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Johan August Strindberg, a Swede, wrote psychological realism of noted novels and plays, including Miss Julie (1888) and The Dance of Death (1901).
Johan August Strindberg painted. He alongside Henrik Ibsen, S酶ren Kierkegaard, Selma Lagerl枚f, Hans Christian Andersen, and Snorri Sturluson arguably most influenced of all famous Scandinavian authors. People know this father of modern theatre. His work falls into major literary movements of naturalism and expressionism. People widely read him internationally to this day.
Maurice, a young Parisian playwright. Assured that his play will be a success, he promises to marry Jeanne, his mistress. She gives him a tie and gloves to wear on the opening night. That afternoon, he meets Henriette, the mistress of his friend Adolphe. Although he is falling in love, he has a presentiment of evil. His play is a triumph, but Maurice, instead of going to the celebration party, meets Henriette, who declares her love and throws Jeanne鈥檚 gifts into the fire. Planning to flee with Henriette, Maurice visits his daughter Marion. After his visit, the child is found dead, and he and Henriette are arrested for murder.....
in one of the scenes Maurice say to Henriette :you who stir up man's courage with your scent of blood, whence do you come and where do you lead me? I loved you before I saw you, for I trembled when I heard them speak of you. And when I saw you in the doorway, your soul poured itself into mine...he left Jeanne with all her kindness and her love to him to join Henriette who happened to be a criminal..and has no conscience even ask what this word mean?.he find this evil woman attractive......there was something in common between them.... Astarte, now you demand the sacrifice of women. You shall have them, but if you ask for innocent children, too
Maurice ask her if she has been in love with Adolphe
she said I don't know. The goodness of his nature drew me like some beautiful, all but vanished memory of childhood. Yet there was much about his person that offended my eye...
this conversation happened just before his daughter died...
HENRIETTE. The child! Another woman's child! And for the sake of it I am to suffer. Why must that child block the way where I want to pass, and must pass?
MAURICE. Yes, why? It would be better if it had never existed..!
this play raise the question if someone desperately wanted to commit acrime ,and it happened,without him being involved....does he still be a criminal? and if someone commited acrime and is not punished for it,will his torments of conscience and Constant Feeling Of Guilt be more torturing to him than he have ever punished for his crime...?
Crimes and Crimes is a play focusing on a successful playwright who abandons his mistress and child for another woman. The child mysteriously dies, which causes susupicion that the playwright or his new mistress killed her in order to "get the weight off". While this is indeed an interesting focus, I have to say that I didn't like it as much I would have in theory because I have an issue with the charcters. Who am I supposed to feel bad for? Who am I supposed to think of as a scumbag? I'm not sure if Strindberg does this intentionally, but I am sure of one thing: it didn't really work for me. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to ever sympathize with Maurice (the playwright) because to me, he seems vile- he leaves a mistress that he promises to marry only to get with another woman with intention to marry her. Isn't that awful?
Honestly, Strindberg. I feel like I've read so many average plays from him- he's been a bit disappointing in the long run.
There is no question that 鈥� as sure as winter nights in Sweden are cold 鈥� August Strindberg focused in his plays on human frailty. The great Swedish dramatist crafted relentlessly realistic stories of modern life, and frequently showed overconfident people making ill-informed choices and then suffering unforeseen consequences. And Strindberg鈥檚 1898 play There Are Crimes and Crimes follows squarely in that tradition.
Set in Paris, There Are Crimes and Crimes sets forth the situation of a young playwright named Maurice, who as the play begins is on top of the world: his new play, which will open that night, is expected to achieve both critical and popular success. Flush with the glow of his success, Maurice seems somewhat neglectful of his mistress Jeanne -- poor and uneducated, but faithful -- and of their five-year-old daughter Marion.
Maurice鈥檚 neglect for his mistress and daughter becomes outright negligence when Maurice meets Henriette, the mistress of his painter friend Adolphe; Maurice and Henriette immediately become infatuated with one another. Never mind Jeanne and Marion, and never mind that Henriette is already the mistress of Maurice鈥檚 friend, the painter Adolphe; the passion of Maurice and Henriette is immediate and absolute. Disregarding the disapproval of Madame Catherine, an older lady who has seen this sort of thing unfold before, Maurice and Henriette plan to run off together.
Maurice realizes at some level the immorality of what he is preparing to do to Adolphe, saying, 鈥淵es, here we are making ourselves out as white as angels, and yet we are, taking it all in all, capable of any kind of polite atrocity the moment glory, gold, or women are concerned.鈥� Henriette, who fancies herself a sculptor, idolizes Maurice鈥檚 newfound literary success, telling Maurice that to sculpt a bust of him 鈥渉as long been my cherished dream.鈥� Once Maurice鈥檚 play has succeeded, Henriette crowns him as if he were a king, and expresses resentment at the very existence of Maurice鈥檚 daughter Marion. Maurice, who enjoys being idolized by this beautiful and passionate young woman, goes so far as to express a wish that the prior commitments represented by mistress Jeanne and daughter Marion were somehow out of the way. Both people seem self-focused, and unrealistic in their expectations, and the playgoer might expect things not to turn out well.
And indeed, they 诲辞苍鈥檛 turn out well. A sudden and tragic event instantly deprives Maurice of the success and adulation that he had so recently enjoyed. An anguished Maurice, finding himself suspected of a foul crime, reflects upon the deep and absolute qualities of his fall from greatness: 鈥淔orgive me! But all the same I am without guilt. Who has tied this net from which I can never free myself? Guilty and guiltless; guiltless and yet guilty! Oh, it is driving me mad鈥︹€� Henriette, confessing to elements from her past for which she herself feels guilty, suffers the additional indignity of being mistaken by detectives for a sex worker plying her trade; and as the two suffer the absolute rejection of Parisian society, she finds herself saying to Maurice, 鈥淲e鈥檒l go into the river now, won鈥檛 we?鈥�
But There Are Crimes and Crimes does not end with a dual suicide at the Seine. Another dramatic reversal restores to Maurice much of what he had lost; a local abb茅 who knows the situation acknowledges the depth of Maurice鈥檚 suffering, but insists to Maurice that 鈥測ou were not innocent. For we have to stand responsible for our thoughts and words and desires also.鈥� The romantic-minded Henriette, who seems to have enjoyed rebellion against social standards for rebellion鈥檚 own sake, is admonished to 鈥淏reak off your career as an artist, for the only thing that led you into it was a craving for freedom and fun 鈥� as they call it. And you have seen now how much fun there is in it.鈥�
The play鈥檚 resolution seems to suggest religious faith as a way out of the moral wilderness in which Maurice and Henriette find themselves. But Strindberg鈥檚 call to religious observance is not of the 鈥渙ne true faith鈥� variety. Madame Catherine says of churchgoing that 鈥渢here鈥檚 so much to look at, and then there is the music. There is nothing commonplace about it, at least.鈥� For Strindberg, the point seems to be that through religion, a human being can put him- or herself in the presence of something better and higher, and that that process alone can be redemptive.
Those themes of guilt and redemption suffuse There Are Crimes and Crimes. Adolphe, who serves as a sort of moral center for the play, states at one point that 鈥淭here are crimes not mentioned in the Criminal Code, and these are the worse ones, for they have to be punished by ourselves, and no judge could be more severe than we are against our own selves.鈥� In the same vein, Adolphe later suggests that conscience 鈥渋s the horror inspired in our better selves by the misdeeds of our lower selves鈥�; and it seems clear that Strindberg wants the viewer or reader of There Are Crimes and Crimes to engage in serious and stern reflections on 鈥渃rime,鈥� conscience, and the possibility of redemption in his or her own life.
The first play I鈥檝e read from Strindberg that didn鈥檛 seem melodramatic or overly vicious in portraying the 鈥渂attle of the sexes.鈥� Instead, this play (a 鈥渃omedy鈥�) shows the battle within: the 鈥渃rimes鈥� of the mind/spirit that exist outside the reach of human justice but still torture us with guilt, and the 鈥渃rimes鈥� of the flesh (whether they be cheating, lying, or even murder) that bring about legal and social consequences. The comedy, I assume, is in the final scene, in which spiritual redemption 鈥渨ins,鈥� but only when material gain is impossible. When it is suddenly made possible again, then we provide any rationalization necessary to have our cake and eat it -- take our penance in stride as we keep right on sinning. In the end, this play is every bit as harsh and biting as Strindberg鈥檚 early work, but at least it was easier for me to digest in (very dark) 鈥渃omic鈥� form.
"if we had to answer for our thoughts, who could then clear himself?" Strindberg explores what a "guilty mind" looks like in absence of the deed itself. What's the moral state of the criminal without a crime?
It's a neat question with some fun ambiguity here in our interpretation of what happened, but...a comedy?! (it's subtitled such) A kid dies and at the end it's like, "oh, well, kids die all the time." Now that he wasn't actually at fault for child murder and only messed around with talking about infidelity, it must be just a barrel of laughs.
I guess it's a comedy because he wasn't actually a murderer? Dark, Strindberg.
Wasn鈥檛 sure what to think of this. The main character was such a deadbeat. I get that the point of him is that he was a jerk... but I feel like the narrative was sympathetic to him in the end, and I was not. I do think the ending was an appropriate way to convey the theme of the story... but I feel like the guy got off too easy