“It must be a terrible misfortune to be poor.”
Miss Julie voices this opinion when Jean talks to her about his upbringing. We do not know her tone, which could be wide-eyed or pitying or arch. However, regardless of her tone, the sentiment is uncaring, since she is speaking from her own place of privilege and distancing herself from her companion rather than finding any common ground. She does not seek any real connection, and she does not interrogate the nature of fixed social classes. Yet it is not Jean, the poor one, who dies at the end of the novel, so while it is indeed a "terrible misfortune" to be poor, it also seems not to be that great to be rich.
"He wants his boots and his coffee in a half hour."
Critic Goran Stockenstrum writes about Jean's reaction to the Count's boots: "His tragic monologue affirms the impossible dream of freedom in a patriarchal world incarnate in the absent but ever present count. The revolt of the boots is a visual expression of this determinism, the boots to which Jean had earlier fled each time Miss Julie had threatened his social domain by transgressing its boundaries. Like the ghost of Hamlet's father, the count represents the paternal authority in the play's social microcosm but also 'the father within' who commands both Jean and Julie through a conscience rooted in patriarchal society." The boots are almost a metonymic device—at least a powerful symbol—of the Count and everything wrapped up in his figure: power, aristocracy, masculinity, oppression. Though Jean most likely also wears boots as footwear, they are certainly not the boots of the Count; Jean will never get to know what it is like to walk in the master's shoes.
Every event in life—and this is a fairly new discovery!—is usually the result of a whole series of more or less deep-seated motives, but the spectator usually selects the one that he most easily understands or that best flatters his powers of judgement.
In his preface to the play, Strindberg sets out his views on the need for naturalism in the theater. He suggests that when the audience looks at a particular character's motivations or behaviors, they ignore the fact that there are many things acting upon them and instead choose just one that makes sense to them. For example, instead of looking at Miss Julie's motivations and behaviors as a product of her upbringing, her historical moment, the Midsummer holiday, her class status and gender status, etc., one might conclude there is just one major reason that explains her. Strindberg believes that all of the forces acting upon a person make their fate almost inevitable—meaning that Miss Julie was inexorably drawn to Jean and after their encounter had no other choice but to die.
The half-woman is a type who thrusts herself forward and sells herself nowadays for power, decorations, honours, or diplomas as formerly she used to do for money.
Strindberg also uses the preface to the play to rail against the "half-woman" types that were more and more conspicuous during his era. The modern woman was noxious to him because she did not act within the confines of her gender but instead went after things that should be outside of her purview. He equates the desire for a degree or some sort of social power as being equivalent to selling one's body for money, insinuating that such a woman is a "whore" (indeed, that is what Jean calls Miss Julie) for stepping outside the bounds of her gender. Strindberg fleshes out this condemnation in the play itself by having Miss Julie be the product of a mother who taught her to hate men and to live as men did; for Strindberg, Miss Julie's defiance of gender norms meant that death was her only possible—and justified—fate.
She goes to church to unload her household thefts onto Jesus casually and deftly, and to recharge herself with a new dose of innocence.
Strindberg also has harsh words for Kristin, but they're less the product of the playwright's misogyny and more the product of his extreme antipathy towards religion. Here he points out that Kristin uses her religion to allow herself to commit wrongs and then be forgiven for them—not to mention her smug confidence in her rightness and innocence. Religion, Strindberg suggests, is simply a way for people to feel better about doing what they want to do and will probably do anyway; thus, Kristin can engage in petty thefts and spur Miss Julie to kill herself and at the end of the day God will still forgive them.
"Well, she's got her monthly now; then she always acts this strange."
Strindberg's misogyny is manifest in his decision to have his titular female character be menstruating during the action of the play. Scholars Vern Bullough and Martha Vogt note that most doctors considered menstruation a "pathological condition" and believed "females were not to exercise their minds without restriction because of their monthly cycles." Strindberg thus can, through the words of Kristin and the implicit beliefs of Jean, portray Miss Julie as lacking mental soundness—hysterical, and being unable to regulate her emotions.
"All the same, along with the other boys I found a way to the tree of life..."
Jean uses a biblical allusion here (the tree in the Garden of Eden that bears fruit that, when eaten, provides knowledge of good and evil) to comment on the way young boys are raised. The patriarchy sanctions boys and men pursuing carnal knowledge and does not censure them when they do so. Young girls and women, on the other hand, are supposed to be decorous and restrained lest they be considered a "whore" (an insult Jean lobs at Miss Julie).
"Let me go!—You won't win me like that!"
"How, then, if not like that?"
Though Jean is far from being a sympathetic character to modern audiences, it is hard not to understand his frustration with Miss Julie in this exchange. The only thing that brought them together was sexual desire—not love in the slightest—and it makes sense that Jean would think that they could engage in further concupiscence. On the other hand, Miss Julie's reaction makes sense when we consider the fact that she needs to tell herself their relationship is based on something more than sex; this is because she has so flouted gender and class norms that there needs to be a real reason for her doing so.
"You're as white as a corpse and—forgive me‚ your face is dirty."
This quote is briefly discussed in terms of literary devices, but it bears looking at here as well. As a succinct commentary on where Miss Julie is at after her dalliance with Jean, it is extremely useful. She is "dirty" just as he is dirty; she has fallen from her pedestal into the muck of ignominy. Furthermore, the quote alludes to her imminent fate of death.
"Do you think I'm so weak?———Oh—I'd like to see your blood, your brains, on a chopping block—I'd like to see your sex, swimming in a sea of blood, like that bird there—"
Miss Julie allows herself a moment of unfettered rage, leaving behind the decorum associated with her class and gender. She speaks as an almost Greek female monster who wants to devour the men before her. To his credit, Strindberg gives her this rage, but it is almost impotent from the moment the words leave her mouth and it has no effect on the subsequent actions in the play. She is still powerless, she is still fated to die.
