The mother (Pearl S. Buck)
Die Mutter (in the original The Mother ) is a novel by the US-American author Pearl S. Buck from 1934. The first translation into German also appeared in 1934. None of the characters is named.
content
A mother lives in a small village with her husband, two sons and a daughter. When the farmer leaves his family, she spreads among her neighbors that her husband has found a well-paid job in a distant city. She later said he was killed in a fire. The country life of a single woman is tough. The mother receives support from her husband's brother and his wife. Pregnant through an affair with the landlord's manager, she has an illegal abortion. The older son is hardworking and increasingly takes on the role of head of the family. The younger son is work shy. He prefers to hang around the city. Because the daughter is blind and cannot find a good spouse in this condition, she is married into an asocial family. Soon after, she dies. The mother fears that she has loaded a curse on herself through her sins and thus caused her daughter's misfortune. The younger son is executed for circulating communist books. On the day of his death, the elder son's wife gave birth to a healthy male infant.
German edition
- Pearl S. Buck: The mother . German by Richard Hoffmann . rororo Taschenbuch 69, 1952. 161 pages; first published by Zsolnay, Berlin / Vienna / Leipzig 1934.