A Critical Analysis of the Creditors: A Play by August Strindberg

Abstract

August Strindberg, regarded as the rival of Henrik Ibsen, is hailed as the profound modernist drama playwright of Sweden. His work, Creditors (1888) was first performed in 1889 and depicts the deconstruction of marriage and the battle of the sexes. The framework of critical analysis was to draw out the themes and investigate characters, setting, style, and conflict of the play. The results indicated the themes of naturalism, feminism, vampirism, misogyny, aestheticism, moral decay, disillusionment, love and revenge. In this one-act play, the characters are well off financially but possess flaws of selfishness, moral degradation and suspicion. The analysis concluded the conflict of the play to be soliciting Tekla’s love and the revenge inflicted by her former husband. The style of the play is a tragicomedy. This research can serve as counsel for future evaluation on Creditors or August Strindberg and is open for further study.