Hysteria Presentation
Hysteria was one time a normally recognized medical upset, found entirely in adult females, which was at the extremum of its diagnosing and intervention during the 19Thursdaycentury, where it was discussed on a regular basis in medical literature. Hysteria was originally thought to be a disease of adult females brought on by the migration of the womb and was foremost noted by Hippocrates in Ancient Greece. Its diagnosing was used to explain utmost female behaviours and its symptoms included sexual desire, sickness, loss of appetency or libido, hyperventilation, bloating or musculus cramp, insomnia, and a inclination to do problem. Some doctors of this epoch estimated every bit many as a one-fourth of all females were enduring from craze.
Due to its expectedness, the issue of Hysteria was often prevailing in dramas at the clip. I will be concentrating specifically on the drama ‘Miss Julie’ and the character of Julie, and her female parents, presentations as hysteric figures.
Dubois in 1904 wrote “The hysteric is an actress, a comedienne but we ne’er reproach her for she doesn’t know what she is acting” ( Dubois 14 ) . Therefore, it is no surprise that adult females enduring from crazes were used as characters in many of the dramas written at the clip. It is suggested that a hysteric wouldn’t be cognizant of her moving despite her dramatic and false behaviour. Dubois’ statement indicates that there was an built-in staginess in society’s apprehension of the status and so a hysteric characters’ portraiture could be easy performative. In Miss Julie, Strindberg describes his rule female, in the foreword of his drama as a adult female with a “ weak and debauched encephalon ” . Sing the clip the drama was written this instantly classifies her as bearing feminine failings and possibly Acts of the Apostless as an early indicant of a hysteric province of head. He besides so refers to the influences upon Miss Julie and how these have affected her mind ; her male parents absence, her mother’s extremist behavior, history with her fiance , the animal dance, the fact she is flowing and, eventually, the influence of Jean and his maleness.
Psychology and behavioural analysis were involvements of Strindberg’s and he incorporated it into much of his authorship. Therefore, this list appears to be a diagnosing of what he considers to hold impacted Miss Julie’s ‘sickness’ , as Jean refers to it within the drama. The symptoms evident in the drama, as connected with the common construct of craze at the clip, indicates that arguably Strindberg means us to see his character of Miss Julie, and the female parent who has influenced her head, as adult females enduring from Female Hysteria.
The first, and possibly most outstanding manner Miss Julie is presented as being hysteric is through her gender. Freud ‘sThree Essaies on the Theory of Sexualityilluminate that he believes that Hysterical adult females use gender as a manner of geting control. Julie obviously tempts John in order to derive power. However this cognition of her gender besides causes her to force work forces off, for illustration when she forces him to snog her manus, merely to slap him when Jean tries to snog her on the oral cavity. There is arguable grounds that Strindberg means for us to read Miss Julie as hysteric, for she is at the same time sickened and attracted to work forces, and is both seductive and asexual.
Hysteria in Strindberg ‘s twenty-four hours was progressively used to denote a perturbation in female gender ; predominately, a refusal to recognize her sexual demands. This was defined by doctors as a failure to be a sexual object for a male. The manner Miss Julie treats Men ; desiring to command them instead than subjecting sexually to them, is said to hold been inherited by her female parent.
The Countess arguably suffered from what is frequently referred to as a “ maleness composite ” , trying to derive authorization over her hubby and in bend the estate to change by reversal its gender functions. Miss Julie was taught by her female parent to hate work forces and was raised like a male child. Strindberg has Miss Julie province ‘she wanted to convey me up as a kid of nature, and into the deal I was to larn everything that a male child has to larn, so that I might stand as an illustration of how a adult female can be every bit good as a adult male. I had to have on male child ‘s clothes’ ( Strindberg 28 ) The fact that Julie ‘s female parent influenced her girl ‘s behaviour indicates that they are both possible representations of the hysteric. Her mothers’ influence means Julie resents work forces and has a strong desire to avenge herself on them. Strindberg, in his trepidation of early European feminism, attributes Julie ‘s jobs to her female parent who carries feminist rules and encourages a hate of world. These qualities and sentiments Miss Julie and her female parent portion are obviously arguable symptoms of a hysteric adult female.
The following quality of craze nowadays in Miss Julie is her arguable masochism. Strindberg presents her as being lacerate between her desire and disgust for work forces. She attempts to enslave and crush her fiance but submits to Jean, beging him to both deliverance and abuse her. Her masochism can arguably be demonstrated through her luxuriant phantasies about a life with Jean, including get downing a hotel, which she subconsciously knows can ne’er be realised. This illustration of masochism is explicitly identified as feminine. When Strindberg has Julie suggest self-destruction, Jean states he could ne’er carry through a program to kill himself, and declares that work forces are non every bit masochistic as adult females. Miss Julie acknowledges her desire to decease, which emphasises this failing and her arguable masochism. In add-on her willing coquettish behavior with Jean indicates that Strindberg possibly means us to see her ruin is her ain mistake or arguably the mistake of her hysteric status. Therefore Julie’s Masochism is yet another quality Strindberg gives her in order to possibly portray her as a figure of the hysteric.
One concluding component of Julie’s portraiture that is an apparent indicant of craze is her mental palsy. After we discover she has slept with Jean, she is portrayed by Strindberg as weak and without independency. In the last few minutes of the drama Strindberg has Miss Julie say to John ‘Help me! Order me, and I’ll obey you like a dog’ ( 45 ) This inability to believe for herself and her despair for a adult male to command her destiny is yet another symptom of what some people of the clip considered a hysteric province.
To reason, it is apparent that ‘the history of craze depends on a series of texts, on the manner linguistic communication was deployed and translated within these texts, and on the narrations of female power and impotence that were based upon them’ ( 291 ) . Hysteric female characters were used normally in dramas of this clip which helped give the status and the outgrowth of feminism its bequest. Miss Julie is a important figure of the hysteric as she clearly represents the symptoms of the supposed status. Her portraiture and that of other literary hysteric females was momentous as their illustration catalyzed the inquiring of a females function in society and started to invert their restrictions and stereotypes.
“ Ms. Julie, Script Analysis. ” Ms. Julie, Script Analysis. Web. 16 Jan. 2014.
Dubois, P. , Dr. Les Psychonevroses Et Leur Traitement Moral. Paris: Masson, 1904. Print.
Showalter, Elaine. “ Hysteria, FemInism, and Gender. ” Hysteria beyond Freud. By Sander L. Gilman. Berkeley: University of California, 1993. 286-344. Print.
Strindberg, August. Miss Julie. Trans. Michael Meyer. Ed. David Thomas and Jo Taylor. London: Bloomsbury, 2006. Print.
