The Father (Strindberg) - Plot

Plot

The story surrounds the conflict of interest between The Captain and his wife, Laura. The Captain is an ex-military hero and a well-respected scientist who fights with his wife about how to raise their daughter, Bertha. Both know Bertha cannot be raised in the Captain's household; however, the Captain wants her to be raised as an atheist in the city, whereas Laura wants her daughter to have a different destiny, perhaps as an artist. Swedish law at the time prevents Laura's wishes about her daughter's future to be followed, so she frames the Captain to be mentally insane in order to win the decision over her daughter's future. In order to make the Captain go insane, she introduces the idea that for all he knows, Bertha may not even be his daughter - implying that she had been unfaithful. Laura also intercepts his mail, and lies to the influential Doctor, in efforts to convince him of the Captain's insanity. The Captain starts to believe that Bertha is not his child, and eventually is locked in a room, with bullets emptied from all guns, so the Captain may not shoot himself. Laura, who has now swayed the long contemplative Doctor and the Pastor into believing the Captain's perhaps now legitimate insanity, has the Nurse put a straitjacket on him as he comes out. Rather, the Captain cites numerous times in literature where there were references to illegitimate fathers, labels all women as his enemy, sits on his Nurse's lap in a position that almost suggests that of breastfeeding, and has a stroke on her knees. Bertha runs to her mother, who now has custody of her child.