also be very disgraceful to her father perhaps this applies the social power.
Miss Julie - Reflective Statement
During our discussion about Miss Julie we argued mostly over the attitude of Miss Julie
(particularly towards Jean) - if she is mad or just really nice, and why is she acting in such
way. One argument is that she is indeed mad, for she is acting in a way she should not be for
she is a noble. On the other hand, I thought that she can be mad in the point of view of the
servants, but probably not to the point of view of the readers, who would rather see her as a
nice young lady, especially towards Jean whom she likes. Also, Miss Julie asking Jean to
dance with her can be reasoned by the event that time, the mid-summer, which is one of the
biggest celebrations in Sweden.
However, later on we also argued about the relationship between Miss Julie and Jean. Some
thought she loves him, for she shows such affection and kindness to Jean. And so does Jean
towards his mistress, who later on admitted his feelings he had back then to her. Which
opened to more questions like why would Jean do it all of a sudden when on the first part of
the play he kinds of backstabbing her mistress? Here I argued that Jean does so for it is his
way to sort of pull down his mistress (as one of the themes is the class difference), and to
convince to runaway with him. I also disagreed on Miss Julie loving Jean. For I think Miss
Julie is only missing the feeling of being loved, for she has lost her fiancé. This made me
come back to my first argument of Miss Julie being only nice. Here I realize that probably she
probably is mad in some ways, moreover that she is just suddenly ready to run away with her
servant.
Yet again if I think about it, it can also be Jean who is thinking too much and messing his
mistress’ mind, making miss Julie realize that she is embarrassing herself- which would really
make miss Julie crazy and afraid because considering the time and place that time, nobles
could not let themselves be ashamed for people look and expect high from them.
Miss Julie
The play mainly tackles on the social classes of different people in a society. Miss Julie is the
mistress of the servants Jean and Kristin but she chooses to “love” Jean the servant. The love
that Miss Julie shows Jean makes one to start question whether it’s real or not. The fact that
she chooses to “love” Jean shows that may be she wasn’t really in love but instead she was
desperate to be loved and to love again after her old relationship that never ended as she
expected. She was probably in pain and she wasn’t sure of what she was doing therefore took
5
Mikael Hansén Goobar
ISSR
October 2012
Stockholm
advantage of any opportunity that came along. As she was young she was never allowed to
play or socialize with servants due to her social status the time this play was written
mistresses from the high class were not allowed to socialize with servants. Miss Julie was
now grown up and made her own decisions.
Miss Julie might have loved Jean but she was too ashamed to go public with
him due to the difference in their social classes. Falling in love with Jean shows that Miss
Julie has lost her class and it show that to this extent she was struggling to fit in the society
again when she tries to escape with Jean but it doesn’t work probably she decides to do
suicide. This reflects on how social classes where important in Europe at that time and if one
lost it s/he would suffer the same way as Miss Julie
Jean uses French phrases while talking to Miss Julie which tells us that he was
intelligent despite the fact that he was a servant-Jean is intelligent and he is moving up and
developing. However, French language lost its respect because at that time in Sweden French
was a language with high class used by intellectuals and the courts, now Jean talks French
shows that French has fallen from a high class to a low class that is from being spoken by the
high class people to being spoken by the servants in the kitchen.
Miss Julie
Miss Julie is a stage play that circulates around three characters; Julie an upper class Swedish
girl who is the daughter to a count, Jean, the valet and Christine, the cook. The play, written
by the author August Strindberg, is a naturalistic tragedy that takes place in a kitchen during
Midsummer which is a Swedish holiday.
As we were discussing this play, I realized that almost everything I thought everyone would
agree upon (symbols, culture, theme etc.) we disagreed on. Most of the people in my group
had different points of views and interpreted things somehow differently than I did. For
example, I thought that Julie hated men thanks to her mom who influenced her by hating men
herself, but other people in my group thought that her mom had not much to do with because
she never literally said to Julie to hate men, neither did she force her. My argument for that
was quite different because although her mom might not have forced her we all know that
little girls look up to their mom and sometimes also follow their footsteps.
We also had some disagreements when it came to the theme as I said that although August
Strindberg didn’t clearly show in the play that Miss Julie and Jean had sex I thought that the
theme was how sex between an upper class woman and a lower class man can equalize the
positions, maybe not by power but in the matter of worthiness. Others had a maybe not so
different opinion but it was not the same.
Since I’m born and raised in Sweden I recognized the culture of the play immediately. In my
discussing group we had no disagreements on that August Strindberg was representing the
Swedish culture and it was extra clear that the play was about a Swedish family when he
mentioned “Malmö” which is a town in Sweden and the celebration of Midsummer.
Discussing the play really helped me to be open minded and realize that people will have
different opinions and interpretations. It helped me to understand the play from a different
point of view and that is nothing but appreciated.
6
Mikael Hansén Goobar
ISSR
October 2012
Stockholm
Reflective statement, Miss Julie
Miss Julie and the count speak French which shows that it is a language for the upper middle
class and for people who had attended school. When Jean started speaking French it shows
that he is rising up in society. Miss Julie is bored and depressed so she starts to play with
Jean through the night. Miss Julie knows that the maids are in love but she doesn't care
because she is desperate to be loved she calls on Jean and treats him like a fiancée and she is
in love with Jean but she doesn't want to tell him because he is only a servant she even doesn't
go to see the cousins to stay behind with Jean. Jean wanted to have sex with a person of a
higher class because from when he was little he was in love with Miss Julie but couldn't get
her. Miss Julie would lose her dignity if the villagers found out that she had sex with the
servant.
As a little girl Julie didn't get chance to play with kids of the opposite sex so she is trying to
play with Jean. Julie committed suicide because of love, she wanted to be loved. Kristin also
went up in society because Miss Julie started consulting her on what to do about have
happened between her and Jean. Jean wanted to get rich because he told her to live and they
start their own business in Italy she was the branch on the tree he talked about.
People from the lower class didn't associate with people of the upper middle so in the society
people married from their respective classes servant was like property to the owner he/she
would follow all the commands given to him. Different clothes were worn for different
occasions for example when Miss Julie was going to travel she wore traveling clothes. There
was no equality in the society the rich were so rich and the poor were also very poor.
Miss Julie - Reflective Statement
In the play Miss Julie we discussed many topics such as the theme, symbolisms, culture, class
differences and many more. We all believed that one of the themes in this story was the
constant struggle for power and equality between men and women. I noticed that Jean, who
comes from the lower class, wanted or was acting like he wanted to be in the same class as
Miss Julie. While Miss Julie is acting like she is confused about her class. When Jean was
with Kristin in the beginning he was complaining about her food, showing that he has more
power than her, but when Miss Julie showed up he changed totally and obeyed everything she
said, showing that he is lower than her. Once he told Miss Julie that the servants at the dance
did not accept her as one of their own and that they were making fun of her behind her back,
that’s when her status was starting to decrease and his was starting to increase. Their statuses
keeps increasing and decreasing until they slept together. After that Miss Julie’s status had
decreased very low and Jeans status has increased very high. Miss Julie now sees the situation
that she is in and she has two choices either to leave the country with Jean or to commit
suicide. She choices to leave, but right before they are about to leave her farther shows up and
before they meet she had committed suicide. This shows that her dad has the most power, that
they canceled all the plans just because someone with higher power is there. Miss Julie
7
Mikael Hansén Goobar
ISSR
October 2012
Stockholm
probably realized that she had no other choice but to kill herself because she could never get
her power back. Another topic that we talked about was the culture in the story. We all
understood that this story was taking place in Sweden because of the fact that it was
midsummer, which you celebrate in Sweden. We also could tell that the time period of the
story was around the 1800 to the early 1900s, because of the servants. I also noticed that they
had rules that wouldn’t allow different classes to be together. Symbolism was another topic
that we talked about. The horsewhip I believed symbolized Miss Julies desire to dominant
men. The wine that Jeans drinks symbolized the upper class, which he admires. The beer and
wine that Miss Julie drinks symbolizes her confusion about which class she is, since beer is a
lower class drink.
Miss Julie reflective statement.
Our Miss Julie Interactive oral focused on different areas of the play such as the symbols but
mostly importantly the relationship between Miss Julie and Jean. As the plays main focus is
the fall of Miss Julie a misguided higher class woman, who falls hopelessly in love with Jean,
a servant in her family’s home.
The discussion begins with a look at the theme of the gender conflict, where we can clearly
see there is a love triangle between the three main characters Jean, Miss Julie and Kristin, and
we can see that all characters are well aware of this but the women ignore it as Kristin feels
when Miss Julie is flirting with Jean is okay even though its visible she has feeling for him,
and she does this because she feels it is not her place to challenge Miss Julie, while Miss Julie
continuously tries to woe Jean even she feels he does not feel the same level of love she feels
for him and that he may have something going on with Kristin she continues to fall hopelessly
in love with him. This shows us that play sees women as unimportant in society.
We can also see the hopelessness of Miss Julie further, when Jean tells her of his plans to take
her to a foreign country and to start up a hotel, where she would become the poster girl due to
her upper class status and we can see she further on continues her submissive attitude as she
continues to agree to whatever Jean says, which is also part of the development to her starting
to foreshadow her death, where she talks in a more tragic tone though it’s the initial tone of
the play.
The learning of this interactive oral were that the dramatist did not have a positive view on
women as he made them completely submissive throughout the play and the male character
Jean powerful with more purpose and this allow him to take advantage of miss Julie in his
ambitions to get to a higher class.
8