To readers of the present day, Mr. X.--that
striking antithesis of everything a scientist used to stand for in
poetry--is much less interesting as a superman in spe than as an
illustration of what a morally and mentally normal man can do with
the tools furnished him by our new understanding of human ways and
human motives. And in giving us a play that holds our interest as
firmly as the best "love plot" ever devised, although the stage
shows us only two men engaged in an intellectual wrestling match,
Strindberg took another great step toward ridding the drama of its
old, shackling conventions.
The name of this play has sometimes been translated as "The
Outcast," whereby it becomes confused with "The Outlaw," a much
earlier play on a theme from the old Sagas. I think it better,
too, that the Hindu allusion in the Swedish title be not lost, for
the best of men may become an outcast, but the baseness of the
Pariah is not supposed to spring only from lack of social
position.
PARIAH
AN ACT
1889
PERSONS
MR. X., an archaeologist, Middle-aged man.
MR. Y., an American traveller, Middle-aged man.
SCENE
(A simply furnished room in a farmhouse.
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