August Strindberg

Documenting my life and my work

[auguststrindberg]

Ending my Relationship with Harriet Bosse

Seriously y'all, marriage ruins everyone. Been there, done that three times already. Sometimes, I really loved that woman. Her beauty enraptures me and I am proud to call her my girl. But then we would get into these arguments and I would end up calling her a whore. Obviously, she's such a mega-diva and would feel so insulted being called a whore that she would leave me. ME. Geez, women overreact. When she leaves, I get so depressed. I would write letters to her begging her to come back, and I've even threatened to commit suicide several times as an act of desperation. And when she does come back, I would get so happy to see my beloved...so excited that I would call her a whore again and repeat this cycle of coming and going for Harriet. I can't take this married life anymore (isn't that obvious from what I have been writing about in A Dream Play and The Dance of Death?). Seriously guys, if I got money for every time I have used the word 'whore' to describe Harriet, I would be rolling in the high life and be the richest man in the world.

This roller-coaster of emotions--I love her! I hate her!--I feel around Harriet is too much for me. It's not worth it. It's got to end. I feel that we are going to get a divorce soon. She doesn't even live with me anymore. We have been living apart from each other for a while because we can't stand each other. We both suffer too much and are miserable creatures. I pity myself for having to put up with this whore. Finally, I am calling it quits. I am separating myself from my greatest enemy, and my greatest love.

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DAUGHTER (to the Officer): You mean there isn’t a single happy person in this paradise? OFFICER: Yes, there is. Two of them. A newlywed couple. Listen to them. The Newlywed Couple enters. HUSBAND (to his Wife): I’m so happy I want to die. WIFE: Die because you’re happy? HUSBAND: Yes. “There lives within the very flame of love a kind of wick or snuff that will abate it.” And knowing what’s to come turns my love to ashes when it burns most brightly. WIFE: Then let’s die together. Now, before it’s too late. HUSBAND: Die? Why not? I’m afraid of happiness. A mirage, made to lure us on.

A Dream Play (Strindberg 698-699)

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OFFICER: --Oh, Victoria, Victoria! I loved her and wanted her to be the happiest girl in the world. Now she is happy, as happy as she can be. And that makes my heart ache--ache--ache!

A Dream Play (Strindberg 692)

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LAWYER: I’m sorry, Agnes...but I’ve suffered just as much from your untidiness as you have from the dirt. And I haven’t dared to tidy up things myself, because then you’d think I was reproaching you and you’d get mad. --Oh, what’s the use! We’ll stop right now. Not a word more. All right? DAUGHTER: It’s awfully hard to be married. It’s the hardest thing of all. I guess you have to be an angel. LAWYER: I guess so. DAUGHTER: I think I’ll begin to hate you after this. LAWYER: Heaven help us!...I tell you what: let’s forestall the hate before it comes! I promise I’ll never make any more remarks about your housekeeping...although it is sheer torture to me. DAUGHTER: And I’ll eat cabbage--although it makes me sick. LAWYER: Fine! We’ll live together and make each other sick. Your pleasure--my pain; and vice versa. DAUGHTER: We poor souls. I feel sorry for us.

A Dream Play (Strindberg 680)

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DAUGHTER: The complaints of mortals. They reach this far and no farther. Why are they always complaining? Are there no joys in life at all? LAWYER: Yes, yes! The sweetest thing in life. And the most bitter! Love. A wife and a home. The best of life and the worst.

A Dream Play (Strindberg 675)

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LAWYER: Right now I’ve got a murder case on my hands. That’s all right; I can get through that. What’s much worse--the worst of all--is divorce. A divorce case is like a cry from the center of the earth, a shriek heard in heaven. Because it goes against nature itself, against the source of all good, against love. And what’s the cause of it all? When both parties have filled reams of paper with mutual accusations and finally some dear soul grabs one of them, looks him--or her--straight in the eye, and gently asks, “Come now, what have you really got against your husband--or wife?”--that person will stand there tongue-tied, unable to offer one good explanation. One time--yes, one time all the trouble started over a vegetable salad. Another time, a single wrong word. Most times, nothing at all. But the anguish, the pain!

A Dream Play (Strindberg 671)

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An Insight into my Play: A Dream Play

This is quite possible my best work yet. Proud of myself for being such a genius. Where did I get my inspiration, you ask? Look for further, for I got it all from my life! Yes, A Dream Play is heavily based on my life experiences, and is also my most personal work yet (which, if you have heard of my other plays--and I know you have--means a lot)! Which also means that it touches on my relationship woes with Harriet!

One of the greatest themes I touch upon in A Dream Play is that "love is a sin; this is why the torment of love is the worst hell there is" (Ollen 89). The Lawyer brings up this very idea when he discussed his failed marriage to Agnes, Indra's Daughter. The entire subplot of the dissolving marriage and how marriage only brings about suffering is based on my own marital troubles. My beloved whore Harriet kept on leaving me to suffer alone yet she would always cause me pain when she's around. I loved and hated her presence all at once. Marriage is doom, and I can say with confidence that marriage sucks. It brings out the worst in people and only makes them suffer. In fact, I really started to work on A Dream Play during the worst point in my marriage. After a fight, Harriet told me that she was going to leave me forever. I channeled all of the pain and suffering from our dissolving marriage into writing the play, hence why I call this play "the child of my greatest torment" (Lamm 389).

Not everything about the play was revolved around my relationship issues with Harriet, of course. Some of the scenes in the play are derived from random memories and events that occurred in my personal life that aren't so awful...kinda. For example, there is an arc in the play that deals with the Officer waiting outside the opera house for his beloved Victoria to come outside to be with him, which she never did and therefore he just kept getting older and older every time we see him on the stage. This is a direct callback from when I was waiting around outside for Harriet to finish with rehearsals of Easter (another play I wrote, no less!), which in turn reminded me of the times I would wait around for that stupid bitch Siri.

A Dream Play is really tied to Harriet, not only because of our rocky relationship, but because of her exotic beauty. My gorgeous Harriet's "face, with its slightly almond-shaped brown eyes and jet-black hair, had a mysterious Oriental radiance" (Ollen 90). I was so captivated by her strange beauty that I even wrote the part of Indra's Daughter just for her. I hope she enjoys it. That, and reenacting a failing marriage onstage. Hehehe.

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Captain. [Calmly as before] On account of your long cher- ished desire to quit this miserable existence in an unhappy marriage; on account of the lack of feeling with which you have treated your husband and children, and on account of the carelessness you have shown in the handling. of our domestic economy, I have, during this trip to the city, filed an application for divorce in the City Court. Alice. Oh — and your grounds ? Captain. [Calmly as before] Besides the grounds already mentioned, I have others of a purely personal nature. As it has been found that I may live another twenty years, I am con- templating a change from this unhappy marital union to one that suits me better, and I mean to join my fate to that of some woman capable of devotion to her husband, and who also may bring into the home not only youth, but — let us say — a little beauty! Alice. [Takes the wedding-ring from her finger and throws it at the Captain] You are welcome! Captain. [Picks up the ring and puts it in his vest pocket] She throws away the ring. The witness will please take notice. Alice. [Rises in great agitation] And you intend to turn me out in order to put another woman into my home? Captain. Yah! Alice. Well, then, we'll speak plain language! Cousin Curt, that man is guilty of an attempt to murder his wife. Cert. An attempt to murder ? Alice. Yes, he pushed me into the water. Captain. Without witnesses! Alice. He lies again — Judith saw it!

The Dance of Death (p. 198 - 199)

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Curt. Him there ? But he is your husband! Alice. A stranger to me — as strange as he was twenty-five years ago. I know nothing at all about that man — nothing ...

The Dance of Death (p. 167)

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Captain. Ye-es. I guess you are done with dancing, you like me! Alice. I am ten years younger than you. Captain*. Then we are of the same age, as the lady should be ten years younger. Alice. Be ashamed of yourself! You are an old man — and I am still in my best years. Captain. Oh, I know, you can be quite charming — to others, when you make up your mind to it.

The Dance to Death (p. 153)

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Captain. However, we must stock up for our silver wedding. Alice. Do you actually mean to celebrate it? Captain. Of course! Alice. It would be more seemly to hide our misery — our twenty-five years of misery Captain. My dear Alice, it has been a misery, but we have also had some fun — now and then. One has to avail one- self of what little time there is, for afterward it is all over. Alice. Is it over? Would that it were!

The Dance to Death (p. 148-149)

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An Insight into my Play: The Dance of Death

The Dance of Death is a beautiful satire. It looks at a marriage gone wonky, as all marriages tend to do. How might it be similar to my own marriages? Well, there's a huge age difference between the spouses - Alice is ten years younger than Edgar. My wives were all about 20 when I married them, though I aged (with an eventual 30 age difference between my wife and I). They hate each other - this is a given in both situations. Even though they've been married for a while, they are miserable (also given). The wife keeps secrets from the husband, learning how to telegraph without telling him she's learned this skill. My wives have all been lying whores.

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My Life with Harriet Bosse

It was while looking to cast actors in To Damascus that I found the hottest stuff around the block. Her name is Harriet Bosse. She's an actress. A 22-year-old actress, I might add, not that age should matter or anything. After the Dramatic Theatre accepted to perform To Damascus--which it should, since I'm fantastic and all--some guy named August Palme started pushing for me to accept Harriet as the role of The Lady. This guy even went so far as to invite me to a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream to see her performance as Puck. Oh, she's fantastic at acting all right; she was "a perfectly magic apparition of charm and roguishness, the essence of poetry and more!" (Lagercrantz 296). But that's not what really caught my attention. That PYT has got such sweet, sweet legs...and more. I can't stress enough how young and hot she is. That's pretty much the main reason why she got the part of The Lady, and I'm going to make her my greatest star...and hopefully get some action outta this one. Third time's the charm, right? ;)

Also, to prove that she's the one for me, I swear I am developing this telepathic communication with Harriet. I had this really weird dream after a To Damascus rehearsal that I wrote in my diary:

First dress rehearsal of Damascus. The inexplicable scene with Bosse. This is how it happened! After the first act I went up on stage and thanked Bosse. Made a remark about the final scene, in which the kiss is given through the lowered veil. As we stood there in the middle of the stage surrounded by a lot of people, and I was speaking seriously about that kiss Bosse's little face became transformed, grew larger and assumed a supernatural beauty, seemed to approach mine, and her eyes were ensnaring me with black lightning flashes. Then, for no reason, she ran off, and I stood there crestfallen as after a miracle, with the impression that I had received a kiss that intoxicated me. Then Bosse haunted me for three days, so that I felt her presence in my room. Later I dreamt about her, like this: I was lying in a bed; Bosse came in her costume of Puck; she was married to me. She said about me: 'See there, my brewer,' gave me her foot to kiss. She had no bosom, absolutely none. (qtd. in Lagercrantz 300)

P.S. Yeah, I am totally not a creeper.

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STRANGER. Now you seem to me the most wretched creature on earth. LADY. Is that why you love me?

To Damascus

[auguststrindberg]

An Insight into my Play: To Damascus

To Damascus gets deep. Like, super deep. To all y'all out there who have been calling me a diva, saying I only write about my life - guess again. I'm talking spiritual in To Damascus. It's a super complicated piece about God and eternity and death. The titular character is called "The Unknown," so you can't possibly say I based him on myself. Rather, he is meant to symbolize all humanity, "a timeless image of struggling humanity" (Lagercrantz 296).

I'm going to admit it though -  while To Damascus is more about my spiritual state of mind, that doesn't meant there aren't serious connections to my life and the people in it. I deserve a little space in part II of this play to delve into my relationship with Frida. That whore.

She divorced me. Like - what? What kind of pompous, self-righteous whore does that? She's only a woman, for crying out loud. It's not in her place to pull that sort of stunt. So maybe the Lady is based on Frida. A bit. The Lady is a whore as well, after all. That's the reason for all the marital debates in the play. They pervaded my life so strongly at that point that the world also needed a taste of them. And Frida the reason why the Lady gets around so much. I was so inspired by Frida, I had to put it into a play. Such whore-ish-ness needs more witnesses.

And this was just after our separation, so who can blame a guy? I was emotionally wounded and plays are great places to vent. It's my work. I do what I want.

P.S. Awkward note, kinda - Harriet Bosse played the Lady for the play's premiere, before the two of us were married. This was back when I thought she was great. Back when I didn't realize she was a whore.

[auguststrindberg]

How Frida Uhl Divorced Me

My public stance just before the divorce:

"I don't really know much about my marriage. Is was never taken too seriously, as you probably noticed in Berlin, and I think it is headed toward its dissolution - although I don't know for certain. At times, it was great fun, and good, but language, race, disagreements over what is right, and bad habits did sometimes cause considerable strain." (Lagercrantz 261)

Despite how nonchalant I seem, I was fuming. Frida's the one who filed the divorce papers, but I basically pushed her to it. I was the one writing letters vehement enough end the marriage. She was a "dirty human animal" who was "doomed to perish," and I made sure she knew it (Lagercrantz 261). So even though she was the one who chose to start filing the divorce papers after reading those letters, it was basically a mutual divorce. Basically. I will not be emasculated by the fact that it was Frida who divorced me.

After all, she was the one cheating on me. I've been called incredibly jealous, but whatever. I can't help my jealousy when the women I've married are whores. It's a natural inclination. Frida got around. She tried seducing Gretor, which failed - that disgusting whore. And of course, she bounces back after that by seducing Frank Wedekind, this secretary. What even? And she had this Frank guy's kid, too. It makes me look like a fool and I despise this.

But who cares? I've met this great girl named Harriet. She might be married right now, and her husband might be helpful, but she's hot stuff sooo...we'll see how this goes.

[auguststrindberg]

Meeting and Marrying Frida Uhl

It was in Germany where I met my second love (after that rotten bitch, Siri.  Oh, and Siri, if you're reading this, you're still a WHORE). By this time, I was experiencing international success, and the German audience absolutely admired my plays. Reveling in my massive international success, I attended a literary reception to show off my mad talents as an exceptional playwright. And it was there that I saw the finest creature that belongs to that hateful, spiteful, vicious group that is called women. Oh, how she radiated, with her beauty and her glorious wealth--I mean...intelligence! Her name is Frida Uhl, the daughter of an extremely wealthy publisher of a famous Viennese newspaper...who also happens to be the counselor to the Court of Austria. Another woman of a high rank (similar to Siri the Slut)!

She was everything I hated in a woman: independent, ambitious, liberated. But yet, I find myself attracted to her! She's intelligent, I can give you that, but she also let on that she was a virgin. ME LIKEY! Something in the back of my mind is telling me that is not true, since she seems to be making the most aggressive advances, which is what WHORES do. But I like the attention. Very much. So far, she has asked me to walk with her or visit museums with her, invited me up to her room for dinner, and even initiated our first kiss. She also really loves her tight-fitting dresses. I AM IN LOVE! Did I also mention that she's incredibly wealthy and has a high social status? Not that it means much...