Based on the four works "Emilia Galotti", "Miss Sara Sampson", "Maria Magdalena" and "Homo Faber" various father-daughter relationships in German literature are examined in this thesis, which was awarded top marks.
In each of the works, the daughter figure tragically dies. Although I did not intentionally choose the four books for this reason at first, I found the motive so interesting that I stuck with my choice.
Content
1. Introduction
1.1. Foreword
1.2. The murder of Virginia by her father Lucius Virginius for her protection
2. Main part
2.1. "Emilia Galotti" by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
2.1.1. Information about the work: Lessing's statement on the conception of the work
2.1.2. Content of the tragedy
2.1.3. The father figure "Odoardo Galotti" as a split personality
2.1.4. The underage daughter figure "Emilia Galotti"
2.1.5. Father-daughter relationship: The father's murder of the daughter at her request
2.2. "Maria Magdalena" by Friedrich Hebbel
2.2.1 Information about the work: The genesis of the final title
2.2.2. Content of the bourgeois tragedy
2.2.3. The dominant father figure "Master Anton"
2.2.4. The daughter figure "Klara" as a victim of her environment
2.2.5 Father-daughter relationship: Klara's suicide as a consequence of the oath demanded by the father
2.3. "Miss Sara Sampson" by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
2.3.1 Information about the work: The typical bourgeois tragedy
2.3.2 Content of the piece
2.3.3 The father figure "Sir William Sampson" as the ideal image of a father
2.3.4 The daughter character "Miss Sara Sampson" as an independent person
2.3.5 Father-daughter relationship: Sara's feelings of guilt towards her father and forgiveness
2.4. "Homo Faber" by Max Frisch
2.4.1 Information about the work: The author Max Frisch
2.4.2 Content of the novel
2.4.3 The father figure "Walter Faber" and his transformation
2.4.4 The daughter figure "Elisabeth Piper" as the opposite of her father
2.4.5 Father-daughter relationship: Physical love based on ignorance
3. Conclusion Psychological assessment of relationships from today's perspective
4. Annex
4.1 Bibliography
4.2 Notes / References
1. Introduction
1.1. Foreword
The topic of my thesis is "Fathers and Daughters in German Literature". In order to approach him, I first asked a friend of the literary circle leader for a list of books that deal with or contain such a family situation, and read them from the point of view of my topic. Gradually, I decided on four works in order to continue working on them.
In each of the works, the daughter figure is tragically killed. Although I did not deliberately select the four books for this reason at first, I found the motif so interesting that I stuck to my selection and also use such a constellation as an introduction.
Coincidentally, the author of two selected works is Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. This fact initially made me think about whether I should exchange one of the two books for the sake of variety, but then decided against it for the following reasons:
- The father-daughter relationships in the works in question ,"Miss Sara Sampson" and "Emilia Galotti" are by no means of the same kind. The variety of the book selection therefore did not seem to me to be in danger.
- In addition, I find both cases very interesting and easy to describe with the help of a secondary literature found on the Internet, so that I stayed with the selection of the Lessing pieces.
The next step in my way of working was to determine the order in which I wanted to discuss the books. From a few alternatives – chronologically, for example, or arranged according to their authors – I chose to bring the works into a context of meaning and to list similarities and differences as a transition. This seemed to me to be the best form of outline.
In order to write a suitable introduction, I was looking for an ancient example of a famous father-daughter relationship. The treatment of German literature follows as the main part. Finally, the conclusion consists of another level on which I want to deal with my topic: The four father-daughter relationships (or the behavior of the respective fathers and daughters) from a modern, psychological point of view.
So much for my way of working on the following specialist work.
1.2. The murder of Virginia by her father Lucius Virginius for her protection
,, Child, this only means remained for me to save your freedom!" [1]
With these words, Lucius pierces Virginius, in short: Virginius, the chest of his daughter Virginia with a knife.
This is how Titus Livius, 49 BC to 17 BC, a Roman historian at the time of Augustus, describes the tragic outcome of a family fate in his work "Libri ab urbe condita III".
Virginius, a Roman centurion, had entrusted his daughter Virginia to the former tribune Lucius Icilius and had already celebrated the engagement. Appius Claudius, however, a decemvir, wanted to seduce her and therefore commissioned one of his clients to claim the girl as his slave. He himself as Decemvir would make the judgment about it and take over the daughter. Since the father was absent, and the crowd at the forum protested against an immediate verdict, he had to decide on the day of the trial that the girl should initially stay with relatives, and the trial should continue the next day. However, if the father was not back from the camp in time, Virginia should in any case belong to the plaintiff. Both her fiancé and her great-uncle Numitorius rebelled against this verdict, but could not do anything. All they could do was send to the father as soon as possible.
The next day, fortunately, the father appeared at the Roman Forum in time for the court date. However, Claudius nevertheless decided that the plaintiff could use the girl as a slave, as he naturally wanted to win her over.
In order to prevent such a disgrace, and since he saw no other way to protect his daughter from Claudius, the father snatched the knife from a butcher standing in the crowd and killed her. He shouted:
,, Upon you, Appius, and your head, I invite the curse of this blood!!" [2]
"Your death is the occasion for a popular uprising" [3], which resulted in the overthrow of the ruling society and the state structure. The Decemviri system was replaced by the consulate.
2. Main part
The motive of Livy, a father who kills the daughter - in a direct or indirect way - is very common in literature. Four of these cases are now to be investigated in the main part.
2.1. "Emilia Galotti" by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
2.1.1. Information about the work: Lessing's statement on the conception of the work
This is how Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, 1729 – 1781, treats the material in his tragedy "Emilia Galotti". However, he only deals with the actual fate of the family and tries to maintain an apolitical conception. In a letter to Friedrich Nicolai dated 21.1.1758 he describes the reasons for this:
"He – the young tragedy (i.e. Lessing himself) separated the history of Roman Virginia from everything that made it interesting for the whole city; he believed that the fate of a daughter who is killed by her father, to whom her virtue is more worthy than her life, was tragic enough in itself, and capable enough to shake the whole soul, even if no overthrow of the entire state constitution followed." [4]
Nevertheless, "Emilia Galotti""one of the first political dramas of modern German literature, whose influence, for example on Schiller's youth work, was significant." 5 It was begun in 1757, completed in 1771/72 and finally premiered on 13.3.1772 in Braunschweig.
2.1.2. Content of the tragedy
The drama begins with the Prince of Guastalla, Hettore Gonzaga, whose love for Countess Orsina cools down the moment he takes Emilia Galotti "met with her mother in a Vegghia".6 Unfortunately, this is already promised to Count Appiani. To prevent the wedding, the prince gives his valet Marinelli a free hand. He plans an attack on the wedding carriage, to which the count falls victim. Emilia Galotti, who is also in the carriage, is taken to the prince's castle, and her mother also arrives there. She sees through the plan of the prince or Marinellis to establish contact between Emilia and the prince in this way. When Countess Orsina and Emilia's father, Odoardo Galotti, arrive, she gives him a dagger to kill the prince. The father, however, instead stabs his daughter Emilia at her request to try her. "to save from shame" 7
2.1.3. The father figure "Odoardo Galotti" as a split personality
First, the father's reaction to the murder of his daughter is to be investigated. The deed happens in affect, it seems, after she accuses him of "There are no more such fathers!" 8 who save their daughter from shame. Your text here alludes to the Virginius and the butcher's knife mentioned in the introduction:
"Before, there was probably a father who, to save his daughter from shame, lowered the first, the best steel into her heart – gave her life for the second." 9
In order to prove to her that he too is such a father who kills his daughter for her love, he kills her in order to frighten her immediately afterwards: "God, what have I done!"10. Only after the fact does he begin to reflect on the significance of his action. At the same time, he regrets the murder he carries out with the pride of saving her. This ambivalence of Odoardo is evident in all his performances.
In his first appearance (II.2.), Odoardo Galotti is first portrayed as a loving husband and worried father.
He surprises his wife Claudia with a spontaneous visit and also refutes her doubts as to whether this is actually the case. "just a surprise" 11 which has no further background. But this suspicious assumption of his wife alone indicates that the beautiful appearance of the marriage could be deceptive, and that things may have already happened in advance that make Claudia suspicious if Odoardo is so strikingly friendly.
Furthermore, he initially seems genuinely worried when Claudia responds to his question about Emilia, which he "busy with cleaning" 12 She explains that she was in the church and left the house unaccompanied. But immediately the real reason for his concern comes to light: His confidence in Emilia is low, he is afraid that she can "Misstep" 13 commit.
Also in his second appearance (II.4.) Odoardo shows negative and split character traits.
At first, he urgently awaits Emilia's return from the Church – not because he longs for her in paternal love, but because of his imminent conversation with Count Appiani, to whom he does not want to be late. He can't wait, "to call this worthy young man (his) son." 14, and it seems more important to him to be able to welcome him into his family than to know his daughter is in good hands. This could be an indication of a softened type of forced marriage that the father and the count have decided. 15.
While Odoardo lives on his country estate, Claudia and Emilia live in the city. He accuses his wife of this fact on the grounds that she prefers the distractions of everyday life to the time with her husband. Instead, Claudia had chosen to live in the city to give Emilia a good education. She is therefore right to call his accusation "unjust" 16.
Claudia's story that Emilia met with the prince and that he "so enchanted by her cheerfulness and her wit" 17, he reacts in horror. The worst thing that could happen to him would be the abolition of the covenant with the noble Count Appiani in favor of the prince, who was only a "Wollüstling" 18 May be.
The following monologue by Claudia, in which she calls him a man of rough virtue (cf. II.5.), makes his high morals clear. : "Everything seems (to him) suspicious, everything punishable!" 19
After the attack on the carriage takes place, the count is wounded and Claudia and Emilia are at the prince's castle, Odoardo only appears here again. He could not prevent Emilia's fateful encounter with the prince, nor marinelli's attack. he "is the absent father." 20
Claudia's assessment of Odoardo's character is also clearly recognizable in that appearance (IV.6+7). The prince's valet, Marinelli, had warned him not to engage in a conversation with Countess Orsina, as she was not responsible for her. 21 – a clue that, of course, should prevent Odoardo from realizing the truth about the background of the attack. However, he immediately responds to her when she wants to make him curious. His suspicious mind tells him, "that's not how a madman speaks" 22, and when he learns that Count Appiani was not only wounded in the attack, but killed 23, and that his daughter Emilia is also to be seduced by the prince, awakens the lust for murder in him. Orsina can fulfill this need by giving him a dagger 24, with which he is supposed to kill the prince.
In the following monologues of Odoardo (v.2, v.4, v.6.) as well as in his conversations with Claudia (IV.8), Marinelli (v.3.), the prince (v.5.) and finally Emilia himself (v.7.) his perplexity becomes clear 25. This finally culminates in the murder of the wrong person: Not her kidnapper, but the innocent daughter must die. It is now to be characterized.
2.1.4. The underage daughter figure "Emilia Galotti"
Emilia is a girl full of virtue, charity and obedience, but at the same time dependent and unable to influence her own fate. These properties will be explained below using some scene examples.
She is not to blame for the fact that the prince raves about her by any seduction on her part or the like. He first met her "with her mother in a Vegghia" 26 and was then replaced by a portrait of the painter Conti, a "Study of female beauty" 27 reminds of their charms. When he lurks her on the day of her wedding and addresses her in the church, she feels persecuted by him and feels guilty because she cannot carry out her devotional (II.6.). She is by no means flattered by his compliments on her "Beauty" 28 which illustrates their great virtue.
This trait also makes her feel like she should tell her fiancé about the wedding day incident. However, since her mother advises her against it and Emilia "no will against yours" 29, it acts contrary to its own feelings, "rather nothing on the heart in front of him" 30 to want to have. She appears here as an immature figure strongly influenced by the duty of obedience to her parents. 31.
But it is not only with her mother that she cannot insist on her will. Even before, when she meets the prince in church, she proves to be weak and not assertive. Instead of rejecting him, she allows herself to be distracted in prayer by his whispers. 32 has "not the heart to direct a second (look) at him" 33, finally flees from him, almost losing her mind in the process 34 and reaches her mother completely dissolved.
After the attack on her wedding carriage, in which she was with her mother and groom, she is taken by Battista, a servant of Marinelli, to the prince in his nearby pleasure palace "Dosalo". Here, her selfless charity in caring for her mother manifests itself as follows:
"But I am frightened to see myself saved alone. My mother is still in danger. Behind us we were even shot. She may be dead; – and I live? – Forgive me. I have to leave; I have to go back - where I should have stayed the same." 35
After Marinelli prevents her from leaving the castle and takes her to a back room, Emilia only reappends when her father has already made the plan to murder the prince. Since Odoardo did not wait for Emilia's arrival on the morning of the wedding day, and was never present in the further course of the story, the appearance V.7. the first meeting of father Odoardo and his daughter Emilia in the whole play and will therefore be dealt with in the next point to analyze their relationship to each other.
2.1.5. Father-daughter relationship: The father's murder of the daughter at her request
Odoardo Galotti has made Emilia a "ideal, virtuous daughter" 36 Who sees his strict morals as unchangeable laws. The prince, however, succeeds in shaking up this system. Thus, Odoardo is very afraid that she could lose her innocence if she continues to be in contact with the prince.
But the daughter herself is also afraid that she could lose her innocence. Unlike her father, she starts not only from the physical but also from the mental desire that she might feel in her weakness for the prince. She interprets the Christian faith so strictly that in thought "Sin also want to sin" 37 May be.
The monologue of the father (v.6.) hints at the terrible end of the tragedy. here "for the first time he expresses the idea of killing Emilia" 38. Immediately afterwards, however, he rejects the consideration again, without admitting it properly, with the words: "Do I have the heart to tell me? – I think so! Something that can only be imagined! – Horrible! Fort, Fort!" 39.
In appearance V.7. then, at the first meeting of the two, Odoardo does not recognize his otherwise so warm daughter. In the state of emergency of the attack, she has accepted his callousness, which he had previously used with the words "I can never cry" 40 has made it clear. In this situation, Emilia is completely indifferent whether "nothing lost or all" 41 is lost.
But when she comes to herself and – perhaps for the first time in her young life – advocates not to "Suffer what you shouldn't" 42, Odoardo is very happy about this change and even reveals that nature has made women her masterpiece, and that almost everything about them is better than about men. 43.
At this moment, when Emilia finally wants to stand up for her own opinion, suicide seems to her to be the only way to free herself from the captivity between the austerity of the parental home and the seduction of the prince. She asks Odoardo for the dagger and tries to stab herself with it. However, he realizes in time that this weapon is "not for (her) hand" 44 and take it from her again.
After all, Emilia wants to enforce her first own decision, her death, with all her might. And so she provokes her father until he wants to fulfill her wish and stabs her.
The prince who took the deed with "Horror" 45 and calls Odoardo a cruel father 46, he finally makes it clear that Emilia will no longer succumb to his seductions and continue that he will not pay for the murder with his suicide, but will settle for it. "even in prison" 47 and await him before the last judgment. He is therefore by no means aware of his own guilt, which means that the relationship with his daughter will no longer change positively even after her death.
2.2. "Maria Magdalena" by Friedrich Hebbel
2.2.1 Information about the work: The genesis of the final title
Exactly 74 years to the day after the premiere of "Emilia Galotti" on 13.3.1846 in Königsberg 48 premiered another example of the dramatic implementation of a father-daughter relationship. The bourgeois tragedy of Friedrich Hebbel (1813-1863) bears the title "Maria Magdalena" in today's parlance, but became known in the original due to a printing error under "Maria Magdalene".
The theme of the drama, however, is by no means the biblical female figure at Jesus' side, but the tragic relationship of the carpenter's daughter Klara to her environment. 49. And there "Klara" 50, the title initially proposed by Hebbel, which seemed too uninteresting to the publisher of the book, it was eventually published under "Maria Magdalene" (see title page).
[...]
1 Livius "Libri ab urbe condita III" Chapter 48 URL: http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/?id=5&xid=1661&kapitel=5&cHash =7adb7cff0bschwztod#gb_found [07.07.2008]
2 Livius "Libri ab urbe condita III" Chapter 48 URL http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/?id=5&xid=1661&kapitel=5&cHash =7adb7cff0bschwztod#gb_found [07.07.2008]
3 KLL Volume 8, page 3077
4 Draws-Volk Chapter "0th Introduction" (no page numbers)
5 KLL Volume 8, page 3077
6 Emilia p. 8, z. 36f
7 Emilia p. 70, z. 35f
8 Emilia p. 70, p. 38
9 Emilia p. 70, z. 34ff
10 Emilia p. 70, p. 40
11 Emilia p. 18, z. 10f
12 Emilia p. 18, no. 17
13 Emilia p. 18, no. 23
14 Emilia p. 21, z. 9f
15 cf. Buchkremer p. 12 and p. 23
16 Emilia p. 21, p. 23
17 Emilia p. 22., Z. 21f
18 Emilia p. 22, p. 32
19 Emilia p. 23, z. 2f
20 Book crem p.7
21 cf. Emilia p. 56, no. 8ff
22 Emilia p. 56, p. 36
23 cf. Emilia p. 57, no. 17f
24 cf. Emilia p. 58, no. 12f
25 cf. Buchkremer p.7
26 Emilia p. 8, z. 36f
27 Emilia p. 10, z. 2f
28 Emilia p. 24, Z.12
29 Emilia p.26, Z. 5f
30 Emilia p.26, no. 1f
31 cf. Buchkremer p. 12
32 cf. Emilia p.24, z.1ff
33 Emilia p. 25, z. 2f
34 cf. Emilia p. 25, no. 13f
35 Emilia p. 38, z. 27ff
36 Book crem p.19
37 Emilia p. 23, p. 29
38 Buchkremer p. 18
39 Emilia p. 68, Z.15f
40 Emilia p. 62, no. 11
41 Emilia p. 68, z. 25f
42 Emilia p. 69, no. 22
43 cf. Emilia p. 69, no. 25ff
44 Emilia p. 70, z. 24f
45 Emilia p. 71, no. 4
46 cf. Emilia p. 71, no. 6
47 Emilia p. 71, z. 22f
48 cf. KLL Volume 14, p. 6029
49 cf. KLL Volume 14, p. 6029
50 cf. Mary p. 57
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