Married

Strindberg, August, 1849-1912Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.5

Word count: 462K words
Chapters: 47

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Married by August StrindbergAuthor: Strindberg, August, 1849-1912,Language: English, Class: PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures, Release Date: Apr 1, 2005

Editor's review

Married is Strindberg's collection of short stories on the theme of marriage, written from a sharply polemical standpoint that often examines marriage from a male perspective, focusing on power, money, sex, and emotional exhaustion. Its value lies not in offering gentle marital guidance but in showing how a fierce spirit dismantles the myths of the nineteenth-century institution of marriage: behind outwardly respectable family life may lie control, resentment, and self-deception. Strindberg's narration is incisive, his dialogue dramatically charged, and some pieces are distinctly satirical and polemical; the reading is not comfortable, yet it lets readers see the gender bias and institutional pressure within marital discourse. As a public-domain electronic text, it is useful for observing how naturalism and gender issues intertwine in modern Nordic literature, and as a sample of dramatic narrative technique. Read with critical distance: many of the book's judgments bear the limitations of their era and the author's personal emotions, and should not be taken as universal conclusions but as a literary testimony open to analysis.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers studying Strindberg and modern Nordic literature
Those interested in literary treatments of marriage and gender issues
Short-story readers who enjoy sharp satire and dramatic narrative
Scholars needing research material on nineteenth-century marital discourse

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking gentle marriage advice or psychological self-help
Those sensitive to misogynistic narration and fierce polemical tone
Casual readers expecting complete plots and warm characters

Reading tips

After each piece, first summarize the narrator's position, then ask whether the story itself supports that position.
Understand the book's view of marriage within nineteenth-century Nordic society rather than applying contemporary standards directly.
Note the dialogue and scene arrangement to appreciate the narrative tension Strindberg brings from playwriting.
If discomfort arises, read at intervals and use commentary between pieces as a buffer.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Are these stories based on Strindberg's personal experience?

The material only identifies this as literary work on the theme of marriage and does not establish that each piece corresponds to the author's own experience. Readers may regard the narrator's fierce language as part of a literary construction rather than autobiographical testimony. For autobiographical questions, consult dedicated Strindberg biographies and textual scholarship rather than inferring the author's life directly from the stories.

Is the view of marriage in this book outdated?

Many judgments reflect nineteenth-century gender ideas and the author's intense personal emotions, and by contemporary standards they are clearly limited. Yet as a historical text it retains value: it records power imbalances in the marriage system of its time and shows how literature participated in gender debate. Read critically, treating outdated elements as objects of study rather than accepting them as universal truths.

Is it suitable to recommend as marriage-related nonfiction?

No. This is literary work, not marriage counseling or sociological research, and the narration carries strong subjective positions and satire. Readers seeking practical advice should choose marriage and psychology books with professional grounding; this book has its place only for those who wish to understand conflict and gender tension in marriage through literature.

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About the author

Strindberg, August, 1849-1912 Author

August Strindberg (1849-1912) was a Swedish writer whose 57 works are held in this collection. His output spans novels and drama, with representative works including the novel The Red Room and plays such as Fräulein Julie, The Father, and The Road to Damascus, as well as the Plays by August Strindberg series and the autobiographical The Son of a Servant. His writing often deals with marriage, class, and relations between the sexes, and his style moved from naturalism toward expressionism and symbolism, leaving a lasting influence on modern theatre. The works here are mostly classified under inspirational growth. Public information is limited; the above is based only on in-house facts and widely accepted literary knowledge.