Abstract
This research paper aims to examine Strindberg’s artistic dreams in A Dream Play and The Ghost Sonata. Strindberg did not take the conception of dreams from Freud but Freud is helpful in interpreting the nature and structure of these plays. In a Freudian sense, dream becomes a fit prop for Strindberg to appropriate the conventions of phenomenal reality. In Interpretation of Dreams, Freud acknowledges the power of dreams in shaping the human personality and the material of art. A Dream Play looks like an anxiety dream but it does not end on a nightmare. It ends on a cosmic vision about the salvation of humankind through the fire of suffering and misery. In The Ghost Sonata, Strindberg exposes the absurdity of existence through the structure of the absurd dream logic. In fact, the play is an outcome of a final balancing of accounts of his life before the final preparation for his death. In spite of the nightmarish representation of reality in both plays, Strindberg holds the affirmative view of life. Strindberg’s dream, in a Freudian sense, is a wish-fulfilment – a wish to see humankind stripped off morbid illusions, and a wish to recover humane values by means of increasing consciousness
Sajjad Ali Khan. (2017) The Study of Dream in August Strindberg’s Plays – A Dream Play and The Ghost Sonata – in connection with Sigmund Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, Journal of the Punjab University Historical Society, Volume 30, Issue 1.
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