Mythological Aspects in Strindberg's "The Father"

by

Hugh R. Whinfrey

The plot of Strindberg's "The Father" is driven by the tension between the Captain and Laura over the upbringing of their daughter. It is a battle for control of their daughter's mind, where the consequence for the losing parent is perceived as a downfall within the family's internal mythology:

LAURA. Can't I? Do you think that as a mother I'd let my child loose among atheists, to learn that everything I taught her was nonsense, so that she'd despise me for the rest of my life?
CAPTAIN. Do you think that as a father I'd permit ignorant and conceited women to teach my daughter that I'm a charlatan?¹

In a broader sense, the play is a conflict of mythological paradigms, where the Captain and Laura each have a mythological script they are trying to impress on the other to act out. The implicit and explicit references in the text to Greek and Roman mythology indicate that Strindberg was conscious of this level of characterization of the conflict, and furthermore that he must have intended for it to function consistently within the scope of the plot.

This paper will briefly explore the mythological aspects of The Father, referenced to Greek and Roman mythology, with the intent of illuminating the depth to which this mythology can be reasonably said to influence the work.

The first mythological paradigm is the one the Captain is trying to act out under the circumstances of his domestic life. He places himself in the omnipotent role of Zeus. The role he is trying to assign to Laura is that of Metis, the first wife of Zeus. Metis was swallowed by Zeus in order to prevent her from giving birth to a male heir who was destined to overthrow him, as had happened to Zeus' predecessors, Ouranos and Kronos. The Captain is seeking to control Laura in the same manner as Zeus controlled Metis:

LAURA. Yes, the housekeeping allowance.
CAPTAIN. Put your receipts there, and I'll go through them.
LAURA. Receipts?
CAPTAIN. Yes!
LAURA. Now you want receipts?
CAPTAIN. Naturally, I want receipts. ... ²

Metis, associated with wisdom, lives inside Zeus and advises him from within - free to speak her mind within the exterior framework of Zeus. The Captain allows Laura the same leeway within his encompassing framework:

PASTOR. I must admit - even if Laura is my own sister, she was never easy to get along with.
CAPTAIN. Ah, Laura's got her faults, but there not so bad.
PASTOR. Listen, you can be frank with me - I know her.
CAPTAIN. She was brought up with a lot of romantic ideas and found it a little hard to adjust. When all is said and done, she is my wife...³

Laura actually plays the role of Metis, the authoritative inner advisor to her husband, when she is manipulating the Doctor:

LAURA (taking out a handkerchief). My husband is sick in his mind. Now you know everything, and you can judge for yourself later.⁴

Metis was with child at the time Zeus swallowed her. Later Athena was born, fully grown, from Zeus' head when it was split open with an ax. The Captain is envisioning Bertha, their child, in the future role of Athena, the virgin goddess:

PASTOR. But what is it you want for Bertha that creates such conflict? Can't you compromise?
CAPTAIN. Don't think I want to make her into some sort of prodigy or copy of myself. The fact is, I don't want to be a pimp for my own daughter by raising her to be fit for nothing but marriage. And then if she doesn't get married, there's only bitterness ahead. ...⁵

Athena was associated both with arts and crafts, and with military activity. That the Captain's child should have a nebulous association with military activity is a natural continuity, if she is to follow in his image. Bertha's practice of embroidery, relevant to her potential for assuming the Athena role, is noted in the text:

MARGRET. My Lord, child, what are you doing up?
BERTHA. I have to finish Poppa's Christmas present.⁶

When it was time for Athena to be born, Zeus was in a great dilemma as to how to get her out. This parallels the Captain's dilemma as to how he should put Bertha out into the world as an adult. The splitting of Zeus' head with an ax was done either by Prometheus or the master craftsman Hephaestus, depending on the version of the myth. The Captain's final inner cleavage was accomplished by the women's Promethian-like defiance and the technical craft of the Doctor. The play ends before we learn whether or not the Captain has given birth to his Athena, yet there is a clear sense in which we feel he has failed to get Laura to act her part in his mythological script.

The flaw in the Captain's script appears to be the other women in the household. Zeus had the upper hand over his predecessors and their wives. The Captain did not. His old nurse, Margret, and his mother-in-law are involved in his overthrow:

PASTOR. You don't keep your womenfolk in line, Adolph. They have entirely too much to say.⁷

While the Captain is attempting to stand as Zeus to Laura, he is simultaneously standing as Ouranos to his mother-in-law playing Gaia, and as Kronos to Margret playing Rhea. Gaia, the Earth, is in fact an active meddler in the background to all three of these supreme gods, and Zeus maintains his supremity only by paying occasional heed to her.

Ouranos was a sky god. The Captain is engaged in research on meteorites, which originate outside the earthly domain of Gaia:

BERTHA. But Grandma says you don't understand and that you have bad things that can see on other planets.
CAPTAIN. Is that right? What else does she say?
BERTHA. She says you can't work miracles!
CAPTAIN. I never said I could. Do you know what meteorites are? They're bits of rock that fall from other heavenly bodies. By examining them, I can tell whether they contain the same substances that our earth does. That's all I can see.⁸

In fact the Roman versions of the three successive supreme gods with which the Captain is being contrasted are Uranus (Ouranos), Saturn (Kronos) and Jupiter (Zeus). Note that they are all planets outside the domain of Gaia. The emasculation of Ouranos, and hence the end of his supremity, occurred by the connivance of Gaia, through their child Kronos. The mother-in-law uses Bertha in the same manner to emasculate the Captain:

BERTHA. ... And then she says the spirits are going to write.
CAPTAIN. What's that? Why haven't you told me about this before?
BERTHA. Forgive me, I didn't dare to. Grandma says the spirits get revenge if you tell. ... ⁹

Kronos swallowed his children in order to prevent his overthrow. He was tricked, at the suggestion of Gaia, by Rhea into swallowing a stone instead of Zeus, which led to his downfall. The stone represents in essence a lie, which Kronos 'swallowed'. Margret, who the women admit is the only one with power over the Captain, is occupied in the play in trying to get the Captain to 'swallow' Laura's position, actively lying to the Captain, and urging him to eat:

MARGRET. Master Adolf, don't you think you could meet Miss Laura halfway on this business about Bertha. Think how a mother feels...
CAPTAIN. Think how a father feels, Margret!¹⁰

MARGRET (entering). Yes, ma'am. Is the master home?
LAURA. No, but you can sit in here and wait for him. When he comes, tell him my mother is sick and that's why the Doctor is here.
MARGRET. Yes, ma'am. I'll take care of everything.¹¹

DOCTOR. Oh, nothing serious. Just a sprain in her left ankle.
CAPTAIN. I thought Margret said it was a cold. Apparently we have different diagnoses. Go to bed, Margret! ...¹²

MARGRET (enters). Supper's on the table. Are you ready to eat?¹³

MARGRET. Lord, how childish you are! Of course you're your own child's father. Come and eat now and don't sit there sulking! Come on now, come on!¹⁴

Kronos was overthrown through the action of Metis, who found an excuse to feed an emetic to him, forcing him to disgorge the children he had swallowed, thus starting the process that ended with Zeus in charge. Laura plays a similar role to the Captain, forcing him to disgorge his connection to the child by raising the question of Bertha's paternity:

CAPTAIN. ... All this I've stood without complaining because I thought I was father to this child. This is the lowest form of theft, the cruelest slavery. I've had seventeen years of hard labor and I was innocent.¹⁵

The Captain as Kronos, the Roman Saturn, is also given an explicit reference in the text, indicating that Strindberg was conscious of the parallel:

CAPTAIN (to BERTHA). ..."I'm a cannibal, and I want to devour you. Your mother wanted to devour me, but couldn't. I am Saturn, the god who swallowed up his own children because it had been prophesied that otherwise they would swallow him. To eat or be eaten! Yes, that is the question! If I don't devour you, you'll devour me, and you've already bared your teeth!" ¹⁶

There is an oblique reference in the text to the Ouranos-Kronos-Zeus chain of succession, of which the key feature in the mythology is that Zeus found a way to stop the cycle. This is put in terms of the Captain's prior experiences with women:

DOCTOR. There are all kinds of women.
CAPTAIN. Recent research shows there's only one kind! - When I was young, I was string and - if I do say so myself - handsome. Two experiences were enough to make me wary.¹⁷

The battle between the Captain and Laura is, from the Captain's script, a struggle over the birth of Athena. Why Laura would not want Athena to be born is explained in the story of Aracne, who was turned into a spider by Athena for her intolerable arrogance. The Captain is not oblivious to the connection:

CAPTAIN. ... There's a web being spun around me here and that doctor is not my friend!¹⁸

Athena and Aracne had a weaving contest. Athena wove a tapestry with pictures depicting the patriarchal status quo of the Olympian order. Aracne's pictures were of the infidelities of the Gods, Zeus in particular. These showed the mortal women who thought they were sleeping with someone who was really somebody else. Zeus disguised as Amphitryon, with Alcmena, fathering Heracles, was one of the pictures. Laura's uncertainty as to the father of Bertha can be grounded here. Aracne lost the contest, not out of lack of skill, but out of Athena's anger. Laura seems just as pre-occupied in averting this contest, as the Captain is in averting the upbringing of a child who will overthrow him.

While the Captain is trying to get Laura to play Metis, she is for the most part actually playing Hera, Zeus' matronly and jealous last wife, and the one with which he is most commonly associated. The second of the two mythological paradigms is Laura's. She plays Hera, tormenting Heracles out of anger towards Zeus, his father. At approximately the mid-point of the text, an indication is made which signals the ascendancy of Laura's paradigm. At this point there is an oblique reference to the mortality of a Hero, which the Captain will fall into as Heracles:

MARGRET. Yes,yes,yes. (reads aloud)
"A mournful and a wretched thing
is life and soon 'tis done,
the shadow of death's angel's wing
no man has yet outrun." ... ¹⁹

Heracles, while a mortal, nevertheless becomes immortal and does indeed "outrun death's angel". The irony of the reference betrays its significance as a turning point.

The Captain seemingly resists the role of Heracles until late in the second act, sticking as long as he can with his own Zeus script. After the momentum shifts to Laura's paradigm, oblique references to Heracles begin to appear. The twelve labors of Heracles are, in Euripides' version, placed before the murder of his family, and in other versions are occur after the murders. In either time-line, the labors are undertaken because of a desire to restore a loss of honor. The accounts all agree that the cause of his family's murder was madness sent by Hera, blinding him as to what he was really doing. The possibilities of the Captain murdering both his daughter and wife are raised in the third act. It was only through Heracles' mind that Hera could attack him, as his physical strength was adequate to protect himself. The Captain, after accepting the Heracles role, makes the admission that he has been partially reading from Laura's script all along:

CAPTAIN. No, you always had the upper hand. You could hypnotize me when I was wide awake, so that I neither saw nor heard, only obeyed. You could have given me a raw potato and made me believe it was a peach. You could force me to admire your silly ideas as strokes of genius. You could have made me commit crimes - even serious ones. When I finally realized that you lacked any real intelligence and acted only out of instinct, and that I had followed you so blindly, I woke up to find my honor gone. I wanted to blot out my humiliation through some heroic gesture: a brave deed, a discovery - even a respectable suicide. I wanted to go to war, but couldn't. That's when I turned all my energies to science. And now, just as I reach out to gather the fruit, you chop off my arm. With all hope of honor gone, I'm finished. A man can't live without honor.²⁰

Heracles as a result of the chain of events originating in his murder of his family, winds up eventually with a terrible disease that the oracle at Delphi tells him he can only be rid of by being sold into slavery for three years. He is then sold to Omphale, the ruling Queen of Lydia, who had succeeded her late husband to the throne. He supposedly became rather effeminate during his servitude and took up feminine occupations, such as spinning. Omphale's personal power over Heracles is symbolized by her getting his club away from him. Laura literally becomes Omphale to the Captain towards the end of the second act where he gives in and accepts the role, starting to lose a grip on reality:

CAPTAIN. ... I surrender my weapon and beg for mercy.²¹

Later, at the end of the last act, the Captain confirms the significance of this surrender (at the sight of Laura entering):

CAPTAIN. Omphale! It's Queen Omphale herself! Now you play with Hercules's club while he spins your wool!"²²

The Captain, at the end of the third act, also makes several other direct references to Omphale:

CAPTAIN. Ha! My hand? Which you've tied behind my back... Omphale! Omphale! But I can feel your soft shawl against my mouth."²³

CAPTAIN. ..."Ah, my tough lion's skin you wanted to take from me. Omphale! Omphale! You cunning woman who so loved peace you invented disarmament. Wake up, Hercules, before they take away your club!"²⁴

Laura's attempt to commit the Captain would deprive him of his legal and civil rights - essentially slavery for him. The slavery motif is also touched on in a direct manner:

CAPTAIN. ..."You women were so tender-hearted about freeing black slaves - what about the white ones? I've worked and slaved for you, your child, your mother, your servants. I sacrificed a career and advancement. I've gone sleepless. I've been tortured. And anxiety over your welfare has turned my hair grey."²⁵

There are some other interesting aspects of the Heracles myth that also appear in the text. Athena, in fact, is of major assistance to Heracles in several episodes of his life. In one version, Heracles was exposed by his mother, only to be rescued by Athena who talked Hera into suckling him. Another version has Hera spilling milk on account of the baby Heracles, creating the milky way, another source of meteorites. The mother complex of the Captain with respect to Laura/Hera is mentioned in the text:

CAPTAIN. ... I grew up at your side, looked up to you as a higher being, listened to you as if I were your foolish child.
LAURA. That's true, and so at first, I loved you as though you were my child. But you saw, I'm sure, that each time you came to me as a lover, I felt strange.²⁶

Heracles ended his mortal existence in a complex act that also has parallels to the play. Deinaira, Heracles' second wife, was jealous of the new concubine he was bringing home. She had a coat, made from the hide of a centaur who had raped her shortly after her marriage, which had the Hydra's poisonous blood smeared on it, from Heracles' arrow. The centaur, as a dying act of revenge, had told Deinaira that his coat would make Heracles direct his affections to her. Deinaira sent the coat to Heracles, he put it on, and was in unbearable agony as the poison ate away his flesh. There is a sense in which Bertha plays the other woman with whom Heracles is so pre-occupied with. The possible alternative source of Laura's pregnancy eventually does poison the Captain's mind. After Heracles' body perished, he become something indeterminate between dead and alive. Part of him become immortal and went to Mt. Olympus, where he was reconciled with Hera, his tormentor, and marries Hebe, her daughter. His mortal part went to Hades. Odysseus, when he descended to Hades in the Odyssey encounters the mortal part of him there. The play ends with the Captain in a similar indeterminate state:

PASTOR. Is he dead?
DOCTOR. No, he might regain consciousness, but in what state, it's hard to tell."²⁷

While Strindberg based a lot of the plot on his own personal life, these myths do fit with striking snugness into the structure. The overt references, particularly to Omphale, evidence that there was some deliberateness to this correlation. On the other hand, these myths all deal, in an anthropological sense, with precisely the same issues that Strindberg was drawing from his marriage. To thus call these parallels coincidence is incorrect, because they are inseparable from the issues addressed in the play. The real concern is one of intention. To suggest that the plot was based on the mythology, and the parallels to incidents in Strindberg's life mere coincidence is not highly credible either. What seems most likely is that Strindberg used some of the mythological notions as framing devices to put an intuitive structure around the incidents he had selected from his private life.

The depth to which this framework may be the case really depends on how one interprets the message of the play. If one sees it as having a focused message about the battle of the sexes, it becomes an analog to how Aeschylus constructed The Persian Women, selecting only those factual snippets that he needed to make the point, and the mythological underpinnings become more important. If, on the other hand, one views it as an ominous message about the darker side of human nature, it becomes a Euripidean work with the mythological framework receding in importance. Euripides was noted as a realist, and Strindberg was trying to produce a work within this tradition. Personally, I favor the focused message interpretation.

Seattle, March 1994.

Endnotes

Bibliography