Carsten Curator

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Carsten Curator is a novella by Theodor Storm first published in Westermann's monthly magazine in 1878 .

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In the middle of the 19th century, a petty bourgeois man from a modest background named Carsten Carstens lives with his sister Brigitte in a house inherited from their parents in a better residential area in a small Frisian port town. Carstens has acquired a little self-taught education and is therefore often asked by his fellow citizens for some kind of asset management due to his honest character. The nickname " Curator " given by the citizens refers to this activity.

On the occasion of a death in which Carstens is entrusted with the organization of the financial situation of the underage heiress, the custody relationship creates a closer relationship, which leads to the marriage between Carstens and the much younger Juliane. The son Heinrich emerges from this marriage, who has the dear but frivolous and carefree, unsteady nature of his mother. Juliane dies in childbed and can therefore not influence the further upbringing of the son. Brigitte, who runs a small wool shop for her brother, represents the mother position. Heinrich grows up together with a ward of Carstens - his foster daughter Anna. This is not only of enchanting beauty, Storm also describes her as loving, loyal and selfless.

Carstens tries incessantly to pave his son's path to a solid professional life with the aim of a secure existence. He is haunted by the fear that Heinrich would not be able to break free from his mother's genetic makeup and her inclination for unsteadiness. In fact, Heinrich repeatedly jeopardizes what he has achieved by embezzling the funds he has entrusted with gambling, and sometimes entering into daring speculations that turn out to be costly after initial small successes. More than once the father has to free him from the desperate situation with the help of his own fortune.

When the business situation once again drove his son to the brink of ruin, he was saved by his marriage to Anna, whose not inconsiderable fortune Carstens had managed to date. Nevertheless, the old man keeps part of Anna's assets in the exercise of his duty of loyalty for the basic security of his daughter-in-law and the grandson, who was born soon after the marriage.

Heinrich's risky lifestyle leads the young man again into the threat of bankruptcy. Carstens refuses to hand over the safety reserve to both his daughter-in-law and his son. Heinrich then apparently flees to his death during a thundering November storm flood.

Carsten's family house as well as the small shop at the other end of the town bought from Anna's money go under the hammer. Carstens, respected for decades in the town, has to move with his daughter-in-law and grandson to the poor area of ​​the town to spend his old age there. There he experienced a modest happiness, drawn by the consequences of a stroke in the November storm and cared for by his daughter-in-law.

Drama and background

In 1877, under the impression of his son Hans, who studied medicine in Würzburg, lost his way and addicted to drunkenness, the sixty-year-old Storm wrote his grief off his mind with unheard-of literary force. That John Storms of life has had a significant impact on the subject and the treatment of the theme, a quotation from the spring storms, Hans is on: "It's not a concern anymore, it is a horror that poisoned my blood." In In the final scene of “Carsten Curator” he describes the old father's last confrontation with his Heinrich: “ 'Drunk!' he shouted (the father, note Bajun) 'you are drunk!' “With this realization, the father now closes himself completely and literally against the son begging for help, whom he adored and loved.

The plot works always and purposefully towards the catastrophic end, with Storm himself using nature, both her beauty and the aspect of her destructive violence to illustrate. Characters are sometimes clearly overdrawn, according to the obtrusive broker Jaspers, who is described as sleazy and has a diabolical streak. This contrasts with the flawless figures Carstens, Brigitte and Anna, who stand for absolute moral solidity. Juliane and her son Heinrich are placed in this area of ​​tension. They are always shortsighted and ruthlessly looking for their advantage and, understood in a childlike behavior pattern, reject any form of self-discipline and a sense of responsibility.

The statics of the characters is crucial for the drama to proceed. The conversations between the characters remain sterile and without profit, mutual understanding is not achieved. The communication only takes place according to the appearance, which is due to the dialogues between Carstens and Brigitte (" Carsten felt that he had only spoken to himself and that he was still alone "), Carsten and Anna (" What is not possible "Child? " " That one , Ohm, that one with the many thalers "). Heinrich's speeches serve exclusively to obscure facts or to show his current emotional state, which adapts to changed conditions in a matter of seconds ("No, because I only have two ways: either here in the well or to the bailiff in prison." "I pay interest 'It's you, I'll issue you a promissory note; you shouldn't suffer any harm from me ... man's hand up! "). Anna is often the initiator of the conversation, while Carstens ends the communication most often. The mental development of the characters, which would be necessary to cope with the situation, does not occur due to the entrenched speech situation.

In a conservative view of things, Storm describes the downfall of an old, apparently stable world in exchange for a fast-moving and risky business inclined, the people alienated from each other, as it gained more and more presence with the industrialization of the nineteenth century. Again and again the author contrasts the tempting metropolis Hamburg, which seduces with the assurance of anonymity, and the social control but also the island idyll that promises security and care. In the end, he lets the era of romanticism fail against the shark tank of the dawning of early capitalism and thereby avows himself to a realistic, sober assessment of the inevitable social development.

The main theme of romantic literature, love overcoming all perils and challenges, is clearly called into question with Storm's “Carsten Curator”. Although he does not completely fail the positively documented people Carstens and Anna because of the inadequacy of Heinrich Carstens, their undeserved social decline turns out to be a sacrifice that is unrewarded, whose realistic drawing is downright shocking in its desolation.

Radio plays

The ARD radio play database lists two versions edited for radio, which also appeared under the title Carsten Curator and both of which have survived.

The production from NDR in 1962 is a dialect radio play in Low German . The adaptation came from Walther Bullerdiek .

Directed by Hans Mahler spoke:

The playing time is 54'30 minutes.

The second recording was made in 1976 at the SFB in standard German. Claus B. Maier was responsible for the processing .

Here spoke under the direction of Siegfried Niemann among others:

The playing time is 91'50 minutes.

Source reference

Theodor Storm, "Carsten Curator", published by Philipp Reclam jun. Leipzig, 1919, with a foreword by Dr. Walther Herrmann

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