The bottle goblin
The bottle imp ( Engl. The Bottle Imp ) is a novel of the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson . The story was preprinted in several parts in 1891 and first appeared in book form in 1892. In 1893 Stevenson published the bottle goblin with further South Sea stories in the book of stories Inselächte (English Island Night's Entertainments ).
content
The protagonist Keawe, a Hawaiian sailor, buys a mysterious bottle for just under fifty dollars that fulfills its owner's every wish. He is advised, however, to part with it in good time, because whoever still possesses it at the moment of death will inevitably go to hell . It is also indestructible, you can only get rid of it by selling it, and only for cash and cheaper than buying it, otherwise it will return. In addition, all of these terms must be disclosed to the buyer.
After Keawe wished for a nice house and promptly received it, he sold the bottle to his friend Lopaka. A little later he meets the beautiful girl Kokua, who returns his affection, and so his happiness is complete, but unfortunately only briefly. Keawe discovers that he has an incurable disease called leprosy . Leprosy sufferers are shunned and rejected by society, mostly they vegetate poorly in a remote corner of the island of Moloka'i . Keawe's only hope of avoiding this fate is to regain possession of the bottle. He starts looking, because the bottle has now passed through many other hands. When he finally found it, it only costs a cent. For the sake of his love, Keawe buys it anyway and is healed, but then sinks into despair because he can no longer sell it cheaper. After a while, his wife Kokua discovers his secret and suggests going to the French South Sea islands, where the even smaller currency unit, the centime , is used, with which some further sales would be possible. Nobody wants to enter into the trade there, however, and so Kokua sacrifices himself and secretly buys the bottle himself through a straw man. Keawe notices and does not hesitate to do the same to save Kokua's life, even if it drops the price to a single centime. But the bogus buyer pushed forward by Keawe, a raw and alcoholic boatswain, no longer wants to give the bottle. Keawe warns him in vain of impending doom. He's counting on that anyway, says the boatswain, and stumbles away with the fateful bottle. But Keawe and Kokua have lived happily ever after.
various
Stevenson, who wrote the novella for pure entertainment, takes up the literary motif of the Devil's Pact with the story of a wish-fulfilling goblin . There are clear parallels to the story A Story of the Hangman (1810) by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué . There are also a number of parallels to the motif of the genie in a bottle in the legend Spiritus familiaris by the Brothers Grimm .
Impressions of his five-month stay in the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1889 are clearly processed. Part of the story takes place in Ho'okena , a settlement on the Kona coast of the island of Hawaii , which the writer had visited. In a scene in Honolulu he mentions Heinrich Berger , the conductor of the Royal Hawaiian Band . The name of Keawe's wife refers to the Hawaiian word kōkua , which means help . Finally, in 1889, Stevenson had also visited the leper colony on the island of Moloka'i and met Damian de Veuster . He was therefore familiar with the fate of lepers from his own experience. In various places Stevenson uses the Hawaiian word haole , which is used to designate whites, including in the description of the last owner of the bottle.
Stevenson, who lived in Samoa from 1890 until his death (1894), wrote the original of the bottle goblin in the contemporary Samoan language. As a result, the locals also dubbed him “Tusitala” (“the narrator”).
The bottle goblin was first published in German as Das Flaschenteufelchen (Insel-Bücherei 302, with wood engravings by Hans Alexander Müller , 1925), then as Der Flaschenteufel (Hamburg 1926).
In 1934, the UFA filmed the material under the title Love, Death and the Devil with Käthe von Nagy and Albin Skoda in the leading roles. Directed by Heinz Hilpert and Reinhart Steinbicker .
literature
- Robert Louis Stevenson: The Bottle Imp . Reclam, Ditzingen 1983, ISBN 3-15-009157-8
- Robert Louis Stevenson: The Bottle Goblin . German Translation, Reclam, Ditzingen, ISBN 3-15-006765-0
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Zeno: Fouqué, Friedrich de la Motte, stories, a story of the hangman. Retrieved December 13, 2017 .
- ↑ 85. Spiritus familiaris . In: Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: German legends. Two volumes in one volume . Munich 1965, pp. 121–123.
- ^ Robert Louis Stevenson: Travels in Hawaii . edited and with an introduction by A. Grove Day. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 1991. ISBN 0-8248-1397-9
- ↑ cf. his letter to Charles Baxter (Honolulu, May 10, 1889) : "I have just been a week away alone on the lee coast of Hawaii, the only white creature in many miles, riding five and a half hours one day, living with a native ... "
- ↑ cf. The Bottle Imp : "Thither he went, because he feared to be alone; and there, among happy faces, walked to and fro, and heard the tunes go up and down, and saw Berger beat the measure, and all the while he heard the flames crackle, and saw the red fire burning in the bottomless pit. "
- ↑ Kokua in Hawaiian Dictionaries
- ↑ cf. his letter to Sidney Colvin (Honolulu, June 1889) : "I am just home after twelve days journey to Molokai, seven of them at the leper settlement, where I can only say that the sight of so much courage, cheerfulness, and devotion strung me too high to mind the infinite pity and horror of the sights. "
- ↑ haole in Hawaiian Dictionaries
- ↑ cf. The Bottle Imp : "Now there was an old brutal Haole drinking with him, one that had been a boatswain of a whaler, a runaway, a digger in gold mines, a convict in prisons."