The Daughter's Double Bind: The Single-parent Family as Cultural Analogue in Two Turn-of-the-Century Dramas

The Daughter's Double Bind: The Singleparent Family as Cultural Analogue in Two Tum-of-the-Century Dramas LORELEI LINGARD It may seem surprising how frequently single-parent families are found in plays written at the tum of the twentieth century. The number of plays by Ibsen, Chekhov, Brecht, Strindberg, and Shaw that involve single-parent families is remarkable, particularly as the issue of single parenthood itself rarely surfaces in the action. But upon examination, we can see how these fictional families often reflect the social dynamic of their era. As we encounter Nora Helmer, Hedda Gabler, Peer Gynt, the Prozorov sisters, the children of Mother Courage, Grusha's son, Miss Julie, and the daughters of Heartbreak House, the effect of the single-parent family is an important but implicit part of the action. These plays are not "about" the particular dynamics and politics of the single-parent family; indeed, the family make up seems almost accidental , not essential to the plot. It is, however, a critical part of the symbolic structure of the play. I In these plays, the single-parent family symbolizes dysfunction and reflects a dysfunction in the culture as a whole. They focus not only on the symbolic meaning of one part of the parental unit but also on the absence of the other part. This imbalance in the dramatic family creates a gap or lack in the social analogy that, as the play unfolds, symbolizes a lack in the culture itself. The single-parent family, as a dramatic tool, necessarily partakes of the conventional symbolism of the mother-father-child unit. The normative family system, which has its foundations in the sexual division of power and knowledge, becomes an increasingly critical and complex component in drama written and produced at the turn of the century. This emphasis is largely a result of two phenomena: "the immense upheavals in the condition of women at the tum of the century";' and the theories of sexuality developed at this time by Sigmund Freud, especially in his work on the repressed unconscious (particularly in women) in Studies in Hysteria (1895) and on the significance of infantile sexuality in Three Essays on the Modern Drama, 40 (1997) 123 124 LORELEI LINGARD Theory of Sexuality (1905).3 Today, feminist theorists working with psychoanalysis [attempt to decenter] the reigning phallus from its dominant position in the symbolic order. They refuse ritual acts of obedience,to the phallus, they refuse to accept the inevitable oppression of women described by Freud and Levi-Strauss as the sine qua non of human culture: the obligatory journey from clitoris to vagina; the inevitable exchange of women.4 At the tum of the twentieth century, however, Freud's impact on the collective consciousness of the culture was unmediated by feminist rebuttal and his constructions of sexuality were readily absorbed into the educated person's understanding of the family unit. Thus, because of these influences, the situation of women in the family enjoyed a particular emphasis in turn-of-the-century drama. As Finney points out, [r)ather than being cO, nfronted with the standard heroines of nineteenth-century farce and melodrama, tum-of-the-century theatergoers were treated to Shaw's Major Barbara and Candida, Synge's Pegeen Mike, Strindberg's Laura and Miss Julie, Wilde's Salome, Ibsen's Nora Helmer and Hedda Gabler, Wedekind's Lulu, and a wealth of other individualized and memorable female characters.5 In this period, the dramatist turns his unrelenting eye to the burgeoning issues of gender and power. In the two plays this article focuses on, Hedda Gabler and Miss Julie, Ibsen and Strindberg situate themselves differently in relation to the social and psychological debates; nevertheless, both are engaged in a formative cultural conversation. This article examines the diverse social commentaries enacted through a dramatic focus on a particular type of single-parent family, the father/daughter unit, in two turn-of-the-century plays6 In Ibsen's tragic Hedda Gabler (1890)7 and Strindberg's naturalistic Miss Julie (1888),8 the single-parent family creates a forum for social commentary through the inter-relations among the presence of the father, the absence of the mother, and the confusion...