The broom-maker from Rychiswyl

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Jeremias Gotthelf around 1844

The Rychiswyl Broom Maker is a story written in 1851 by Jeremias Gotthelf .

The story is about the life of the broom-maker Hansli - a peddler from Rychiswyl, "to whom money brought luck".

content

Before Hansli became the Besenmannli, he was a broom boy. The father, an old soldier, had died early and the mother was ailing. The boy and his mother were staying with a farmer near the city of Bern. The farmer, Hansli's patron and sponsor, put the boy on the right track. First of all, a group of customers for broom ware was established with the uncomfortable Bernese and Thun housewives, and later the peddler Hansli was even able to use the profit to buy a cart to comfortably transport his brushwood products. On the way he made the acquaintance of a Meitschi - the daughter of a shoemaker, "exactly like a watch, not arrogant, not foolish, humble, hardworking, frugal". It turns out that Meitschi can pull the cart, soon better than "a mediocre Kuhli". The girl is therefore exactly the right woman for Hansli. The mother is puzzled when Hansli comes out with the wish to marry, but she has the son bring the girl an invitation to a Sunday visit. The Sunday inspection is positive: “You don't have a beautiful one”, says the mother “in front of the Meitschi to Hansli”. However, the bride will bring a “brand new” Sunday shirt into the marriage. The sympathies are mutual. Fraueli likes it better in the clean apartment of her future mother-in-law than at home in “her shoemaker's hole”.

In marriage, the woman gives birth to a child almost every year. The growing family is doing better and better, also thanks to an educational quality of the young mother: The adolescents work with them - depending on their current wealth.

Then the Besenmannli inherits "fifty thousand thalers" on top of that. Hansli gives up his job. The couple bought a beautiful farm with the money, but did not remain wasteful in any way. The children marry, have offspring, and everyone in the extended family honors the aged parents.

Quote

"Everyone wants to be happy."

style

The Emmental dialect of Gotthelf hampers the readability of the reading a little, but during the pleasantly calm, loving description of the simple people, the reader always knows what it is about. The author reaches the narrative climax of his humorous story when Hansli makes his mother understand that he definitely needs a wife and that he has “a Meitschi” up his sleeve, “just like made for him”. The subjects speak freely from the liver; usually introduce their utterance casually with the interjection “he!”.

reception

  • The story is "surprisingly fresh". In it Gotthelf puts the "undemanding, inwardly rich people in the light".
  • The text is an "idyllic novel bordering on fairytale-like".

literature

source

Jeremias Gotthelf: The broom-maker from Rychiswyl . Pp. 39-72. Reclam Universal Library No. 7747. Stuttgart 1952 (1998 edition, 72 pages), ISBN 3-15-007747-8

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. 75, 9. Zvo
  2. ↑ Source, p. 41, 1. Zvo
  3. ↑ Fehr, p. 75, 3rd paragraph
  4. ↑ Friedrich Sengle ("Biedermeier Period") quoted in the book announcement at www.Reclam.de