Themes
Apropos to Strindberg's recurrent themes, The Father is a play that victimizes men, and puts a negative spotlight on women and their alleged manipulation over men. Many times, the Captain, in great detail, talks about how women have become his enemy, even his long loved Nurse. At the time the play was written, Strindberg's marriage was deteriorating with his wife Siri von Essen, and situations in the play could have very loosely resembeld situations occurring in his failing marriage. Furthermore, there is a heavy religious theme in the play. The Captain, who is an atheist, constantly disparages the Nurse's and Pastor's Christian beliefs as hypocritical and cold. Almost symbolically, the play's last line is the Pastor's, with a simple, "Amen." There are also references in the play to Greek Mythology and Shakespeare plays, such as Merchant of Venice and Hamlet.
Read more about this topic: The Father (Strindberg)
Famous quotes containing the word themes:
“In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shi’ite fundamentalists.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)