The Selicke family
The Selicke Family is a drama by Arno Holz and Johannes Schlaf , which premiered on April 7, 1890 at the Free Stage in Berlin . In a consistently naturalistic style, the piece describes a family disaster within a petty-bourgeois-proletarian milieu .
Table of contents
Plot overview
“The Selicke Family” shows the disintegration of a family that has already taken place, whose family members are together in the living room of the family house for the whole drama on Christmas Eve in Berlin. The family is completely shattered and torn apart when the youngest daughter, Linchen , dies of a serious illness on Christmas morning. For the father, Eduard Selicke , the world collapses and he runs entirely from the family back. His wife wishes herself death and fell into self-pity. The eldest daughter, Toni , gives up her love for the young pastor Gustav Wendt , who lives as a subtenant with the family so that he does not have to leave the family, as Toni believes that he has to sacrifice himself completely for her family . The two sons Albert and Walter fall into mourning, which each of the two tries to process for himself. The pastor Gustav Wendt leaves the family on the day of Linchen's death without Toni, who has rejected his marriage proposal, in order to take up his new job as country pastor.
First elevator
Mrs. Selicke sits knitting in front of Linchen's bed, which is in the family's very modest living room. Walter and Albert Selicke set off together to pick up their father Eduard Selicke from his place of work so that he doesn't come home drunk until dawn. The old Kopelke, who works as Linchen's doctor, enters the apartment before the two brothers say goodbye and asks about Linchen's health. He tries to calm Mrs. Selicke, who is very worried about her youngest daughter, and engages the young theologian Gustav Wendt, who enters the living room, in a conversation. Gustav Wendt informs those present that he has been accepted for the position as country pastor and that he will be leaving the family the next day. Shortly afterwards Toni Selicke enters the living room. Gustav Wendt greets her with the words that he has been waiting for her today. Toni asks her mother about Linchen's health. The conversation between mother and daughter turns to the father and Gustav Wendt then leaves the living room. Ms. Selicke emphasizes several times how bad it is in the family with her husband and how good it is in the neighborhood. She falls into self-pity and Toni tries to appease her mother and talk her father well. However, Ms. Selicke cannot be influenced by this and holds on to her opinion about her husband. Pitying herself, she says goodbye to her daughter, who then remains alone in the living room and begins to sew. A few moments later, Gustav Wendt enters the living room again and asks Toni to marry him and move to the country with him. At first, Toni rejects the application and does not want to leave the family. Especially Linchen's state of illness makes this undertaking impossible. However, the young man is not deterred and sticks to his idea. Finally he can convince Toni and she admits to himself and him her feelings for him. They kiss at the end of the first elevator and want to go into a new future together.
second elevator
It is now half past one at night and the family, apart from Eduard Selicke, is completely gathered in the living room. Albert and Walter went to sleep after coming back without their father. Toni and Mrs. Selicke are alone in the living room. Linchen wakes up and asks about her father, whereupon Mrs. Selicke tries not to worry her any more and tells her that he will be home soon. However, despite the great efforts of Mrs. Selicke, her youngest daughter's alcohol problem and his tendency to violence do not go unnoticed. Exhausted from the story, Linchen falls asleep again after a severe coughing attack. Toni tries to reassure her mother, who is of the firm opinion that Linchen will not survive the illness. When Eduard Selicke's footsteps sound on the stairs, his wife hides on Toni's advice and Toni receives her drunk father. He gets upset about his wife and children, stays lovingly by Linchen's bed for a while, then sits down and falls asleep murmuring about his family. Linchen wakes up and asks Toni about her mother, who brings her to Linchen's bed. Thereupon Linchen dies and Toni rushes sobbing to her sleeping father, wakes him up and tells him about Linchen's death lying in his arms. At that moment Gustav Wendt enters the family's living room.
third elevator
Morning is breaking and the entire Selicke family is in the living room, but everyone is sitting or standing for themselves. Ms. Selicke is talking to her husband and wants to get better and is almost trying to convince him that everything will get better now. Eduard Selicke says goodbye to his daughter and leaves the living room. Mrs. Selicke falls back into self-pity and wishes for death in order to finally escape her family situation, which in her eyes is miserable. Gustav Wendt enters the living room and learns of Linchen's death, as does old Kopelke, who enters the apartment shortly afterwards to inquire about Linchen's state of health. Shortly afterwards, he said goodbye to the family and also to Mrs. Selicke, who had retired to the kitchen to prepare everything for Gustav Wendt's departure. Toni rejects his marriage proposal because everything has now changed and she can no longer leave the family. Wendt leaves the family because his train leaves at eleven o'clock. He leaves the crying Toni in her mother's arms and says goodbye with the words that he will come back.
Relationships between people
Individual observations of the people
Eduard Selicke
Eduard Selicke works as an accountant and is the head of the Selickes family. He and his wife have four children: Toni, Albert, Walter and Linchen.
Characterized by Mrs. Selicke
Eduard Selicke is described by his wife alone as an unreliable man, on whom "one can never rely" and who "never tells you the truth" . "Other men tell their wives everything and advise each other how it works best" , but Eduard Selicke does not. Instead, he knows everything better and does not let his wife, let alone his children, participate in his decisions.
Coming home in the second act
If Eduard Selicke is only mentioned by name in the conversations between Frau Selicke and Toni in the first act, then, long awaited by the family, he finally appears in the second act. This appearance by Eduard Selicke is the long-awaited climax, as is Eduard Selicke's answer to Frau Selicke's previous conversation with her daughter Toni.
alcoholism
He comes home drunk, "but stumbles very little and says everything clearly, just a little slowly and heavily" . Alcoholism is a popular topic in naturalism, which the authors gladly took up again and again and who were not afraid to address this previously hushed up problem of society, as for example in Gerhart Hauptmann's “Before Sunrise”. However, Eduard Selickes alcohol consumption is not necessarily comparable to the alcohol consumption of other dramatic figures from the naturalism because it does not move from money problems, as in captain's " Before Sunrise " from the Wohlstandstrinkerei is talk, let alone from the Armutstrinkerei. It is true that there are enough references in the drama to the poor economic situation of the family, such as Mrs. Selickes' statement that not all of the few pennies that her husband brings home should be paid for as well as they could have it in their status and that they are deeply in debt and that nothing can be bought. Rather, Selicke's alcohol consumption seems to be due to the bad family relationships. For his wife he is “as good as dead” and his children are also afraid of him, as can be seen in Walter's behavior, who can only answer his father “half afraid” from his room after his return home . Selicke's resulting displeasure is reflected in his mood and emotional fluctuations, most of which his eldest daughter Toni experiences.
Loving behavior towards Linchen
First of all, there is the loving behavior towards his youngest and sick daughter during Toni's presence. Selicke is on the way to his wife when he notices Linchen asleep while he is drunk. With the words "the poor child" he goes to her sickbed. He is overwhelmed by the loving feelings towards his youngest daughter and expresses this through loving nicknames such as " little mouse" or "my poor heart" . For Eduard Selicke, his youngest daughter Linchen is the only joy that has remained in the family. Despised by his wife and often awaited by the children with fear and horror at home, all that remains for him is the childlike and devoted love of Linchen.
Sexual desire towards Toni
However, when Toni tries to keep her father away from Linchen so that she doesn't wake up, his tender and loving behavior changes into aggression and sexual desire. He mimicked the words of his daughter, sent her away angrily and threateningly and discharged his aggression with the words “Whaaas ?! You - want - to - attack - your father ?! ” after Toni had pushed him away from her sister's bed with her hand. He gets closer and closer to her and his aggression fluctuates into a desire for love that his wife denies him. For a brief moment, his sexual desire wins out and he approaches Toni in an immoral way. His statement “The dear little daughter! … Oh, you are a - lovely creature! ” Underlines this sexual desire. However, Eduard Selicke recovers immediately afterwards and his words and the brief approximation remain the only incest motifs in this naturalistic drama. It must therefore be pointed out that it is just one of several interpretations.
Inner monologue / indirect conversation by Selicke
If you look at Eduard Selicke's subsequent self-talk, if you look more closely you can see that it is an indirect dialogue between his wife and him. He answers her, if not consciously, to the allegations she made against him in the first elevator. Helmut Scheuer already took up this topic in “Interpretations of Dramas of Naturalism”, so it will not be discussed in more detail here.
Death of Linchen and subsequent behavior
As soon as Linchen dies, the world collapses for Eduard Selicke. Not only did he lose his beloved daughter, he also lost the only person in the family who showed him the love and affection that other family members and especially his wife had denied him. He no longer even responds to his wife's insistence that everything should change, but wordlessly says goodbye to the family and now withdraws completely by looking at his wife with “a dead, expressionless look” and leaving the living room and no longer appears in the drama.
Mrs. Selicke
Ms. Selicke suffers, just like her husband, from the no longer existing love of the other spouse. She directs all of the love that she still carries within her completely to her sick daughter and partly also to her youngest son Walter. The only sign of attention the older siblings Albert and Toni are shown is their mother's self-pity and hatred and rejection of their husband. As soon as she talks to her two oldest children, she is only able to fall into her own self-pity and to arouse pity in order to get love from them too. Even her apparent mourning for Linchen's death turns out to be pure self-pity, because instead of mourning together with the family, she wishes herself death and even says herself, "For me it 's best, Linchen will catch me up" . It would be the easiest for her, and this is what she wishes for, to be able to disappear from the family, from this misery, and even if the only possible option was death.
Albert Selicke
Albert Selicke is clearly shown the least love in the family by his parents. He only ever gets to hear reproaches and insults from his mother and the relationship with his father is not exactly characterized by positive impressions, as they do not exchange a word with each other throughout the drama. Albert does not take advantage of the opportunities that are offered to talk to his father. Instead, he pretends to be asleep when his father throws him the pancake in his room and asks about him and also after Linchen's death, when the family is gathered together in the living room, no conversation takes place between father and son.
Walter Selicke
Walter Selicke, on the other hand, is loved by his mother, albeit to a lesser extent than his sister Linchen. This becomes clear when she prepares some more food for him because he is still hungry. Nor does she offend her youngest son. Instead, she takes care of him more lovingly and tries not to make his father look so bad in front of him. For example, she never expresses the allegations against her husband in the way when Walter is around and she could hear how she is alone with her daughter Toni.
Linchen Selicke
Linchen Selicke, on the other hand, is shown the love of her parents that still exists.
Stand in the family
As the youngest member of the family, she holds the position of the so-called “baby boy” , who must always be protected the most by all children and to whom all the love of their parents is shown. Linchen Selicke acts as an intermediate element of the parents' love for one another. Since they are no longer able to show their love for one another and both have the desire to be loved themselves, they direct their complete love to their youngest daughter, in the expectation that she will return it to her parents. Thus it can be shown that Linchen Selicke has the task of portraying her parents' inability to love themselves in the drama. Instead of solving this problem, the parents avoid her and demand the love of their spouse from their children.
illness
When Linchen falls ill, the parents' love for her only intensifies. However, at the same time, they are becoming more distant from one another. Instead of confronting this situation together, the parents grow more and more apart and try unsuccessfully to face Linchen's approaching death alone. Eduard Selicke avoids coming home to his family, as confirmed by his wife's statement that he now has a few pennies in his pocket and will not be home until tomorrow morning. In fact, Eduard Selicke did not return home until late at night, around two o'clock. The couple become more and more estranged.
Consequences of the death of Linchen Selicke
As soon as their youngest daughter dies, the Selickes' family life falls apart completely. Eduard Selicke withdraws from the family, as shown by the fact that his father stayed away as the drama progressed. Mrs. Selicke falls into self-pity, Toni gives up her love for Gustav Wendt in order to sacrifice herself to the family that no longer exists, and Albert and Walter Selicke also face the ruins of the family alone.
Gustav Wendt
The role of Gustav Wendt could be ascribed the role of the bearer of hope for Toni. Only through him does she find the courage to leave the desolation and misery of the family behind at the beginning of the drama. For Toni, he almost seems to take on the role of a hero who is able to save her. However, Gustav Wendt has already been eaten away by the family's hopelessness. On superficial examination it seems that Gustav Wendt really wants to be with Toni and has the strength and strength to save her from the misery of the family. On closer inspection, however, it turns out that this is not the case. Instead, he gives up too quickly and lets Toni persuade him that it is better not to get married. Thus, he has the role of an apparent savior, which he cannot fulfill because he is too weak for it.
The old Kopelke
The old Kopelke, on the other hand, can be described as the bearer of hope for the entire family. Through his role as Linchen's doctor, he always tries to improve the girl's health. In addition to this role, he also has the role of mediator and calming person. He always tries to settle the emerging family quarrels and also to calm Mrs. Selicke, for her sake, and certainly for the sake of the children, to free her from her self-pity and lethargy. Even if Linchen had to die, the family never blames him or blames him for not being able to save Linchen. Instead, she and him mourn the loss of their daughter.
The special case of Toni Selicke
Toni's willingness to make sacrifices
But if you look at Toni Selicke, one behavior of the young woman is particularly striking. Toni Selicke's willingness to make sacrifices is the greatest in the whole family. She is ready to give up her chance at happiness, only so as not to harm her family, in her opinion. In this behavior she is very similar to Hebbel's Klara in his “ Maria Magdalena ”, but Toni fails because of her willingness to make sacrifices and is unable to help her family with it.
Willingness to make sacrifices in the family
Even on the holidays she takes on sewing work in order to improve the household budget. She also tries to free her mother from her self-pity and to protect her from her drunken father, even if she puts herself in the danger of being exposed to the aggression of her father. You could say that she has given up her role as a daughter in the family and taken on that of a mother, as she tries to lovingly care for everyone and strives for harmony in the family. She has, so to speak, replaced her mother in her role.
Abandonment of love
However, in this role she also gives up her love for Gustav Wendt. She cannot leave the family because she is convinced that she is needed. She is of the opinion that the family will break up completely without her, but she does not want to see that this case occurred long after Linchen's death. She senselessly sacrifices her love for Gustav Wendt just in order not to have to break out of the role of her willingness to make sacrifices.
Giving up a better future
She also gives up the chance of a better future for herself. Without realizing that she would be able to help her family the most if they knew that they would be cared for in the future and that they would no longer have to look after them, she sent Gustav Wendt away and continued to live firmly convinced that her family she needs now more than ever. So she rejects Gustav Wendt's marriage proposal and sends him away, crying in her mother's arms.
Death of Linchen and subsequent behavior
After Linchen's death, Toni is the only person who behaves most emotionally and is the only one to seek contact with her family. At the end of the second elevator she throws herself into her father's arms and at the end of the third elevator into her mother's arms, sobbing. As already mentioned, she is giving up her love and the possibility of a better future and clinging to the belief that she will have to sacrifice herself for her family. However, Toni lives in a false belief that he has to do this, and this could be seen as a sign of dependence on her parents.
Naturalistic characteristics of drama and characteristics of drama in general
The drama shows many features of naturalism, such as the father's alcohol problem (which, however, cannot be explained by money problems - as in many other naturalistic dramas - but by the social and family situation), the brief incest situation of his daughter's father opposite, the exact execution and description of the living room of the Selicke family as well as the colloquial language and the Berlin dialect of the old Kopelke. The units of place and time are also preserved.
Literary lines of tradition
Although the authors claim to have written a genuinely modern and revolutionary drama, the configuration of the characters and the dramatic plot point to the touching thing of the 18th century. Selicke bears clear - albeit modified - traits of the patriarchal head of the family Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 's stamp. The piece also shows similarities to the bourgeois tragedy in terms of the tight composition of the piece and the generic principles of uniformity. Once set in motion, the action runs linearly without changing the scene and ends in a catastrophe with the death of a child. Furthermore , the unity of the 'mood' emerges as a new essential element of unity, which lies above the milieu and events from the start .
literature
- Arno Holz, Johannes Schlaf: The Selicke family . Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-15-008987-3
- Interpretations Dramas of Naturalism . Reclam, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-15-008412-0
Individual evidence
The text passages come from: Arno Holz, Johannes Schlaf: The Selicke family . Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-15-008987-3
- ↑ p. 5, line 3
- ↑ p. 17, line 35
- ↑ p. 53, lines 10-12
- ↑ p. 21, line 14
- ↑ p. 21, lines 14-15
- ↑ p. 21, lines 16-17
- ↑ p. 21, lines 17-18
- ↑ p. 44, lines 10-12
- ↑ p. 21, line 11
- ↑ p. 41, lines 39-40
- ↑ p. 42, lines 22-23
- ↑ p. 41, line 35
- ↑ p. 44, line 39
- ↑ p. 47, line 6
- ↑ p. 47, line 10
- ↑ p. 47, lines 10-11
- ↑ p. 47, lines 19, lines 23-24
- ↑ p. 48, lines 1-2
- ↑ p. 48, lines 8-9
- ↑ Interpretations of Dramas of Naturalism . Reclam, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-15-008412-0
- ↑ cf. P. 53, lines 9-12
- ↑ p. 53, line 14
- ↑ p. 54, lines 10-11
- ↑ p. 34, lines 40-41, p. 35, lines 21-22
- ↑ p. 7, line 34
- ↑ p. 6, line 17
- ↑ p. 21, lines 19-20
- ↑ pp. 57-62
- ↑ p. 8, line 39 - p. 9, line 1
- ↑ p. 11, lines 6-7
- ↑ p. 63, line 37
- ↑ p. 20, lines 6-7
- ↑ p. 43, line 34
- ↑ The text passages given in the article come from: Arno Holz, Johannes Schlaf: The Selicke Family , Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-15-008987-3
- ^ Fritz Martini in the epilogue to: A. Holz, J. Schlaf: The Selicke family . Reclam, Stuttgart 1966.