Facing Death

• Characters:
  • Monsieur Durand, a pension (boarding house) proprietor, formerly connected with the state railroad
  • Adele, his daughter, twenty-seven
  • Annette, his daughter, twenty-four
  • Therese, his daughter, twenty-four (the youngest one)
  • Monsieur Antonio, a lieutenant, twenty-four
  • Pierre, an errand boy
• Setting: Dining-room of a boarding house

About the Play

This play is a one-act play written by August Strindberg, a Swedish playwright. It dramatizes a heroic sacrifice made by a bankrupt man for the sake of his daughters.

Summary of the Plot

The play opens with Monsieur Durand standing in the doorway of the dining room. His eldest daughter Adele enters and asks him if he has brought coffee-bread from the shop. Monsieur Durand replies that he has sent Pierre, an errand boy, instead. [Errand boy is someone who earns money by running errands.]  When Pierre arrives, he hasn’t brought the bread, but the bills instead. He says that the baker refused to give bread until his all dues are paid first. And the butcher and the grocery shop have sent the credit bills for the Durand to pay soon. It becomes clear that Monsieur Durand has become bankrupt. The family has been running the house as a boarding house, but the business isn’t thriving. Adele becomes worried and tries to remind her father his responsibility towards his daughters. But when she sees a package of candles in the basket brought by Pierre, she becomes angry at her father for spending his money in such unimportant things instead. He explains that he wants the candles in order to remember his dead son once every death anniversary. Adele finds it meaningless at a time when the house has no money to even buy the bread to eat. She remembers her dead mother and says that if she had lived, she would have found some way to keep providing for her children.

Monsieur Antonio, a lieutenant in the army, who is the only guest in the house at this time, arrives from his morning walk. He asks for coffee. Monsieur Durand tells him that they are bankrupt and can no longer continue to do business. Antonio asks permission to stay in the boarding house for one more month and for which he offers to pay the bill in advance. But Durand rejects it. After a little more conversation with Antonio, he goes out to get the bread. After he goes out, his youngest daughter Therese enters the room and begins to flirt with Antonio. Durand’s other daughter Annette also comes in. In order to tease Therese, Antonio praises Annette, which makes Therese jealous and angry. Trying to coax her, Antonio puts his arm around Therese and kisses her. Just then, Monsieur Durand arrives and sees Antonio kissing Therese. He becomes furious and orders Antonio to leave the house immediately. When Antonio retorts, Durand fights with him and forces him to leave right away. Extremely sad to have lost the last hope of income too, all the three daughters begin to chide and despise their father and blame him for the present misery of the family. But when Durand tells them that he is going to get the money for his daughters by realizing a life insurance he has, that is five thousand francs if he dies, they soften and pretend to treat him nicely.

At this time, the wind is blowing outside, and noticing the windstorm is coming soon, Monsieur Durand orders his daughters to close the door and windows and put out the fire in the stove. He says that if the house catches fire, the family will get nothing from the insurance. When Therese and Annette go away, Durand talks to Adele and tells her the truth. Durand has already sold his life insurance, but does have fire insurance from which he can get the money. And he handovers the insurance papers to Adele. Then, he lights the candles he has bought, and as he waits for them to burn up, he tells Adele some more truths. He is not a Swiss by birth, but is a French. Later, in order to marry a Swiss woman he loved (his daughters’ mother), he came to Switzerland and became a naturalized Swiss. And that his wife told her daughters several lies about Durand and blamed him for her mistakes. She also very carelessly spent out the property they had. However, Adele isn’t willing to believe such things about her mother.

The fire has been caught in the room. Monsieur Durand instructs Adele to save only the family papers and the fire insurance papers from the fire, and take care of her sisters later with the money she gets from the fire insurance. The fire is burning bigger. Adele alerts her father, but he isn’t worried, for he has already decided to die in the fire. He has taken poison. His head falls. The distant bell of alarm strikes and the rumbling and murmur of voices is heard outside, indicating that the villagers have gathered seeing the house burning. The play ends right at this point.