Storm by August Strindberg

First published:Oväder, 1907 (English translation, 1913)

First produced: 1907, at the Intimate Theater, Stockholm, Sweden

Type of plot: Naturalistic

Time of work: The early twentieth century

Locale: A residential district of Stockholm, Sweden

Principal Characters:

• The Gentleman, a pensioned civil servant
• Karl Fredrik, his brother, a consul (lawyer)
• Starck, a confectioner
• Agnes, Starck’s daughter
• Louise, the Gentleman’s domestic
• Gerda, the Gentleman’s former wife

The Play

Storm begins on a warm evening in late summer in a quiet, residential district of Stockholm. The set consists of the facade of a large apartment building called “The Silent House” by its tenants, who make it their business to avoid one another. Karl Fredrik attempts to solicit information from Starck about his brother, the Gentleman, who, along with Starck, has lived in the building for ten years. Starck is evasive in answering Karl Fredrik, noting only that new tenants have moved in.

The Gentleman comes to the window of his apartment to greet Karl Fredrik. Fond memories bind him to the Silent House, and he feels calm and serene and wants only peace in his old age. He believes that loneliness is the price that one must pay for freedom. The conversation shifts to Louise, the Gentleman’s young domestic. Karl Fredrik wonders if perhaps his brother is interested in her, but the Gentleman claims to be too old for that sort of thing. He does not want another “boss” to rule him in his home, his first marriage having failed. Karl Fredrik informs him that Gerda, the Gentleman’s former wife, has slandered him. The Gentleman explains that he was fifty-five years old when he married the relatively young Gerda; he had promised to set her free when his advancing age became too burdensome, and he believes that his abandonment of her saved rather than destroyed his honor. For five years he has suffered, missing the wife and child he loved.

A disheveled Gerda suddenly rushes out of the Silent House. The audience learns that the new tenants are Gerda, her daughter Anne-Charlotte, and her new husband Fischer. She has run out because Fischer struck her; Karl Fredrik pledges his help. Gerda wants to know if the Gentleman, now offstage, hates her, and Karl Fredrik assures her that his brother seems to subsist on fond memories. Karl Fredrik asks Gerda why she dishonored his brother with slanderous rumors—Karl himself having believed these rumors and defended her. Gerda claims that the Gentleman’s desertion insulted her honor. The Gentleman catches a glimpse of Gerda in a flash of heat lightning. Dismissing it as a hallucination, he invites Karl Fredrik in for a game of chess. Karl Fredrik, however, has exited with Gerda to help her save Anne-Charlotte (the Gentleman and Gerda’s daughter) from Fischer.

Scene 2 shifts to the interior of the Gentleman’s apartment, where he and Louise are playing chess. Starck enters the room. The Gentleman tells him that it is best to avoid the complexities of love and friendship. However, later the Gentleman confides to Karl Fredrik that perhaps he has grown a little tired of peace. He reminisces about his marriage and love for his daughter, Anne-Charlotte. He fears that he would not recognize her if he saw her, and doubts that he could survive such an encounter.

Karl Fredrik encourages Gerda to reacquaint herself with her former husband. The Gentleman returns, but he mistakes Gerda for Louise. When he finally recognizes her, he is at first stunned, then calm. Gerda, angered by his indifference, asks if he has read her charges against him. He says that he is aware that she lured away his friends, even his own brother, in a conspiracy against him. Worse, he charges, she has raised doubts about the legitimacy of his child. He reveals that he has just run into Anne-Charlotte on the stairwell, and that she called him “uncle.” The meeting has disturbed him so thoroughly that he resolves to erase it from his mind.

A telephone caller informs him that Fischer has run off with Starck’s eighteen-year-old daughter, Agnes. The Gentleman tells Gerda that now the tables have turned. She begs him to help her find Anne-Charlotte; he refuses. Once again Karl Fredrik and Gerda go off after Fischer. The Gentleman invites Louise to play chess with him.

Scene 3 returns to the exterior of the Silent House. Louise comforts the Gentleman as they wait for news about Anne-Charlotte and Agnes. The reappearance of Gerda, he complains, has destroyed his fond memories. Louise contends that Gerda’s reappearance has, in fact, set him free. She urges him to think about Anne-Charlotte’s welfare. Agnes returns, unharmed, and reconciles with her parents. The Gentleman’s real feelings about his brother erupt in a tirade to Louise. They all hated my independence, he fumes, and took sides with Gerda. Louise assures the Gentleman that this stormy weather will pass.

Karl Fredrik relates the events that occurred at the train station, where he found Fischer. During the commotion, Gerda seized Anne-Charlotte and rushed off with her to her mother’s house. The Gentleman is relieved that no one will again impose upon him, that the stormy weather has subsided. He announces that he will soon leave the Silent House.

Dramatic Devices

In Öppna brev till Intima Teatern (1911-1912; Open Letters to the Intimate Theater, 1959), Strindberg articulated aesthetic principles which, he hoped, would inform a new, intimate, and more natural drama. He employed these principles in his chamber plays with the ultimate aim of transferring the virtues of chamber music to drama. Strindberg was particularly interested in “intimate action,” the “highly significant motif,” avoidance of “frivolity” and “calculated effort,” and dynamic interaction among all characters.

Storm, the second chamber play, well illustrates Strindberg’s modus operandi. In place of a well-developed, linear and narrative plot, the playwright explores the “highly significant motif” of human loneliness through a field of interrelationships rather than through a star protagonist to whom all other characters defer. The Gentleman only seems more important than other characters because he has more lines and echoes Strindberg’s point of view. Frivolity and calculated effort are also avoided—every line of dialogue, every nuance and metaphor, contribute to the unfolding of the meaning of the play.

The mode of Storm is the same lyrical naturalism that characterizes Fröken Julie (pb. 1888; Miss Julie, 1912) and other early plays. Naturalism is an inaccurate term for Strindberg’s work, which, even at its most realistic, relies upon symbolism and, to a lesser extent, mysticism. Indeed, the mode of Storm might best be described as “symbolic naturalism.”

Strindberg advances the “highly significant motif” of human loneliness through both character interaction and the strategic placement of poignant symbols and metaphors. The heat lightning flashing throughout the play at critical moments serves two purposes: First, it suggests moments of revelation, and second, it figuratively “heats” up the situation. It is a multipurpose and ambiguous symbol, however, because heat lightning is false lightning. Thus Strindberg suggests that the storm introduced by Gerda and Fischer cannot in the end disturb the Gentleman. Conversely, what such heat lightning illuminates may prove false as well.

Other significant, evocative symbols include the music issuing from Gerda’s apartment, the chess games that the Gentleman plays with various characters, and the thermometer kept in the Gentleman’s drawer. Gerda’s music, which the Gentleman knows well, signifies the lingering life in an otherwise dead marriage. The chess games signify both life and nonlife. Games can be enjoyable when played with a committed and loving partner, but in the end they remain games, artificial constructs subject to strict rules. The Gentleman plays chess with Louise rather than relate to her in a more loving, meaningful way; in this way he can manipulate, control, and, unfortunately, deaden life. The Gentleman’s thermometer is still another relic from his marriage. Its reading never varies while in the drawer, as the Gentleman’s life never varies while he entombs himself in the past.

The ambivalence of Strindberg’s symbols and metaphors exposes a worrisome flaw in the Gentleman’s worldview. His quest for peace and quiet is tantamount to searching out death in life. The play can thus be read as a conflict between the harrowing vitality of Eros and the numb sedation of Thanatos.

Critical Context

Storm is one of Strindberg’s late chamber plays. Only four plays in his canon are so designated, each of which was designed to be staged at the Intimate Theater, which Strindberg and an associate founded. However, even a cursory examination of Strindberg’s work reveals that he was experimenting with theatrical intimacy from the beginning. The methods, style, and feel of the relatively early Miss Julie are remarkably similar to those of Storm.

It is generally assumed, however, that Strindberg began as a naturalist of sorts and progressed toward both expressionism—Ett drömspel (pb. 1902, pr. 1907; A Dream Play, 1912) and Spöksonaten (pb. 1907, pr. 1908; The Ghost Sonata, 1916)—and mythic-historical drama—the three Till Damaskus plays (pb. 1898, 1904; To Damascus, 1913) and Gustav Adolf (pb. 1900, pr. 1903; English translation, 1957). The work can also be divided into four distinct chronological periods that reflect varied life circumstances of the playwright.

The first period (pre-1891) includes apprenticeship pieces reflecting the influence of Henrik Ibsen and William Shakespeare. Their subject matter is largely restricted to historical concerns and the conflicts of youthful artists. From 1886 to 1892 Strindberg’s work matured considerably. He experimented with naturalism, as well as with comedies and pilgrimage plays. The third phase (1898-1903) was largely influenced by personal events in Strindberg’s life. Divorce, poverty, and bouts of madness prompted his interest in atonement and salvation; he wrote chronicle and historical plays. The final phase of Strindberg’s work is astonishingly varied and experimental. It includes expressionistic work and the four chamber plays, including Storm. Once again the thematic emphasis is on atonement and refuge from life’s miseries.

Given the breadth and variety of Strindberg’s achievement, and the fact that he was able to produce work of radically different modes and forms at virtually the same time, it is probably most productive to categorize his work by dramatic genre. Considered to be the most important of these genres are the naturalistic plays in contemporary settings, the period plays related to Swedish history, the pilgrimage plays, and the expressionistic plays. Storm is a late naturalist play in a contemporary setting, with the added distinction of being one of the four experimental chamber plays.

Sources for Further Study

Adler, Stella. Stella Adler on Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov. New York: Knopf, 1999.

Carlson, Harry G. Out of the Inferno: Strindberg’s Reawakening as an Artist. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996.

Johnson, Walter. August Strindberg. Boston: Twayne, 1978.

Johnson, Walter. Introduction to Stormy Weather. In A Dream Play and Four Chamber Plays. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973.

Lagercrantz, Olof. August Strindberg. Translated by Anselm Hollo. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1983.

Robinson, Michael, ed. and trans. Strindberg and Genre. Chester Springs, Pa.: Dufour-Novik, 1991.

Sprigge, Elizabeth. The Strange Life of August Strindberg. New York: Macmillan, 1949.

Sprinchorn, Evert. Strindberg as Dramatist. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1982.

Steene, Birgitta. The Greatest Fire: A Study of August Strindberg. 2d rev. ed. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1982.