Page:Emma Goldman - The Social Significance of the Modern Drama - 1914.djvu/53

 If she marries she can use her knowledge in the education of her children.

While the father's love is concerned with the development of the child, that of the mother is interested mainly in the possession of the child. Therefore she fights the man with every means at her command, even to the point of instilling the poison of doubt into his mind, by hints that he is not the father of the child. Not only does she seek to drive her husband mad, but through skillful intrigue she leads every one, including the Doctor, to believe that he is actually insane. Finally even the old nurse is induced to betray him: she slips the straitjacket over him, adding the last touch to the treachery. Robbed of his faith, broken in spirit and subdued, the Captain dies a victim of the Earth Spirit - of motherhood, which slays the man for the sake of the child. Laura herself will have it so when she tells her husband, " You have fulfilled your function as an unfortunately necessary father and breadwinner. You are not needed any longer, and you must go."

Critics have pronounced " The Father " an aberration of Strindberg's mind, utterly false and distorted. But that is because they hate to f ace the truth. In Strindberg, however, the truth is his most revolutionary significance.