The separated sky
The divided sky is a 1963 short story by Christa Wolf , which was filmed in 1964 by Konrad Wolf under the same name .
content
action
The story, about the nineteen-year-old Rita Seidel and her friend Manfred Herrfurth, takes place shortly before St. John's Day (June 24th) in 1961, i.e. shortly before the Wall was built .
Rita and Manfred, completely different - she from the country, he from the city, she enthusiastic, he technical-rational - meet at a village dance and become a couple. They then live together with his parents in Halle , Manfred works as a chemist and Rita attends the teachers' seminar and, as part of her training, works in a socialist brigade at the Ammendorf wagon building .
Manfred grows up in a divided family. He loses faith in the socialist economic system after one of his developments is rejected by the GDR's economic functionaries . That is why he goes to the west via Berlin (East). Rita travels after him and tries to get him to return, but he wants to stay. But Rita feels a stranger in the West and drives back to Halle. Shortly afterwards, the Berlin Wall is built and finally separates the two. Rita tries to kill herself and passes out. When she later wakes up, she is in the hospital. Looking back, she tells her story with Manfred from the perspective of the patient who has just woken up.
style
The whole narrative takes place on two levels . The first level takes place in the hospital (after her accident) and is told by Rita in the omniscient narrator speech ( authorial ). There it is described in the present tense how your life in the hospital is going (conversations with visitors etc.). So this level is now.
On the second level, the whole action is described, everything that is in the summary of contents. This level is described in the past tense , but also with direct speech by a third person. This person is not from the narrative, she is simply the narrator who also has more information than Rita herself. Often these levels are separated by chapters , but such a change often occurs from one paragraph to another.
Christa Wolf's use of direct speech is strongly reminiscent of that of Eveline Hasler (Anna Göldin). As with her, direct speech does not necessarily have to be in quotation marks. Apart from that, the narrative is formulated in an easily understandable manner. Much more than the basic vocabulary is not needed; For this, however, Wolf assumes historical knowledge, which mainly affects the GDR before the wall was built.
Rita
Initially, Rita is a young, inexperienced girl in a small village in eastern Germany. Her childhood was certainly not the easiest, she grew up without a father and had to quit school early because of lack of money. Nevertheless, she gets a job at the local insurance office. However, she does not particularly like this work. The big turning point comes with the arrival of Manfred and Schwarzenbach. When Schwarzenbach gave her the opportunity to change her life, she did not hesitate and took her chance. From now on she has to stand largely on her own two feet, as her new surroundings and new acquaintances are still alien to her. But she manages very well to organize her life in the city, especially with the help of her work colleagues.
Over time, she becomes more and more mature and increasingly makes decisions by herself, e.g. B. moves to town. She is also a very important person to Manfred. So she often listens patiently while he tells her his worries. And she is often at his side with good advice. Seen in this way, she also takes on the role of parents in this regard, for whom Manfred has no very deep feelings and who therefore he would never ask for help. But it is the other way around. Manfred also has to appear quite often as a comforter for Rita.
In conclusion, one can say: Rita has become an independent, mature woman who can cope with her life and who keeps getting up and moving on even after several strokes of fate (death of her father, separation from Manfred, ...).
Relation to historical reality
Christa Wolf avoids typical contents of socialist propaganda literature by simply and directly addressing the economic situation and the reasons for the poor material supply for the population - the author does not do more. In the end, the positive, confident thought always prevails, and so the demands of the socialist regime on literature are still met.
Wolf paints a realistic picture of the development of the GDR from a pre-communist society to the slow progress towards socialism in the early sixties. Rita and Manfred represent the two rival forms of society of that time. Manfred sees the only possibility against the arbitrariness and inability of the political leadership in the GDR to flee to the FRG. Rita, on the other hand, recognizes the shortcomings in the socialist system, but she is ready to accept material losses in order to contribute to the process of perfecting the socialist idea.
Movie
In 1964 Konrad Wolf filmed the novel for DEFA under the same title. The divided sky was discussed intensely and controversially because of its content and also because of its formal implementation in the GDR Academy of the Arts . On the other hand, it has received several very appreciative international ratings. It was released on DVD in 1999 and in 2009 in the film edition suhrkamp , together with another Christa Wolf adaptation ( self -experiment ) by Peter Vogel from 1989.
theatre
On January 19, 2013, a stage version of the story premiered at the Dresden State Theater. The world premiere was arranged for the stage by Felicitas Zürcher and Tilmann Köhler with the collaboration of the ensemble. Directed by Tilmann Köhler.
First edition
Mitteldeutscher Verlag 1963
Publishing expenses
- Christa Wolf: The divided sky , story (illustrations by Willi Sitte) Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 1963 (first edition DNB ).
- Christa Wolf: The divided sky , story, white, Berlin-Schöneberg 1964 (first "Western edition" DNB ).
- Christa Wolf: The divided sky , narrative, dtv 915, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-423-00915-2 .
- Christa Wolf: The divided sky , narrative (with a comment by Sonja Hilzinger), Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-518-18887-3 (= Suhrkamp BasisBibliothek - working texts for school and study , volume 87).
Secondary literature
- Martin Reso (Ed.): "The divided sky" and its critics. Documentation with an afterword by the editor. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle / Saale 1965 ( DNB ).
- Rüdiger Bernhardt: Christa Wolf: Heaven divided. Bange, Hollfeld 2004, ISBN 978-3-8044-1812-7 (= King's Explanations and Materials , Volume 426).
- Dieter Sevin: Christa Wolf, The divided heaven, reflection on Christa T. 4th, revised edition. Oldenbourg, Munich 1999, ISBN
978-3-637-01428-2 (= Oldenbourg interpretations , volume 28).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Description of the play ( Memento of the original from May 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at staatsschauspiel-dresden.de, accessed on January 21, 2013
