The Ghost Sonata by August Strindberg
"The Ghost Sonata" is a chamber play by Swedish playwright August Strindberg, written in 1907. The narrative unfolds in a mysterious apartment building, where a series of characters interact in a surreal and unsettling environment. The central figure is a Student named Arkenholz, who encounters an enigmatic Old Man, Director Hummel, while witnessing ghostly apparitions, such as a terrified Milkmaid and a cryptic lady in black. The play delves into themes of manipulation, guilt, and the nature of existence, as the Old Man reveals his desire to intertwine their destinies for personal gain, seeking to marry the Student to his daughter.
Strindberg's work captures a blend of existential dread and social commentary, as characters grapple with their pasts and the illusions that shape their realities. The interplay between life and death, along with the exploration of human frailty, creates a haunting atmosphere. The play is notable for its allegorical elements and psychological depth, challenging audiences to reflect on the complexities of human relationships and the societal structures that influence them. "The Ghost Sonata" remains a significant piece in Strindberg's oeuvre, showcasing his innovative approach to drama and his exploration of the human condition.
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The Ghost Sonata by August Strindberg
First produced:Spöksonaten, 1908; first published, 1907 (English translation, 1916)
Type of work: Drama
Type of plot: Expressionism
Time of plot: c. 1900
Locale: Sweden
Principal characters
The Old Man , the eighty-year-old Jacob HummelThe Student , a young man named ArkenholzThe Milkmaid , an apparition who appears to the studentThe Colonel ,The Mummy , the Colonel’s wifeThe Young Lady , the Colonel’s daughter, but really Hummel’s daughterJohansson , Hummel’s servantBengtsson , the Colonel’s footman
The Story:
The building superintendent’s wife is sweeping and polishing brass while the Old Man, Director Hummel, sits in a wheelchair reading a newspaper. As a Milkmaid comes in and drinks from the fountain in front of the apartment building, a Student, “sleepless and unshaven,” approaches and asks for the dipper. The Milkmaid reacts in terror, for she is an apparition and unaccustomed to being seen, and the Old Man stares at the Student in amazement because he cannot see the Milkmaid. Neither of them knows that the Student is a child born on a Sunday, which gives him special perceptions.
This puzzling tableau yields to a conversation between the Old Man and the Student. The Student, Arkenholz, is exhausted from having treated people who have been injured that night in a collapsing house. The Old Man’s questions disclose that the Student is the son of a man who—so the Old Man says—had swindled him out of his life savings many years before. The Old Man, whose behavior and casual remarks suggest some mythic, timeless quality, has apparently contrived the Student’s occasion for heroism as a ruse to meet him so that he can manipulate the Student into friendship and ultimately marriage with the daughter of the Colonel, who is actually the Old Man’s daughter. To this end, the Old Man instructs the Student to attend a performance of Richard Wagner’s opera Die Walküre(1856; The Valkyrie, 1877) that evening and to sit in a certain seat.
The Student agrees to these arrangements, all of which seem like the manipulations of an eighty-year-old man who admits that “I take an interest in people’s destinies.” The Old Man takes the Student by the hand, claims exhaustion from an “infinitely long life,” and proclaims that their destinies are “intertwined through your father.” The Student, repulsed by this intimacy, withdraws his hand and protests, “You’re draining my strength, you’re freezing me. What do you want of me?” What the Old Man wants is to perpetuate himself through the Student, who is young, vital, and a fit mate for the Old Man’s daughter. The Student worries about these arrangements, wondering if they mean “some kind of pact,” but the Old Man assures him that his motive is simply that all his life he has taken and that now, poised for an uncertain eternity, he wants to give.
The Old Man rather gleefully recites several bits of gossip. He reveals that a mysterious lady in black standing on the steps is the daughter of the superintendent’s wife by a dead man, a former consul, whose body lay upstairs; this adulterous liaison is explained as the occasion by which the superintendent had been given his job. Furthermore, divulges the Old Man, the lady in black is having an affair with an aristocrat whose wife is not only giving him a divorce but throwing in an estate to be rid of him. The Old Man concludes by noting that the aristocrat pursuing the lady in black is a son-in-law of the dead man upstairs. After the Old Man’s servant, Johansson, pushes him around the corner in his wheelchair, the Student learns from Johansson that the Old Man always wanted power and is afraid of only one thing: the Milkmaid.
Bengtsson, the Colonel’s footman, gives Johansson his orders for the evening as they enter the Round Room on the ground floor. They are to serve the Colonel and his wife, the Mummy, a “ghost supper,” so called because they have looked like ghosts for years. The Mummy, secluded in a closet, speaks childish parrot talk to Bengtsson when he opens her door. Bengtsson then points out to Johansson the “death screen” put up around a dying person. At this point, the Old Man arrives and the Mummy emerges to speak to him of their daughter, who sits next door in the Hyacinth Room, reading.
In the conversation that follows, the Old Man humiliates the Colonel by exposing all the pretensions in his life and revealing that he has bought up the Colonel’s promissory notes. However, the Old Man is humiliated in turn by Bengtsson, who declares that years before in Hamburg the Old Man had “lured a girl out onto the ice to drown her, because she had witnessed a crime he was afraid would be discovered.” At this disclosure, the Mummy demands all the notes and by stroking him on the back transforms Hummel into a parrot-speaker; she switches places with him in the closet and places the death screen before the closet door.
In the Hyacinth Room, the Student elaborates to the Young Lady on his love for hyacinths, finding in this flower “a replica of the universe” as its star flowers shoot up to become a veritable “globe of heaven.” The Young Lady responds by criticizing her cook, a vampire like Hummel, and her maid, whose carelessness demands the Young Lady’s regular attention. When the Young Man recounts an episode when his father had criticized all of his friends at the dinner table, “strip[ping] everybody naked, one after another, exposing all their falseness,” he harangues the Young Lady with his own devotion to perfection and ends with the plea, “Alas! Alas for us all! Savior of the world, save us, we are perishing!” This unexpected verbal assault destroys the Young Lady, who crumples and dies as harp music accompanies the Student’s tender elegy for her. The room then disappears and Arnold Böcklin’s painting “The Island of the Dead” emerged in the background.
Bibliography
Converse, Terry John. The Psychology of the Grotesque in August Strindberg’s “The Ghost Sonata.” Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1999. Provides a Jungian analysis of the play’s grotesque vision.
Ekman, Hans-Göran. Strindberg and the Five Senses: Studies in Strindberg’s Chamber Plays. Somerset, N.J.: Transaction, 2000. A critical analysis of The Ghost Sonata and three other plays written in 1907, focusing on their relation to Strindberg’s obsession with the symbolic and dramatic function of the five senses in stage plays.
House, Poul, Sven Hakon Rossel, and Göran Stockenström, eds. August Strindberg and the Other: New Critical Approaches. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002. Collection of papers delivered at a 2000 conference, “Strindberg at the Millennium—Strindberg and the Other,” interpreting the motif of “the other” and “otherness” in Strindberg’s work.
Johnson, Walter. August Strindberg. Boston: Twayne, 1976. Introductory overview to Strindberg’s life and works, with a useful bibliography, for beginning readers. The chapter entitled “Dramatist of Penetration and Representation” is helpful to understanding the chamber plays.
Mays, Milton A. “Strindberg’s Ghost Sonata: Parodied Fairy Tale on Original Sin.” Modern Drama 10, no. 2 (September, 1967): 189-194. An excellent explication of the manner in which Strindberg turns folkloric elements into allegories.
Meyer, Michael. Strindberg. New York: Random House, 1985. A long, well-written biography with excellent illustrations. One chapter is devoted to the chamber plays.
Robinson, Michael, ed. The Cambridge Companion to August Strindberg. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Collection of essays analyzing Strindberg’s work, placing it within the context of his life and times. Lynn R. Wilkinson’s essay focuses on the chamber plays. Includes bibliography and index.
Törnqvist, Egil. Strindberg’s “The Ghost Sonata”: From Text to Performance. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2000. Analyzes the text of the play, English translations, and several stage productions, most notably a 1973 version directed by Ingmar Bergman. Provides contextual background for the play and assesses its influence on modern drama.
Williams, Raymond. “August Strindberg.” In Drama, from Ibsen to Eliot. London: Chatto & Windus, 1952. Williams chooses five plays, including The Ghost Sonata, to trace the evolution of Strindberg’s dramatic style and technique. An excellent commentary on Strindberg the artist.