The sample
The sample is a short story by the German writer Herbert Malecha . It appeared for the first time in December 1954 in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit and was able to win an advertised short story competition. The publication in book form followed in 1955. The focus of the short story is a hiding criminal wanted by the police who tries to find his way back to normal life. The rehearsal remained Malecha's most famous work. As a prime example of a short story, it is often treated in school lessons.
content
The short story Die Probe is about a man named Jens Redluff who is wanted by the police. He uses a forged identity card in the name of Wolters in order not to be recognized. After three months underground, he ventured out onto the street for the first time to come back into contact with life. He also wants to look out for a ship that he can take to leave.
When he is almost hit by a car, he imagines how the police could have noticed him. He tries to calm himself down, to swim with the flow of other people and directs his steps into inanimate neighborhoods. In a bar he gets into an ID check by the police. At first Redluff panics, but when he shows his fake ID, he becomes completely calm. The police accept the ID, and Redluff is relieved that he passed the test.
He happily strolls through the city and is no longer afraid of other people. He feels that he belongs to them again and follows a young woman who is standing in front of the entrance to an exhibition hall. After entering the hall, he is suddenly in the spotlight. He is congratulated as the 100,000th visitor to the exhibition and asked for his name. Confused and without thinking, he reveals his real name. Policemen then approach him.
Text analysis
The narrative perspective in Malecha's short story The rehearsal is predominantly that of a personal narrative situation from Redluff's point of view. It contains experienced speech and an inner monologue . The chronological sequence is linear and fast without any pre-interpretations and with only a few flashbacks.
The language is simple and concise. By arranging sentences that hardly relate to one another in terms of content, it creates the feeling of a rapidly successive sequence of moments in the reader, a moving forward, rushed action. Malecha often uses unusual images and metaphors , such as “a ball of people”, “in the pull of the crowd” and uses onomatopoeic verbs such as “scratched”, “hammern”, “sang”. In this way, language creates a large amount of clarity with limited resources.
The structure of the story is characterized by opposites and contrasts. The calm, warm, safe atmosphere in the bar turns into a cool and tense mood when the police officers appear. Even in the abrupt and sudden end of the story, Redluff's joy suddenly breaks off in the shock of knowledge.
literature
- Herbert Malecha u. a .: The sample. The 16 best short stories from the competition of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit . Marion v. Schröder, Hamburg 1955, pp. 21-27
Web links
- The sample
- Herbert Malecha, a famous story, an unknown person - biographical overview
Individual evidence
- ↑ The rehearsal . In: Die Zeit , No. 48/1954.
- ↑ Paul Hühnerfeld : The readers have decided. In: Die Zeit , No. 2/1955.
- ^ Herbert Malecha: The sample. Narrative means on TeachSam.
- ↑ See the chapter: Jakob Lehmann: Herbert Malecha: The sample . In: Interpretations of Modern Prose . Diesterweg, Frankfurt am Main 1976, pp. 17-19.