In "Desire Under the Elms: In the Light of Strindberg's Influence", Murray Hartman also saw strong parallels between "Desire Under the Elms" and the work of August Strindberg, writing "At any rate, there is hardly a plot element in the play that cannot be traced to one or more sources in Strindberg." He details several elements of O'Neill and Strindberg's biographies that are similar, and how they manifest in "Desire Under the Elms", in addition to naming several specific works of Strindberg's, such as "The People of Hemsö", "The Bridal Crown", and "The Son of a Servant". Specifically, he points out very similarly confused relationships with the writers' respective mothers and contentious relationships with their fathers. He also writes, "The basic situation, where the young son has seen his beloved mother worked to death by a hard father and then has had to bear the usurpation of her position by an aggressive stepmother, has its origin in "The Son of a Servant"." This can be seen in "Desire under the Elms" through Eben's opinion that Ephraim worked his mother to death and largely drives the plot.