The light on the gallows (narration)

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The light on the gallows is a story by Anna Seghers from 1961. The text, along with “The Wedding of Haiti” and “Reintroduction of Slavery in Guadeloupe”, is one of the “Caribbean Stories” published in 1962.

The death of the young Jean Sasportas in the fight against the slavery of the English in Jamaica was not in vain.

content

Frame narration

Paris, after 1800: the seaman Malbec locates the Jacobin Antoine to give him a letter from his friend Galloudec, who died in Cuba . The letter states that Sasportas was hanged in Kingston and that Debuisson was allowed to leave Jamaica after a confession. Sasportas, born as a child of Spanish Jews in France, had dropped out of medical school and had become a pupil of the teacher Antoine during the directorate . The Jamaican-born doctor Victor Debuisson is of English-French descent. He had taken Sasportas with him to Jamaica as his assistant to free the slaves of black African origin. Both were members of the Society of Black Friends .

Internal narration

On the crossing, the English apparently believe Debuisson's pretenses that he and Sasportas are enemies of the republic . When the two landed in Jamaica around 1798 together with the white French Galloudec - sent by Antoine - only Debuisson and Sasportas were taken care of by Debuisson's grandfather Dr. Bering, the rum doctor, taken to the Bering farm. Strangers have to prove an employment relationship in Jamaica. So the seaman Galloudec is quickly deported to Robert Crocroft, a boat builder on Annotta Bay in the north of the island. After seeing chestnuts hunted with dogs on the island, Crocroft had become an opponent of slavery. Through Crocroft, Galloudec becomes acquainted with the young, Jamaican-born Negro slave Bedford. Galloudec maintains contact with his two colleagues on the Bering farm through Bedford and the white tenant Swaby. Galloudec asks Crocroft about a Negro cuffee and is told that Cuffee has fled into the interior of the island and wants to become a second Toussaint .

Debuisson lets Sasportas check whether Bedford is really suitable for tracking down slaves willing to fight on the farms. Sasportas goes to Bedford. Both men like each other. Bedford wants to bring about a meeting of negroes in the Bagoli Gorge and hopes to meet Cuffee. Bedford is allowed to work in a remote field blacksmith's shop for the white overseer Glavish alone. All kinds of people come by and have their horses shod, for example. Glavish pocketed the payment for Bedford's work. Once a gaunt negro comes by who identifies himself as a cuffee.

When news of Napoleon's coup reached the Antilles , Debuisson no longer felt bound by the mandate given by Antoine. Debuisson wants to await the confirmation of General Napoleon. Not so Sasportas. The young idealist considers fighting to be his republican duty and understands that from now on he has to act without Debuisson's leadership. Sasportas uses Ann, his lover, in his efforts to establish contact with slaves willing to fight. The young black slave fearlessly helps Sasportas with his secret mission at all times. She is exchanged several times for her disobedience, finally sold to a remote farm and forcibly married to a strict husband . Ann initiates meetings between Sasportas and Galloudec. The two men want to continue to support the negroes. Sasportas reckons that something could happen to him. If so, he asks Galloudec to inform Antoine in Paris.

Bedford kills his master Glavish in the smithy and flees into the wilderness. Shortly thereafter, several farms catch fire. The negroes don't want to understand Bedford's signal. Debuisson drives the slaves to fight the fire with blows. Bedford is captured and, as a punishment, has to die in agony in the tropical heat in a cage that is also open at the top. Cuffee's companions are wiped out by mountain soldiers. Cuffee's body cannot be found.

The black coachman Douglas, a slave to the rum doctor Bering, had taken Victor Debuisson into his heart years ago when he was still a child. But now he senses that his former darling and the two other strangers - Sasportas and Galloudec - are suspects. He betrays the three investigators who have rushed up. Debuisson confesses his offense and is allowed to travel to London as a reward. Sasportas does not denounce his combatants and is hanged. Galloudec, warned by Ann, managed to escape to Cuba by boat. Shortly after the time of the execution of Sasportas, the seaman looking back on the high seas had felt as if he had seen a light over the gallows of the hanged man.

Quote

  • "A dead person always stays young."

shape

According to Barner and co-workers, Anna Seghers writes vividly, soberly and densely.

The reader doesn't just have to follow the thought processes of the protagonists - such as debuissons. Minor characters, such as the naive negro slave Douglas, are also afraid of the attack by the cuffee people from the jungle. By casually telling the side story of Douglas, the coachman's all-important statement appears motivated. Douglas is a little jealous of Sasportas for stealing his darling Victor Debuisson.

Slavery is ironically described as "unlimited human use". Anna Seghers writes Rheinisch : "It drips with blood."

reception

  • Hilzinger emphasizes the artful structure of the text and the restrained tone. The narrative element of repetition evokes resignation. Anna Seghers has pushed the slaves in Jamaica, which is basically about, a little into the background compared to the dominant white trio Sasportas, Debuisson and Galloudec. Napoleon appears as a traitor to the revolution.
  • The frame narration establishes the reference to the cause of the Caribbean uprising, the French Revolution.
  • Sasportas sacrifices his own life for the cause of the slave liberation. The question of the meaning of this sacrifice is asked. Sasportas, martyr of the revolution, is portrayed as legendary.
  • Neugebauer feels the style is alive. The story is about gaining and losing trust. For Anna Seghers, literature is also something like the memory of the revolution. The author wants to write against the historiography of the rulers.

Media adaptations

  • Helmut Nitzschke filmed the story in 1976 for DEFA . Alexander Lang played the Sasportas, Amza Pellea the Debuisson and Jürgen Holtz the Galloudec.
  • In 1980 Heiner Müller's play “ The Order ” - based on the motifs of the story - premiered at the Volksbühne in Berlin ; As one of Müller's most successful plays, it experienced and continues to experience new productions throughout Germany and internationally to this day; the best known, realized in the house of the Berliner Festspiele in 2004, which (according to the resolution of the 57th General Assembly of the United Nations) "International Year to Commemorate the Fight Against Slavery and its Abolition", directed by Lothar Mühe, ran en suite in front of a sold out house and was broadcast on ARTE.

literature

Text output

First edition
  • The light on the gallows. A Caribbean story from the time of the French Revolution. 135 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1961
Used edition
New work edition
  • Anna Seghers: Stories 1948–1949 (Work Edition Volume II / 3). Tape editing Robert Cohen . Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 2012 (contains “The Wedding of Haiti”, “Reintroduction of Slavery in Guadeloupe”, “ The Argonaut Ship ”, “The Cookbook” and an early fragment of “The Light on the Gallows”).

Secondary literature

  • Heinz Neugebauer: Anna Seghers. Life and work. With illustrations (research assistant: Irmgard Neugebauer, editorial deadline September 20, 1977). 238 pages. Series “Writers of the Present” (Ed. Kurt Böttcher). People and Knowledge, Berlin 1980, without ISBN
  • Kurt Batt : Anna Seghers. Trial over development and works. With illustrations. 283 pages. Reclam, Leipzig 1973 (2nd edition 1980). Licensor: Röderberg, Frankfurt am Main (Röderberg-Taschenbuch vol. 15), ISBN 3-87682-470-2
  • Ute Brandes: Anna Seghers . Colloquium Verlag, Berlin 1992. Volume 117 of the series “Heads of the 20th Century”, ISBN 3-7678-0803-X
  • Andreas Schrade: Anna Seghers . Metzler, Stuttgart 1993 (Metzler Collection, Vol. 275 (Authors)), ISBN 3-476-10275-0
  • Wilfried Barner (ed.): History of German literature. Volume 12: History of German Literature from 1945 to the Present . CH Beck, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-406-38660-1
  • Sonja Hilzinger: Anna Seghers. With 12 illustrations. Series of Literature Studies. Reclam, Stuttgart 2000, RUB 17623, ISBN 3-15-017623-9

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edition used, p. 463, 5th Zvu
  2. ↑ Edition used, p. 463, 6. Zvo
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 419, 9. Zvo
  4. ↑ Barner, p. 537, 10. Zvo
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 350, 5th Zvu
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 349, 21. Zvo
  7. ↑ Hilzinger, pp. 154–155
  8. ^ Schrade, p. 126, below
  9. ↑ Batt, p. 194, 7th Zvu
  10. ^ Batt, p. 195, 1. Zvo
  11. ↑ Neugebauer, p. 124, 3rd Zvu
  12. ↑ Neugebauer, p. 123 below
  13. ↑ Neugebauer, p. 124, 16. Zvu
  14. ↑ Brandes, p. 66, 13. Zvo