Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - The Scandinavian Drama - August Strindberg - The Father
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
The Father 49
upon it one s own ideas and notions, but in allow
ing the child freedom and opportunity to grow
harmoniously according to its own potentialities,
unhampered and unmarred.
The child was August Strindberg s religion,
perhaps because of his own very tragic childhood
and youth. He was like Father Time in
"
Jude
the Obscure," a giant child, and as he has Laura
say of the Captain in
"
The Father,"
"
he had
either come too early into the world, or perhaps
was not wanted at all."
"
Yes, that s how it was," the Captain replies,
"
my father s and my mother s will was against
my coming into the world, and consequently I
was born without a will."
[The horror of having been brought into the
world undesired and unloved, stamped its indeli
ble mark on August Strindberg. It never left
him. Nor did fear and hunger the two ter
rible phantoms of his childhood.
Indeed, the child was Strindberg s religion, his
faith, his passion. Is it then surprising that he
should have resented woman s attitude towards
the man as a mere means to the child; or, in the
words of Laura, as
"
the function of father and
breadwinner"? That this is the attitude of
woman, is of course denied. But it is neverthe
less true. It holds good not only of the average,
unthinking woman, but even of many feminists of
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
