The breakdown

The breakdown is a story , a radio play (1956), a television play (1957) and a comedy (1979) by Friedrich Dürrenmatt .

The story - written in 1955, with the subtitle A Still Possible Story first published in 1956 by Arche Verlag - was first broadcast as a radio play on January 17, 1956 by Gustav Burmester on NDR Hamburg , in 1957 by Fritz Umgelter and in 1972 by Ettore Scola at The title The most beautiful soirée of my life was filmed and finally premiered as a play on September 13, 1979 in Wilhelmsbad (Hanau) under the direction of the author .

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Dürrenmatt has prefixed the story with a short “First Part” in which he ponders the (self-posed) question “Are there still possible stories, stories for writers?”. People only wanted confessions and scandal stories and treatises by the author about their own psyche. According to Dürrenmatt, literature cannot consist of turning one's inner self outward. Rather, he wants to step back behind his material, but is not sure whether that is still possible. In the end, he comes up with the idea of living in a world of mishaps. No matter how highly technological the world is, there will always be breakdowns. As long as there are mishaps, there are also possible stories. The “second part”, the actual narrative, begins with this conclusion .

The starting point is a car breakdown by the textile agent Alfredo Traps. There are no vacancies in the village, so he spends the night in a retired judge's house. The invitation to a sumptuous meal prepared by the host's housekeeper, in which the retired public prosecutor Zorn, defender Kummer and executioner Pilet also take part, is combined with participation in a "game". The old men play their old professions every evening; Traps is supposed to take on the role of the defendant.

The table talk shows Traps as a career-making businessman who knows and uses the means necessary for social advancement . At first proud of his life, he now realizes that he has so far acted within the framework of legality , but without following a true ethos .

From Traps' short affair with the wife of his former boss, who died early, prosecutor Zorn finally twists him and accuses him of murder. In the increasingly drunk mood around the table, Traps soon no longer sees himself as someone who has only benefited from “favorable circumstances”, but as a “perpetrator”. He contradicts defense attorney Kummer's argument that he is innocent, "confesses" to the murder and asks Richter Wort for the verdict. He ends the evening by sentencing the heavily drunk Traps to death and having the executioner Pilet bring him to sleep in the condemned man's room.

The works end differently: In the story Traps, convinced of his guilt, hangs himself, while in the radio play and in the film he slept in his intoxication the next morning and forgot everything. In the play there are additional people and this story also ends with Trap's death, but he shoots himself in this version.

background

The origin of the text goes back to Dürrenmatt's financial shortage in the 1950s; the radio play orders from German radio brought him around 5000 francs for two months of work.

The first name Alfredo reminds of the perpetrator or the victim Alfred Ill (from: The visit of the old lady ). The surname comes as a speaking name either from the English "trap", to step into a trap or from the Bernese "i öppis ine trappe", to step into something.

As the meal progresses, the wines and brandy also get older, from the Neuchateller to the Bordeaux (1933) to the Château Pavie 1921, from the Château Margaux vintage 1914 to the cognac from 1893. The hosts themselves all come from the 19th century and The legal ruling also comes from the century “There will be a death sentence”.

“You have to confess whether you want to or not, and you always have something to confess,” the story says. This points to Dürrenmatt's deeply pessimistic belief that the whole world is a single crime and that this crime cannot be solved or atone. This cynical trait was formed during his 1940s student days in Zurich because he no longer knew what to do.

reception

The breakdown was awarded the radio play prize of the war blind in 1957 and the literary prize of the French-speaking Swiss daily Tribune de Lausanne in 1958 .

Die Panne is an enduringly popular piece and is still read as school reading to this day. In particular, the question of guilt and justice as well as the different views on these make Die Panne a timeless work of literature.

Likewise, the grotesque, which can be noticed in almost all of Dürrenmatt's works, is clearly on display here, especially in the drama.

According to Sigrid Löffler , the mishap is a trivialization of Kafka's trial .

Marcel Reich-Ranicki, on the other hand, calls the story one of the best German stories after 1945. He particularly emphasizes that it is a mock court apparatus, i.e. H. a parody of the judiciary.

Book editions

The breakdown. Another possible story . Arche, Zurich 1956; Diogenes, Zurich 2006, ISBN 3-257-23539-9
The breakdown. A radio play . Arche, Zurich 1961
The breakdown. A radio play and a comedy . Diogenes, Zurich 1998, ISBN 3-257-23056-7
The dog . The tunnel . The glitch . Stories. Diogenes, Zurich 1998, ISBN 3-257-23061-3 (work edition, volume 21)

Audio books

Friedrich Dürrenmatt: The breakdown . Read by Christian Brückner . Diogenes, Zurich 2007, ISBN 978-3-257-80153-8
Friedrich Dürrenmatt: The breakdown and a short speech by the author. Christoph Merian Verlag, Basel 2010, ISBN 978-3-85616-447-8

literature

Heinz-Dieter Assmann : "No more threats to God like this". Friedrich Dürrenmatt and the breakdown principle . In: Georg Langenhorst and Christoph Gellner (eds.): Heart pieces. Texts that change life . Patmos, Düsseldorf 2008, pp. 169-182.

Urs Büttner: Judgment as a narrative paradigm: Dürrenmatt's narratology of justice in his story “Die Panne” (1955/56) . In: Monthly Issues for German-Language Literature and Culture 101: 4, pp. 499-513.

Daniel Cuonz: About the scope of the possible: transmission, staging, play. On Friedrich Dürrenmatt's “Panne.” In: Daniel Müller Nielaba et al. (Ed.): The rhetoric of transmission . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2013, pp. 181–192.

Wolfgang Düsing : The judge Stunts as a "descendant" of the village judge Adam: To Kleist reception in Dürrenmatt's comedy "Die Panne" . In: Gunther Nickel (ed.): Kleist's reception . Kleist Archive Sembdner, Heilbronn 2013, pp. 133–153.

Susanne Lorenz: In Vino Veritas? Cultural achievement and loss of control as reflected in the feast in Dürrenmatt's story “Die Panne” . In: Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Reception in the light of interdisciplinarity . Hartung-Gorre, Konstanz 2016, pp. 89–99.

Ernest WB Hess-Lüttich : Language, Literature and Law: Guilty or Not Guilty? - An interrogation on the person and the matter in Friedrich Dürrenmatt's radio play "Die Panne". In: Thomas Fischer and Elisa Hoven (eds.): Debt . Nomos, Baden-Baden 2017, pp. 87–110 (= Baden-Baden Criminal Law Talks , Volume 3).

Liliana Mitrache: Intertextuality and phraseology in the three versions of Friedrich Dürrenmatt's “Panne”: aspects of the grotesque and irony . Upsaliensis academiae, Uppsala 1999, ISBN 91-554-4553-5 ( additional dissertation).

Luigi Pannarale: Taking 'law' seriously: brevi considerazioni su La panne di Friedrich Dürrenmatt . In: Raffaele Cavalluzzi et al. (Ed.): Il diritto e il rovescio . Pensa, Lecce 2012, pp. 363-380.

Wolfgang Pasche: Interpretation aids for Friedrich Dürrenmatt's crime novels . Klett, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-12-922609-5

Peter Pfützner: The suspicion / the breakdown. Interpretations and materials . Beyer, Hollfeld 1990. 4th edition there 2008. ISBN 978-3-88805-048-0

Individual evidence

↑ Wolfgang Pasche: Interpretation aids of Friedrich Dürrenmatt's crime novels. The judge and his executioner - The suspicion - The breakdown - The promise . Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 978-3-12-922609-4 . Here page 109.
↑ Wolfgang Pasche: Interpretation aids of Friedrich Dürrenmatt's crime novels. The judge and his executioner - The suspicion - The breakdown - The promise . Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 978-3-12-922609-4 . Here page 125.
↑ Wolfgang Pasche: Interpretation aids of Friedrich Dürrenmatt's crime novels. The judge and his executioner - The suspicion - The breakdown - The promise . Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 978-3-12-922609-4 . Here page 129.
↑ Joachim Scholl: 50 classic German writers , Gerstenberg Verlag, Hildesheim, 2010 (2nd revised edition), pp. 231–232.
↑ Liliana Mitrache: Intertextuality and phraseology in the three versions of the “Panne” by Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Aspects of the grotesque and irony . Ed .: Upsaliensis academiae. Uppsala 1999, ISBN 91-554-4553-5 , pp. Article 3.3, The grotesque in the breakdown .
↑ The Literary Quartet: About Friedrich Dürrenmatt (July 18, 1991)

[1] Wolfgang Pasche: Interpretation aids of Friedrich Dürrenmatt's crime novels. The judge and his executioner - The suspicion - The breakdown - The promise . Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 978-3-12-922609-4 . Here page 109.

[2] Wolfgang Pasche: Interpretation aids of Friedrich Dürrenmatt's crime novels. The judge and his executioner - The suspicion - The breakdown - The promise . Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 978-3-12-922609-4 . Here page 125.

[3] Wolfgang Pasche: Interpretation aids of Friedrich Dürrenmatt's crime novels. The judge and his executioner - The suspicion - The breakdown - The promise . Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 978-3-12-922609-4 . Here page 129.

[4] Joachim Scholl: 50 classic German writers , Gerstenberg Verlag, Hildesheim, 2010 (2nd revised edition), pp. 231–232.

[5] Liliana Mitrache: Intertextuality and phraseology in the three versions of the “Panne” by Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Aspects of the grotesque and irony . Ed .: Upsaliensis academiae. Uppsala 1999, ISBN 91-554-4553-5 , pp. Article 3.3, The grotesque in the breakdown .

[6] The Literary Quartet: About Friedrich Dürrenmatt (July 18, 1991)