New Wine (Metaphor)
In the preface to the play, Strindberg writes that theater is essentially moribund, for "we have not yet found the new form for new content, and the new wine has burst the old bottles" (57). This metaphor has the new type of theater being pushed into the forms and structures of the old type, so it does not fit and eventually bursts at the seams. The metaphor implies that there is much work to do to modernize the theater.
Dialogue Wanders Like a Theme (Simile)
Strindberg describes his play in the preface, explaining that "the dialogue...wanders...reworked, taken up, repeated, expanded, and developed, like a theme in a musical composition" (63). In the simile, the dialogue is more like music than talking, for it is rhythmic and has repetition rather than being straightforward and teleological.
Life is a Scum (Metaphor)
Miss Julie is deeply upset by what has happened with Jean, and lapses into depressive thoughts. She sighs that "Life, people, everything's a scum that drifts, drifts on across the water until it sinks, sinks" (79). In this metaphor, she conjures up a pond with scum on it that slowly sinks down, just as she sees life itself being worthless and eventually succumbing to the inexorable downward pull.
Miss Julie (Simile)
Jean is vicious to Miss Julie, but occasionally relents and offers her a kind word; however, even his "kind" words are barely that, as this simile indicates: "I'm sorry to see you sunk so low that you're far beneath your cook. It's as if I was watching the flowers being lashed to pieces by the autumn rain and turning into mud" (91). Jean says he is sorry for her, but it is because she is beautiful and delicate like a flower and is destroyed by her own base actions, which he compares to a brutal wind.
Corpse (Simile)
When Miss Julie comes to Jean prepared to run away, he tells her she is as "white as a corpse" (101). This cliched simile is effective in describing how pale she is, but also in foreshadowing her imminent death.
