Barthli the basket

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Jeremias Gotthelf around 1844

Barthli der Korber is a short story written in 1852 by Jeremias Gotthelf .

The old basket maker Barthli teaches his very young daughter Züseli and her groom Benz a lesson in dealing with goods and money.

content

In the Emmental, “barely two hours away from Bern”, the lame basket maker Barthli, “a sixty-year-old Kudermannli”, lives with his daughter Züseli, an “eighteen-year-old Meitschi”, in the ramshackle house “in the sooty ditch”. The woman died to the basket maker more than ten years ago. The Meitschi is Barthli "not only the support, but also the flower of its age". Züseli loves her Benz. Barthli can't believe it - the "Bubemeitschi, nit dry behind the ears and already want a man, pfy Tüfel!" The capable neighbor boy wants "it charming Meitschi" with his wife. Barthli doesn't want to know anything about the “Lumpenkerli, where eat for two”. A "daughter husband" does not come to the very economical old man in the Hüsli. Benz, the “rascal”, cannot be shaken off.

They are all thrifty, the inhabitants of the sooty ditch. So they leave out the obligatory church attendance completely with the reason: "If you wanted to wear your Sunday clothes every Sunday, you would be done with it in no time". Barthli takes frugality to the extreme. The "woeful" basket maker fakes poverty to God and the world. When the Lord God sent a thunderstorm as punishment, which made the brook in the sooty ditch swell to a terrible current and caused a lot of damage in the estate of the "excellent" basket maker, the neighbors jumped in to help according to local custom and did not spare advice. "DsHüsli" has to be torn down. A new house is needed. At the head of the advisors is his “old schoolmate”, the rich farmer Hans Uli. Although Barthli is "one of those happy natures who pay no heed to any objection", he has such limitless trust in his schoolmate that he leaves his treasure with him. Hans Uli has to keep quiet about the bucket half filled with coarse pieces of silver.

Finally, the house construction begins, but Barthli does not pay the craftsmen. Benz soon spent his money. Hans Uli can't help Benz and Züseli either. He must keep silent about the silver treasure. The farmer puts the young couple off, who, when Barthli is already visibly deteriorating, still receives the marriage permit. After Barthli has closed his eyes forever overnight, Hans Uli can open his mouth. The young Frauli and her Benz are suddenly solvent thanks to the half-filled bucket.

Quotes

  • "The people are good-natured, but don't like long one after the other."
  • "Every fool" has "joy in his cap."

style

Reading is difficult to digest food. Sometimes, the set point from the high Alemannic Bernese German not be guessed. Then the search for meaning has to cross sentence boundaries. Gotthelf's humor also results from the metaphors (see “Parables and Images” below). The tone is folk and some scenes are very amusing. For example, Barthli had succeeded for years in wrapping the Meitschi in rags and keeping it off the dance floor. Benz and the Züseli now want to kick their legs. So the father rushes with the two of Bern's streets. Barthli holds the Meitschi tightly, but Benz pulls it out of the old man's hand. Züseli can dance immediately - without any instruction.

Gotthelf's calm, completely unspectacular lecture suits the four simple people Barthli, Züseli, Benz and Hans Uli.

Parables and pictures

  • Barthli drives away boys who knock on Züseli's little window and ask for admission: "So the old man drove like a bullet out of the barrel through the little window to the lad's head."
  • In the tavern. The landlady "threw Benz into the laughing spectators with her mighty arm so that he drove away like a cone, hit by a huge bullet."
  • Barthli hides next to the house in his runner beans at night and lies in wait for Benz: Barthli "made himself forked (rigid) like a beech log in his bean sticks and pricked up his ears like a hare in a cabbage place (cabbage patch)."
  • "Barthli sneaked like a spider when she heard a fly whirring around her web, against his daughter's bed."
  • Barthli, reflecting on the day after the devastating storm: "He rolled resolutions in his mind, big, wild, cloudy, almost like the waves of water yesterday evening."
  • When Barthli agrees to the wedding, Züseli and Benz are "like it is when you suddenly step out of a dark cellar into the sun."
  • The carpenter, when Barthli does not want to pay him: "You could have stood him on one foot, the anger had made him so stiff."
  • When the Züseli didn't know about financial worries during the construction of the new house: "You could have washed your hands under your eyes."
  • Hans Uli about his stubborn schoolmate: "Dr Alt is always the same, you could pound him from top to bottom in a mortar, he'd stay Barthli and wouldn't be any different."

reception

  • Heiseler writes about the Barthli: "Man is shown for what he is: God's poor, rich, wonderful creature."
  • Barthli is one of those Gotthelf characters who "acidify life with their stubbornness, their narrow horizons and their boundless egocentrism in their environment."

literature

source
  • Jeremias Gotthelf: Barthli the basket. Narration . Georg Westermann Verlag Braunschweig 1949. Published by Bernt von Heiseler, Hans Schumann and Robert Honsell. 95 pages. With an afterword by Bernt von Heiseler (pp. 93–95)
expenditure
  • Hugo von Hofmannsthal took the story in 1912 in his collection " German narrators " .
Secondary literature
  • Karl Fehr : Jeremias Gotthelf (Albert Bitzius). Second, revised and expanded edition . Metzler M60 collection; Dept. D, History of Literature. Stuttgart 1985 (106 pages), ISBN 3-476-12060-0

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fehr, p. 76
  2. ↑ Source, p. 87, 5. Zvo
  3. ↑ Source, p. 89. 15. Zvo
  4. ↑ Source, p. 17, 3rd Zvu
  5. ↑ Source, p. 29, 14th Zvu
  6. ↑ Source, p. 31, 9. Zvu
  7. ↑ Source, p. 31, 6th Zvu
  8. ↑ Source, p. 32, 1. Zvo
  9. ↑ Source, p. 50, 14th Zvu
  10. ↑ Source, p. 68, 2nd paragraph
  11. ↑ Source, p. 73, 2. Zvo
  12. ↑ Source, p. 74, 14th Zvu
  13. ↑ Source, p. 82, 7. Zvo
  14. ↑ Heiseler in the source, p. 95 last sentence
  15. ↑ Fehr, p. 76, 16. Zvu
  16. ↑ Heiseler in the source, p. 93