Had I not cause to be deeply concerned about your son? In circles where open immorality prevails, and has even a sort of prestige —! Let me tell you, sir, that I have been a constant Sunday-guest in one or two such irregular homes —. Well, never have I heard an offensive word, and still less have I ever witnessed anything that could be called immoral. No; do you know when and where I have found immorality in artistic circles? Well, then, allow me to inform you.
I have met with it when one or other of our pattern husbands and fathers has come to Paris to have a look around on his own account, and has done the artists the honor of visiting their humble haunts. They knew what was what. These gentlemen could tell us all about places and things we had never dreamt of. Have you never heard these respectable men, when they got home again, talking about the way in which immorality was running rampant abroad? Well, you may take their word for it.
They know what they are talking about! Pastor Manders is outraged, and when Oswald leaves, he delivers himself of a tirade against Mrs. It is only the spirit of rebellion that craves for happiness in this life. What right have we human beings to happiness? No, we have to do our duty! And your duty was to hold firmly to the man you had once chosen and to whom you were bound by a holy tie It was your duty to bear with humility the cross which a Higher Power had, for your own good, laid upon you.
But instead of that you rebelliously cast away the cross I was but a poor instrument in a Higher Hand. And what a blessing has it not been to you all the days of your life, that I got you to resume the yoke of duty and obedience! Alving had to pay for her yoke, her duty and obedience, staggers even Dr. Manders , when she reveals to him the martyrdom she had endured those long years. You have now spoken out, Pastor Manders; and to-morrow you are to speak publicly in memory of my husband. I shall not speak to-morrow. But now I will speak out a little to you, as you have spoken to me I want you to know that after nineteen years of marriage my husband remained as dissolute in his desires as he was when you married us.
But it did not last long. I had my little son to bear it for. But when the last insult was added; when my own servant-maid — Then I swore to myself: This shall come to an end. And so I took the upper hand in the house — the whole control over him and over everything else. For now I had a weapon against him, you see; he dared not oppose me. It was then that Oswald was sent from home.
He was in his seventh year, and was beginning to observe and ask questions, as children do. That I could not bear. I thought the child must get poisoned by merely breathing the air in this polluted home. That was why I placed him out. And now you can see, too, why he was never allowed to set foot inside his home so long as his father lived. No one knows what it has cost me From the day after to-morrow it shall be for me as though he who is dead had never lived in this house.
No one shall be here but my boy and his mother. From within the dining-room comes the noise of a chair overturned, and at the same moment is heard: Alving starts in terror. She stares wildly toward the half-opened door. Oswald is heard coughing and humming inside. Alving sees this but too clearly when she discovers that though she did not want Oswald to inherit a single penny from the purchase money Captain Alving had paid for her, all her sacrifice did not save Oswald from the poisoned heritage of his father.
She learns soon enough that her beloved boy had inherited a terrible disease from his father, as a result of which he will never again be able to work. Too late she realizes her fatal mistake:. But I almost think we are all of us Ghosts, Pastor Manders. It is all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth.
There must be Ghosts all the country over, as thick as the sand of the sea. And then we are, one and all, so pitifully afraid of the light When you forced me under the yoke you called Duty and Obligation; when you praised as right and proper what my whole soul rebelled against, as something loathsome. It was then that I began to look into the seams of your doctrine. I only wished to pick at a single knot; but when I had got that undone, the whole thing ravelled out. And then I understood that it was all machine-sewn It was a crime against us both.
Indeed, a crime on which the sacred institution is built, and for which thousands of innocent children must pay with their happiness and life, while their mothers continue to the very end without ever learning how hideously criminal their life is. Alving who, though at a terrible price, works herself out to the truth; aye, even to the height of understanding the dissolute life of the father of her child, who had lived in cramped provincial surroundings, and could find no purpose in life, no outlet for his exuberance.
It is through her child, through Oswald , that all this becomes illumed to her. I have never felt it here And then, too, the joy of work. But that too you know nothing about Here people are brought up to believe that work is a curse and a punishment for sin, and that life is something miserable, something we want to be done with, the sooner the better Have you noticed that everything I have painted has turned upon the joy of life?
That is why I am afraid of remaining at home with you. Oswald, you spoke of the joy of life; and at that word a new light burst for me over my life and all it has contained You ought to have known your father when he was a young lieutenant. He was brimming over with the joy of life! He had no object in life, but only an official position. He had no work into which he could throw himself heart and soul; he had only business. He had not a single comrade that knew what the joy of life meant — only loafers and boon companions — So that happened which was sure to happen Oswald, my dear boy; has it shaken you very much?
I never knew anything of father. Should not a son love his father, all the same? When a son has nothing to thank his father for? Do you really cling to the old superstition? In truth, a superstition — one that is kept like the sword of Damocles over the child who does not ask to be given life, and is yet tied with a thousand chains to those who bring him into a cheerless, joyless, and wretched world.
Into the remotest nooks and corners reaches his voice, with its thundering indictment of our moral cancers, our social poisons, our hideous crimes against unborn and born victims. Verily a more revolutionary condemnation has never been uttered in dramatic form before or since the great Henrik Ibsen. But the spirit of Henrik Ibsen could not be daunted. A sincere man of high ideals, Dr. Stockmann returns home after an absence of many years, full of the spirit of enterprise and progressive innovation. I feel so unspeakably happy in the midst of all this growing, germinating life.
After all, what a glorious time we do live in. It is as if a new world were springing up around us. But I, who had to live up there in that small hole in the north all those years, hardly ever seeing a soul to speak a stimulating word to me — all this affects me as if I were carried to the midst of a crowded city — I know well enough that the conditions of life are small compared with many other towns.
But here is life, growth, an infinity of things to work for and to strive for; and that is the main point. In this spirit Dr. Stockmann sets to his task. After two years of careful investigation, he finds that the Baths are built on a swamp, full of poisonous germs, and that people who come there for their health will be infected with fever. Thomas Stockmann is a conscientious physician. He loves his native town, but he loves his fellow-men more. He considers it his duty to communicate his discovery to the highest authority of the town, theBurgomaster, his brother Peter Stockmann.
Stockmann is indeed an idealist; else he would know that the man is often lost in the official. Besides, Peter Stockmann is also the president of the board of directors and one of the heaviest stockholders of the Baths. Sufficient reason to upbraid his reckless medical brother as a dangerous man:. And that in a well-ordered community is almost as dangerous. The individual must submit himself to the whole community, or, to speak more correctly, bow to the authority that watches over the welfare of all.
But the Doctor is not disconcerted: Peter is an official; he is not concerned with ideals. But there is the press, — that is the medium for his purpose! Hovstad sees great possibilities for a thorough radical reform of the whole life of the community. To you, as a doctor and a man of science, this business of the water-works is an isolated affair. The swamp our whole municipal life stands and rots in I think a journalist assumes an immense responsibility when he neglects an opportunity of aiding the masses, the poor, the oppressed.
I know well enough that the upper classes will call this stirring up the people, and so forth, but they can do as they please, if only my conscience is clear. We now form a compact majority in the town — when we really make up our minds to. Of course with great moderation, Doctor. It is all about a supernatural power that looks after the so-called good people here on earth, and turns all things to their advantage at last, and all the bad people are punished. And would you supply the public with such stuff? He often has to yield to public opinion in small matters.
Editors of the stamp of Hovstad seldom dare to express their real opinions. They generally yield to the most ignorant and vulgar public opinion; they do not set themselves up against constituted authority. The public is best served by the good old recognized ideas that they have already The source is poisoned, man! We live by trafficking in filth and garbage. The whole of our developing social life is rooted in a lie! Idle fancies — or something worse. The man who makes such offensive insinuations against his own native place must be an enemy of society. And I must bear such treatment!
In my own house. What do you think of it? Indeed, it is a shame and an insult, Thomas — But, after all, your brother has the power —. Ah, yes, right, right! No good in a free society to have right on your side? You are absurd, Katrine. The compact majority behind me? Katrine Stockmann is wiser than her husband. For he who has no might need hope for no right. The good Doctor has to drink the bitter cup to the last drop before he realizes the wisdom of his wife. Stockmann attempts to secure a hall wherein to hold a public meeting.
A free-born citizen, he believes in the Constitution and its guarantees; he is determined to maintain his right of free expression. But like so many others, even most advanced liberals blinded by the spook of constitutional rights and free speech, Dr. Stockmanninevitably has to pay the penalty of his credulity. He finds every hall in town closed against him. Only one solitary citizen has the courage to open his doors to the persecuted Doctor , his old friend Horster. But the mob follows him even there and howls him down as an enemy of society. That is one of those conventional lies against which a free, thoughtful man must rebel The majority has might unhappily — but right it has not.
And should it come to this, I say, from the bottom of my heart: Perish all its people! Driven out of the place, hooted and jeered by the mob, Dr.
Statement of Regret
Stockmann barely escapes with his life, and seeks safety in his home, only to find everything demolished there. In due time he is repudiated by the grocer, the baker, and the candlestick maker. The landlord, of course, is very sorry for him. The Stockmanns have always paid their rent regularly, but it would injure his reputation to have such an avowed rebel for a tenant. The grocer is sorry, and the butcher, too; but they can not jeopardize their business.
Finally the board of education sends expressions of regret: Petra is an excellent teacher and the boys of Stockmann splendid pupils, but it would contaminate the other children were the Stockmanns allowed to remain in school. Stockmann learns a vital lesson. But he will not submit; he will be strong. Should I let myself be beaten off the field by public opinion, and the compact majority, and such deviltry? Besides, what I want is so simple, so clear and straightforward. I only want to drive into the heads of these curs that the Liberals are the worst foes of free men; that party-programmes wring the necks of all young living truths; that considerations of expediency turn morality and righteousness upside down, until life is simply hideous The strongest man is he who stands most alone.
A confession of faith, indeed, because Henrik Ibsen, although recognized as a great dramatic artist, remained alone in his stand as a revolutionist. His dramatic art, without his glorious rebellion against every authoritative institution, against every social and moral lie, against every vestige of bondage, were inconceivable. Just as his art would lose human significance, were his love of truth and freedom lacking. People clamour for the joy of life, and the theatrical managers order farces, as though the joy of life consisted in being foolish, and in describing people as if they were each and all afflicted with St.
I find the joy of life in the powerful, cruel struggle of life, and my enjoyment in discovering something, in learning something. The passionate desire to discover something, to learn something, has made of August Strindberg a keen dissector of souls. Above all, of his own soul.
Surely there is no figure in contemporary literature, outside of Tolstoy, that laid bare the most secret nooks and corners of his own soul with the sincerity of August Strindberg. One so relentlessly honest with himself, could be no less with others. That explains the bitter opposition and hatred of his critics. Especially is this true of woman. For centuries she has been lulled into a trance by the songs of the troubadours who paid homage to her goodness, her sweetness, her selflessness and, above all, her noble motherhood. And though she is beginning to appreciate that all this incense has befogged her mind and paralyzed her soul, she hates to give up the tribute laid at her feet by sentimental moonshiners of the past.
To be sure, it is rude to turn on the full searchlight upon a painted face. But how is one to know what is back of the paint and artifice? August Strindberg hated artifice with all the passion of his being; hence his severe criticism of woman. Perhaps it was his tragedy to see her as she really is, and not as she appears in her trance. To love with open eyes is, indeed, a tragedy, and Strindberg loved woman. All his life long he yearned for her love, as mother, as wife, as companion.
But his longing for, and his need of her, were the crucible of Strindberg, as they have been the crucible of every man, even of the mightiest spirit. The child in man-and the greater the man the more dominant the child in him-has ever succumbed to the Earth Spirit, Woman, and as long as that is her only drawing power, Man, with all his strength and genius, will ever be at her feet.
The role of theory
The Earth Spirit is motherhood carrying the race in its womb; the flame of life luring the moth, often against its Will, to destruction. Always, always the flame of life is drawing its victims with irresistible force. He, too, was the child of woman, and utterly helpless before her. The Father portrays the tragedy of a man and a woman struggling for the possession of their child. The father, a cavalry captain, is intellectual, a freethinker, a man of ideas.
His wife is narrow, selfish, and unscrupulous in her methods when her antagonism is wakened. The father feels that the child would be poisoned in such an atmosphere:. This house is full of women who all want to have their say about my child. My mother-inlaw wants to make a Spiritualist of her. Laura wants her to be an artist; the governess wants her to be a Methodist, old Margret a Baptist, and the servant-girls want her to join the Salvation Army!
I, who have the chief right to try to form her character, am constantly opposed in my efforts. It is rather because he wants her to grow up with a healthy outlook on life. I want her to be a teacher. 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: 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. You are not needed any longer, and you must go. But that is because they hate to f ace the truth. In Strindberg, however, the truth is his most revolutionary significance. The Father contains two basic truths. Motherhood, much praised, poetized, and hailed as a wonderful thing, is in reality very often the greatest deterrent influence in the life of the child.
Because it is not primarily concerned with the potentialities of character and growth of the child; on the contrary, it is interested chiefly in the birthgiver,- that is, the mother. Therefore, the mother is the most subjective, self-centered and conservative obstacle. She binds the child to herself with a thousand threads which never grant sufficient freedom for mental and spiritual expansion. It is not necessary to be as bitter as Strindberg to realize this.
There are of course exceptional mothers who continue to grow with the child. But the average mother is like the hen with her brood, forever fretting about her chicks if they venture a step away from the coop. The mother enslaves with kindness, — a bondage harder to bear and more difficult to escape than the brutal fist of the father. Strindberg himself experienced it, and nearly every one who has ever attempted to outgrow the soul strings of the mother. The horror of having been brought into the world undesired and unloved, stamped its indelible mark on August Strindberg. It never left him.
Nor did fear and hunger — the two terrible phantoms of his childhood. That this is the attitude of woman, is of course denied. But it is nevertheless true. It is only too true that woman is paying back what she has endured for centuries — humiliation, subjection, and bondage. But making oneself free through the enslavement of another, is by no means a step toward advancement.
Woman must grow to understand that the father is as vital a factor in the life of the child as is the mother. Such a realization would help very much to minimize the conflict between the sexes. Of course, that is not the only cause of the conflict. There is another, as expressed by Laura: I loved you as my child. The vile thought instilled into woman by the Church and Puritanism that sex expression without the purpose of procreation is immoral, has been a most degrading influence. Must it always be thus? Even Strindberg does not think so. Till then man and woman must remain in conflict, and the child pay the penalty.
August Strindberg, as one of the numberless innocent victims of this terrible conflict, cries out bitterly against it, with the artistic genius and strength that compel attention to the significance of his message. In his masterly preface to this play, August Strindberg writes: When we become strong, as were the first French revolutionaries, it will make an exelusively pleasant and cheerful impression to see the royal parks cleared of rotting, superannuated trees which have too long stood in the way of others with equal right to vegetate their full lifetime; it will make a good impression in the same sense as does the sight of the death of an incurable.
What a wealth of revolutionary thought,were we to realize that those who will clear society of the rotting, superannuated trees that have so long been standing in the way of others entitled to an equal share in life, must be as strong as the great revolutionists of the past! Indeed, Strindberg is no trimmer, no cheap reformer, no patchworker; therefore his inability to remain fixed, or to content himself with accepted truths.
Therefore also, his great versatility, his deep grasp of the subtlest phases of life. Was he not forever the seeker, the restless spirit roaming the earth, ever in the death-throes of the Old, to give birth to the New? How, then, could he be other than relentless and grim and brutally frank. Who in modern dramatic art is there to teach us that lesson with the insight of an August Strindberg?
He who had been begotten through the physical mastery of his father and the physical subserviency of his mother. Verily, Strindberg knew whereof he spoke-for he spoke with his soul, a language whose significance is illuminating, compelling. Countess Julie inherited the primitive, intense passion of her mother and the neurotic aristocratic tendencies of her father. Therein the vicious I brutality, the boundless injustice of rank. The Count is absent, and Julie graciously mingles with the servants.
The woman in Julie pursues the male, follows him into the kitchen, plays with him as with a pet dog, and then feigns indignation when Jean , aroused makes advances. I honor the people with my presence. I, in love with my coachman? I, who step down. Even though Jean is a servant, he has his pride, he has his dreams.
Strange, is it not, that those who serve and drudge for others, should think so much of themselves as to refuse to be played with? Stranger still that they should indulge in dreams. Do you know how people in high life look from the under-world? They look like hawks and eagles whose backs one seldom sees, for they soar up above. That was the garden of paradise; and there stood many angry angels with flaming swords protecting it; but for all that I and other boys found the way to the tree of life — now you despise me You were unattainable, but through the vision of you I was made to realize how hopeless it was to rise above the conditions of my birth.
The injustice and the bitterness of it all, that places the stigma of birth as an impassable obstacle, a fatal imperative excluding one from the table of life, with the result of producing such terrible effects on the Julies and the Jeans. The one unnerved, made helpless and useless by affluence, ease and idleness; the other enslaved and bound by service and dependence. Even when Jean wants to, he cannot rise above his condition.
When Julie asks him to embrace her, to love her, he replies:. There is the Count, your father I need only to see his gloves lying in a chair to feel my own insignificance. I have only to hear his bell, to start like a nervous horse And now that I see his boots standing there so stiff and proper, I feet like bowing and scraping No, superstition and prejudice cannot be uprooted in a moment; nor in years. The awe of authority, servility before station and wealth — these are the curse of the Jean class that makes such cringing slaves of them.
Cringing before those who are above them, tyrannical and overbearing toward those who are below them. For Jean has the potentiality of the master in him as much as that of the slave. Yes, you can say that, you are so smart.
Statement of Regret by Kwame Kwei-Armah
It reflects on oneself, I think. And to think of the Count! Think of him who has had so much sorrow all his days. And to think of it being with such as you 1 If it had been the Lieutenant — I have never lowered my position. Let them come and say it! Such dignity and morality are indeed pathetic, because they indicate how completely serfdom may annihilate even the longing for something higher and better in the breast of a human being.
The Kristins represent the greatest obstacle to social growth, the deadlock in the conflict between the classes. On the other hand, the Jeans, with all their longing for higher possibilities, often become brutalized in the hard school of life; though in the conflict with Julie, Jean shows brutality only at the critical moment, when it be.
It is a four-act comedy of marriage — the kind of marriage that lacks social and legal security in the form of a ceremony, but retains all the petty. The results of such an anomaly are indeed ludicrous when viewed from a distance, but very tragic for those who play a part in it. Axel Alberg and his wife Bertha are Swedish artists residing in Paris. They are both painters.
Nor is Bertha different in her concept of love, which is expressed in the following dialogue:. Bertha immediately concludes that he does not love her and that, moreover, he is jealous of her art. There is a scene. And hear me a moment. Do you think that my position in your house — for it is yours — is agreeable to me? WHat am I to you? Of what use am I in your house? Oh, I blush when I think about it! And you, Axel, you must help me.
If it were for yourself, it would be another matter, but for meForgive me! Now I beg of you as nicely as I know how. Yet though Bertha gracefully accepts everything Axel does for her, with as little compunction as the ordinary wife, she does not give as much in return as the latter.. On the contrary, she exploits Axel in a thousand ways, squanders his hardearned money, and lives the life of the typical wifely parasite.
August Strindberg could not help attacking with much bitterness such a farce and outrage parading in the disguise of radicalism. For Bertha is not an exceptional, isolated case. To-day, as when Strindberg satirized the all-too-feminine, the majority of so-called emancipated women are willing to accept, like Bertha , everything from the man, and yet feel highly indignant if he asks in return the simple comforts of married life.
The ordinary wife, at least, does not pretend to play an important role in the life of her husband. Whereas in reality she is often a cold-blooded exploiter of the work and ideas of the man, a heavy handicap to his life-purpose, retarding his growth as effectively as did her grandmothers in the long ago. It never occurs to Bertha that she is no less despicable than her legally married sister. He visits the patron saint of the salon, who, by the way, is not M.
Hence her husband must be victimized. She is not in the least disturbed, nor at all concerned over the effect of the news on Axel. But Axel is tearing himself free from the meshes of his decaying love. He begins to see Bertha as she is: In a terrible word tussle he tells her: During sleep you stole my best blood. In the last act Bertha discovers that Axel had generously changed the numbers on the paintings in order to give her a better chance.
It was his picture that was chosen as her work. She feels ashamed and humiliated; but it is too late. A characteristic sidelight in the play is given by the conversation of Mrs. Hall , the divorced wife of Doctor Ostermark.. She comes to Bertha with a bitter tirade against the Doctor because he gives her insufficient alimony. We must look into this. Do you know that you have the law on your side and that the courts can force him to pay? And he shall be forced to do so. So, he can bring children into the world and then leave them empty-handed with the poor deserted mother.
A distorted picture, some feminists will say. It is as typical to-day as it was twentysix years ago. In fact, many leaders in the American suffrage movement assure us that when women will make laws, they will force men to support their wives. From the leaders down to the simplest devotee, the same attitude prevails, namely, that man is a blagueur , and that but for him the Berthas would have long ago become Michelangelos, Beethovens, or Shakespeares; they claim that the Berthas represent the most virtuous half of the race, and that they have made up their minds to make man as virtuous as they are.
That such ridiculous extravagance should be resented by the Axels is not at all surprising. Not because they are opposed to the emancipation of woman, but because they do not believe that her emancipation can ever be achieved by such absurd and hysterical notions. They repudiate the idea that people who retain the substance of their slavery and merely escape the shadow, can possibly be free, live free, or act free.
The radicals, no less than the feminists, must realize that a mere external change in their economic and political status, cannot alter the inherent or acquired prejudices and superstitions which underlie their slavery and dependence, and which are the main causes of the antagonism between the sexes.
The transition period is indeed a most difficult and perilous stage for the woman as well as for the man. It requires a powerful light to guide us past the dangerous reefs and rocks in the ocean of life. August Strindberg is such a light. Sometimes glaring, ofttimes scorching, but always beneficially illuminating the path for those who walk in darkness, for the blind ones who would rather deceive and be deceived than look into the recesses of their being. It has been said that military conquest generally goes hand in hand with the decline of creative genius, with the retrogression of culture.
I believe this is not a mere assertion. The history of the human race repeatedly demonstrates that whenever a nation achieved great military success, it invariably involved the decline of art, of literature, of the drama; in short, of culture in the deepest and finest sense. This has been particularly borne out by Germany after its military triumph in the Franco-Prussian War.
For almost twenty years after that war, the country of poets and thinkers remained, intellectually, a veritable desert, barren of ideas. Nothing thrived in Germany during that period, except a sickening patriotism and sentimental romanticism, perniciously misleading the people and giving them no adequate outlook upon life and the social struggle. Perhaps that accounts for the popular vogue of Hermann Sudermann: It is not my intention to discuss Hermann Sudermann as an artist or to consider him from the point of view of the technique of the drama.
I intend to deal with him as the first German dramatist to treat social topics and discuss the pressing questions of the day. From this point of view Hermann Sudermann may be regarded as the pioneer of a new era in the German drama. He exposes the stupidity of the notion that because a man looks askance at you, or fails to pay respect to your uniform, you must challenge him to a duel and shoot him dead. In this play Sudermann shows that the conception of honor is nothing fixed or permanent, but that it varies with economic and social status, different races, peoples and times holding different ideas of it.
It deals with a universal subject, — the awakening of woman. But come into the quiet homes where are bred brave soldiers and virtuous wives. There modern ideas have no foothold, for it is there that the life and strength of the Fatherland abide. Look at this home! The Colonel is a rigid military man. He rules his family as the Kaiser rules the nation, with severe discipline, with terrorism and despotism.
He chooses the man whom Magda is to marry, and when she refuses to accept his choice, he drives her out of the house. At the age of eighteen Magda goes out into the world yearning for development; she longs for artistic expression and economic independence. Seventeen years later she returns to her native town, a celebrated singer.
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Magda has not forgotten her home; especially does she long to see her father whom she loves passionately, and her sister, whom she had left a little child of eight. After the concert Magda, the renowned artist, steals away from her admirers, with their flowers and presents, and goes out into the darkness of the night to catch a glimpse, through the window at least, of her father and her little sister.
Magda is finally prevailed upon to remain with her parent consents on condition that they should into her life, that they should not soil smirch her innermost being. But that is expecting the impossible from a provincial environment. I implore you — Come here, my child — nearer — so — I implore you — let me be happy in my dying hour.
Tell me that you have remained pure in body and soul, and then go with my blessing on your way. I love you with my whole heart, because I have sorrowed for you — so long. But I must know who you are. Among the townspeople who come to pay homage to Magda is Councilor von Keller. In his student days he belonged to the bohemian set and was full of advanced ideas. At that period he met Magda, young, beautiful, and inexperienced.
A love affair developed. But when Von Keller finished his studies, he went home to the fold of his family, and forgot his sweetheart Magda. In due course he became an important pillar of society, a very influential citizen, admired, respected, and feared in the community. When Magda returns home, Von Keller comes to pay her his respects. But she is no longer the insignificant little girl he had known; she is now a celebrity.
What pillar of society is averse to basking in the glow of celebrities? Von Keller offers flowers and admiration. But Magda discovers in him the man who had robbed her of her faith and trust, — the father of her child. Magda has become purified by her bitter struggle. It made her finer and bigger. She does not even reproach the man, because —.
Something warned me, too, when I undertook this journey home — though I must say I hardly expected just here to — Yes, how is it that, after what has passed between us, you came into this house? It seems to me a little — I can see it all. The effort to keep worthy of respect under such difficulties, with a bad conscience, is awkward. You look down from the height of your pure atmosphere on your sinful youth, — for you are called a pillar, my dear friend.
Well, I felt myself called things. I thought — Why should I undervalue my position? I have become Councilor, and that comparatively young. An ordinary ambition might take satisfaction in that. But one sits and waits at home, while others are called to the ministry.
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- .
And this environment conventionality, and narrowness, all is so gray, — gray! And the ladies here — for one who cares at all about elegance — I assure you something rejoiced within me when I read this morning that you were the famous singer, — you to whom I was tied by so many dear memories and —.
And then you thought whether it might not be possible with the help of these dear memories to bring a little color into the gray background? Oh, if from the other standpoint, I should have to range the whole gamut, — liar, coward, traitor! But as I look at it, I owe you nothing but thanks, my friend. Which is very convenient for you But why should I not make it convenient for you manner in which we met, you had no obligation me. I had left my home; I was young and hot-blooded and careless, and I lived as I saw I gave myself to you because I loved you.
I might perhaps have loved anyone who came in my way. That — that seemed to be all over. Yes, we were a merry set; and when the fun had lasted half a year, one day my lover vanished. An unlucky chance, I swear to you. My father was ill. I had to travel. I wrote everything to you. And now I will tell you why I owe you thanks. I was a stupid, unsuspecting thing, enjoying freedom like a runaway monkey. Through you I became a woman. For whatever I have done in my art, for whatever I have become in myself, I have you to thank.
My soul was like — yes, down below there, there used to be an Eolian harp which was left moldering because my father could not bear it. Such a silent harp was my soul; and through you it was given to the storm. Who calls it so? But I have a child, — my son, my God, my all!
For him I lived and starved and froze and walked the streets; for him I sang and danced in concert-halls, — for my child who was crying for his bread! Let them all come! Why should I be worse than you, that I must prolong my existence among you by a lie! Why should this gold upon my body, and the lustre which surrounds my name, only increase my infamy? Have I not worked early and late for ten long years? Have I not woven this dress with sleepless nights? Have I not built career step by step, like thousands of my kind? Why should I blush before anyone? I am myself, and through myself I have become what I am.
Magda resents the preposterous idea. Von Keller is indeed glad to offer Magda his hand in marriage: But he stipulates that she give up her profession of singer, and that the existence of the child be kept secret. He tells Magda that later on, when they are happily married an established in the world, they will bring child to their home and adopt it; but for the present respectability must not know that it born out of wedlock, without the sanction of the Church and the State.
That is more than Magda can endure. She is outraged that she, the mother, who had given up everything for the sake of her child, who had slaved, struggled and drudged in order to win a career and economic independence — all for the sake of the child — that she should forswear her right to motherhood, her right to be true to herself!
Why, it would ruin us. No, no, it is absurd to think of it. But we can make a little journey every year to wherever it is being educated. One can register under a false name; that is not unusual in foreign parts, and is hardly criminal. I have humbled myself, I have surrendered my judgment, I have let myself be carried like a lamb to the slaughter.
But my child I will not leave. Give up my child to save his career! Magda orders Von Keller out of the house.
Statement of Regret
But the old Colonel is unbending. He insists that his daughter become an honorable woman by marrying the man who had seduced her. Her refusal fires his wrath to wild rage. Either you swear to me now Leave art out of the question. Consider nothing more than the seamstress or the servant-maid who seeks, among strangers, the little food and the little love she needs. See how much the family with morality demand from us! It throws us on our own resources, it gives us neither shelter nor happiness, and yet, in our loneliness, we must live according to the laws which it has planned for itself alone.
We must still crouch in the corner, and there wait patiently until a respectful wooer happens to come. And meanwhile the war for existence of body and soul is consuming us. Ahead we see nothing but sorrow and despair, and yet shall we not once dare to give what we have of youth and strength to the man for whom our whole being cries? Gag us, stupefy us, shut us up in harems or in cloisters — and that perhaps would be best. But if you give us our freedom, do not wonder if we take advantage of it. But morality and the family never understand the Magdas. Least of all does the old Colonel understand his daughter.
Rigid in his false notions and superstitions, wrought up with distress he is about to carry out his threat, when a stroke of apoplexy overtakes him. As such the play is of great revolutionary significance, not alone to Germany, but to the universal spirit of a newer day. Life does not always draw the same conclusions; life is not always logical, not always consistent.
The function of the artist is to portray life — only thus can he be true both to art and to life. In this drama we witness the bondage of gratitude, — one of the most enslaving and paralyzing factors. Brauer, a landed proprietor, has a child, Gertrude, a beautiful girl, who has always lived the sheltered life of a hothouse plant. The Brauers also have an adopted daughter, Marie, whom they had picked up on the road, while traveling on a stormy night. The finding of the baby, under these circumstances, was considered by the Brauers an omen. They adopted it and brought it up as their own.
This involved the forcible separation of Marie from her gypsy mother, who was a pariah, an outcast beggar. She drank and stole in order to subsist. But with it all, her mother instinct was strong and it always drove her back to the place where her child lived. Out of gratitude she consecrated her life to the Brauers. Marie never forgot for a moment that she owed everything — her education, her support and happiness — to her adopted parents.
She wrapped herself around them with all the intensity and passion of her nature. She became the very spirit of the house. She looked after the estate, and devoted herself to little Gertrude, as to her own sister. Gertrude is engaged to marry her cousin George, and everything is beautiful and joyous in the household.
No one suspects that Marie has been in love with the young man ever since her childhood. However, because of her gratitude to her benefactors, she stifles her nature, hardens her heart, and locks her feelings behind closed doors, as it were. And when Gertrude is about to marry George, Marie throws herself into the work of fixing up a home for the young people, to surround them with sunshine and joy in their new love life.
Accidentally Marie discovers a manuscript written by George, wherein he discloses his deep love for her. She learns that he, even as she, has no other thought, no other purpose in life than his love for her. But he also is bound by gratitude for his uncle Brauer who had saved the honor of his father and had rescued him from poverty.
He feels it dishonorable to refuse to marry Gertrude. All these years I have struggled and deprived myself with only one thing in view — to be free — free — and yet I must bow — I must bow.
If it were not for the sake of this beautiful child, who is innocent of it all, I would be tempted to — But the die is cast, the yoke is ready — and so am I! I, too, am a child of misery, a calamity child; but I am a subject of charity. I accept all they have to give Was I not picked up from the street, as my uncle so kindly informed me for the second time — like yourself? Do I not belong to this house, and am I not smothered with the damnable charity of my benefactors, like yourself? The entire family is gathered on the estate of the Brauers, while the peasants are making merry with song and dance at the lighted bonfires.
It is a glorious, dreamy night, suggestive of symbolic meaning. In the opinion of the Pastor, St. On such a dreamy night, different emotions are aroused within us. We seem to be able to look into the future, and imagine ourselves able to fathom all mystery and heal all wounds. The common becomes elevated, our wishes become fate; and now we ask ourselves: What is it that causes all this within us — all these desires and wishes?
It is love, brotherly love, that has been planted in our souls, that fills our lives: Am I not right? And now, with one bound, I will come to the point. In the revelation you will find: Then how could I, this very evening, so overcome with feeling for my fellow — man — how could I pass Him by? Brauer, no matter, whether pastor or layman, I must confess my inability to grant your wish, and decline to give you a genuine pagan toast —. Since the Pastor has so eloquently withdrawn, I will give you a toast. For, you see, my dear Pastor, something of the old pagan, a spark of heathenism, is still glowing somewhere within us all.
It has outlived century after century, from the time of the old Teutons. Then it is, when in our hearts awake those wild desires which our fates could not fulfill — and, understand me well, dared not fulfill — then, no matter what may be the name of the law that governs the world on that day, in order that one single wish may become a reality, by whose grace we prolong our miserable existence, thousand others must miserably perish, part because they were never attainable; but the others, yes, the others, because we allowed them to escape us like wild birds, which, though already in our hands, but too listless to profit by opportunity, we failed to grasp at the right moment.
They are the spirits of our dead perished wishes! That is the red plumage of our birds of paradise we might have petted and nursed through our entire lives, but have escaped us! That is the old chaos, the heathenism within us; and though we be happy in sunshine and according to law, to-night is St. To its ancient pagan fires I empty this glass. To-night they shall burn and flame up high-high and again high! George and Marie meet. They, too, have had their instinct locked away even from their own consciousness. And on this night they break loose with tremendous, primitive force.
He goes to the altar, like many another man, with a lie upon his lips. He goes to swear that all his life long he will love, protect and shelter the woman who is to be his wife. This play is rich in thought and revolutionary significance. For is it not true that we are all bound by gratitude, tied and fettered by what we think we owe to others? Are we not thus turned into weaklings and cowards, and do we not enter into new relationships with lies upon our lips? Do we not become a lie to ourselves and a lie to those we associate with? He opens up a racial divide within the office and the wider society, but, even as he is being steered towards a mental home, remains openly defiant.
Kwei-Armah's arguments are fascinating, and, like Roy Williams in Joe Guy, he acknowledges the tensions that exist within the all-too-glibly hyphenated Afro-Caribbean community. But, while dealing with internal racial divisions, his play suffers from its own form of confusion. Emotionally, Kwei-Armah clearly sympathises with Kwaku: At the same time, Kwei-Armah sees the danger of fomenting hostility between different communities and seems to side with the character who claims "if we get caught up in our own shit, no one wins".
I applaud the play for its honesty in tackling abrasive issues, while feeling it introduces too many themes. Not only are we confronted by Kwaku's own form of post-traumatic slave syndrome, we are also presented with a private battle between his legitimate and illegitimate sons and a running conflict between the traditionalists and the office radicals who want to focus on black-on-black violence. By the end of the evening, one's head is swimming. Jeremy Herrin's production contains a fine performance from Don Warrington, full of ruined grandeur, as the disintegrating hero.
Colin McFarlane as his once-trusted lieutenant, Javone Prince and Clifford Samuel as his sons and Oscar James as his ghostly father also possess real weight.