The confusions of the pupil Törless

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The confusions of the pupil Törless is the first novel by Robert Musil and is considered one of the early major works of literary modernism . The first edition was published by Wiener Verlag in 1906 . With the help of the psychological portrayal of puberty in four pupils, the novel mirrors authoritarian social structures as a model by establishing a connection between psychological disposition and dictatorial institutions. The action takes place against the background of the young Törless's self-discovery in the field of tension between rationality and emotionality on the one hand and intellectualism and mystical world experience on the other.

action

Musil describes events at a provincial boarding school of the Austro-Hungarian k. and k. Monarchy . Törless and his two classmates Reiting and beinberg catch the younger classmate Basini stealing, but keep this a secret so that they can punish and torture him. While Beinberg and Reiting abuse and torture Basini mainly physically and sexually, Törless tries to learn from Basini on a psychological level. Although he also degrades Basini to an erotic object of pleasure and experiment and, at least verbally, treats him like a slave, he is increasingly disgusted by the clumsy blackmailing sadism of his comrades-in-arms Reiting and beinberg. Nevertheless, Basini's humiliation has a certain appeal to him. However, he is not (yet) able to expose it as a fascination with power, to put it into words and to discover the secret of the “soul” of man, the key of which Basini's behavior appears to be.

A fade-forward in the middle of the novel mentions the adult Törless, who is by no means ashamed of his earlier behavior in the boarding school. And towards the end of the novel, the narrator states: “One development was complete. The soul had put on a new annual ring like a young tree - this still wordless, overwhelming feeling excused everything that had happened. "

interpretation

“As soon as we say something, we devalue it strangely. We believe we have plunged into the depths of the abyss, and when we come to the surface again, the drop of water on our pale fingertips no longer resembles the sea from which it came. We think we have discovered a treasure trove of wonderful treasures, and when we come out again we have only brought false stones and broken glass; and yet the treasure shimmers unchanged in the dark. "

- Maeterlinck

The quote from Maeterlinck's The Treasure of the Poor (Le Trésor des humbles, 1896), which Musil prefixes the novel, marks the poet's interest in knowledge, who only wanted the work to be understood superficially as a school or puberty novel. In July 1907, Musil gave the following information in a letter to Matthias di Gaspero:

“The book is not naturalistic . There is no such thing as puberty psychology like many others, it is symbolic , it illustrates an idea. In order not to be misunderstood, I have assumed a word from Maeterlinck that comes closest to her. "

And in a rejected preface, Musil wrote: "Anyone who has experienced the truth of these words in themselves will understand this book."

The interpretations of the novel are based on different readings, for example

  • that Musil in the guise of the main character represents the developmental crisis of an artistically sensitive person, which was at least partly his own problem at the time the novel was written;
  • that the story “The Confusions of the Zöglings Törless” ends where Musil's main and life work, his fragmentary novel The Man Without Qualities, begins, so that the young Törless later becomes Ulrich;
  • that in the confusions of the pupil Törless, Musil once again deals in artistic form with those questions that preoccupied him in his dissertation on Ernst Mach's epistemology ;
  • that Musil, in addition to the "interpretation of youthful growth [...] simultaneously sketched out the image of the coming dictatorship and the rape of the individual by the system, in a visionary manner". (Blurb of the Rowohlt paperback edition)

The pupils

Törless

The symbolism of the station scene, which is described on the first pages, can be related to Törless' soul: Just as the atmosphere at the station is deserted and desolate, Törless also feels lonely and empty in the boarding school. His confusion lies in the turmoil between the bourgeois morality of his origins on the one hand and the views of his characteristically much more stable (but also much more superficial) friends Beinberg and Reiting on the other. He assumes the position of an observer who rarely intervenes actively in what is happening. His thoughts are often expressed directly (sometimes also in the regular letters to his parents). At the beginning of the novel, Törless' basic attitude is shaped by realistic thinking, which, however, takes on more and more mystical forms over the course of the months. Since the reader is involved in his thought processes and primarily perceives the world from Törless's perspective, he experiences the title character, despite all of her weaknesses, as a character developing from a young person to an adult who can never be completely denied sympathy.

In the course of his puberty, Törless changed more and more to a “young man of a very fine and sensitive spirit”, to an “aesthetic-intellectual [nature]” (p. 158). Early on he was characterized by the incessant search for a deeper reality behind the facade of the normal and the obvious, which he tries to grasp through precise (self) observation (“Talent of Amazement”, p. 34). However, he is not yet able to put the meaning of his striving into words and to recognize it as a finding of identity (p. 160 "[The memory of my youth] passed away. But something of her remained forever."; Page 162 “He only knew that he had followed something that was still indistinct on a path that led deep into himself [...] and got into the narrow, angular chambers of sensuality. "). Such feelings and thoughts give him a critical view of his environment and distance him from his fellow human beings. Again and again he realizes that he is different from the other pupils. This is also the case with the visits of the prostitute Božena, who irritate him less sexually than because of "stepping out of his preferred position among the common people" (p. 40).

Beinberg

He orients his thinking and acting on the knowledge of the Indian religion and on its doctrine of the ascension and detachment of the soul, with which he justifies all his experiments and tortures on Basini. His cold lust for power leads him to try out how far he can go until Basini's already weak character finally breaks. The fact that he fails with his hypnotic experiments with Basini makes him even more dogged in defense of his anti-rational pseudophilosophy.

Reiting

He is only interested in the military and wants to become an officer. For him, Basini represents the subordinate on whom he can discharge his anger and exercise his power in order, as he claims, to gain experience for his later managerial career. He comes from a small social background and sees boarding school as his only professional opportunity. In order not to take this away from him, beinberg refrains from reporting Reiting because of his "mess" with Basini.

With Reiting, Musil paints the picture of a power-obsessed intriguer who finds his fulfillment in playing his classmates off against each other and removing anyone who opposes him through threats, chastisements or public humiliation. As a lender and extortionate debt collector, he also represents the inhumanity and corruption of the financial system.

Basini

Basini is initially used as a scapegoat for stealing. Later he becomes Törless' most important complementary figure and willingly accepts his masochistic victim role. He too comes (contrary to his statement that his mother is a wealthy lady and his guardian Excellency) from a socially disadvantaged family. His mother is really a poor widow. He tries to cover up his resulting feeling of inferiority with male show-offs and spending, which ultimately forces him to get into debt and become a thief.

Prince H.

Finally, the young Prince H. is different in his behavior, his diction , his appearance, even in his motor skills (similar to Törless), "supple [he]", "soft [he]", "gentle [he]" (p . 13) than the remaining pupils and is therefore dismissed by them as "effeminate" (page 12). Törless is the only one who gets along with him and is fascinated by this "kind of person" (p. 13), which allows him to sharpen his understanding of human nature in a harmonious way. The fact that this innocent harmony is carelessly destroyed by Törless himself marks the loss of his childhood and the beginning of his “confusions”.

The educators

parents house

The apparently still intact world of the conventional upper class is embodied by Törless' parents, with whom, at least at the beginning of the novel, he often seeks refuge in his letters. First of all, they give him his moral and civil customs support. However, he soon notices that her well-intentioned advice remains too general and does not get him any further, so that he is more and more dependent on himself.

school

The fictional "Konvikt zu W.", an analogy to the military lower secondary school in Eisenstadt , which the author attended , has mainly negative facets. There is a strict hierarchy among the students. The physically and physically weaker or more sensitive are forced to live under the rule of the stronger, as the example of the tyrant Reiting and the ideologist beinberg shows, who force their victim Basini into a slavish role and strive to destroy his character through humiliation.

The boarding school's curriculum and didactics are also rated negatively. In a conversation, Törless and beinberg found that although one learns the subject matter, apart from that, remains internally “empty” (p. 30). To experience the “worldly” knowledge that Törless is striving for seems not only undesirable, but also impossible. Apart from that, the timetable obviously offers the students a lot of free time. Not infrequently, Törless has the opportunity to distance himself physically and mentally from the boarding school, as becomes clear at the beginning of the story when he visits the "village whore" Božena with beinberg. The reader learns little about the lessons themselves because the largest part of the story is not about boarding school life, but about the Basini case. The boarding school library is poorly equipped. "Because the book collection probably contained the classics there, but these were considered boring, and otherwise only sentimental volumes of novels and pointless military humorists were found" (p. 16).

When Törless tried to fathom deeper problems using the mathematical problem of imaginary numbers , the professor fed him off with the fact that Törless was still too inexperienced for such questions: proof of the inability of the teachers to respond to the actual interests of their students. This shortcoming becomes even more evident at the end of the novel, when Musil emphasizes his socially critical intentions even more clearly through the precise description of the pedagogues' ignorance and lack of understanding. The boring and unworldly lessons seem hardly suitable to prepare the young people for life, and from the start there is a risk of failure. The strict, military-oriented tradition of the boarding school and the latent will for self-realization of its cadets cannot be reconciled. The outdated structures can be seen, for example, in the ironic description of the upright math teacher's study: “On the oval table with the X-feet, whose graceful flourishes looked like unsuccessful politeness” (p. 106). Elsewhere, the narrator calls the school, without any euphemism, a place “where the young intrusive forces are held behind gray walls” (p. 161).

The narrator

An authorial narrative situation or a zero focus prevails in The Confusions of the Zöglings Törless . The narrator comments, corrects and interprets the events:

  • “He thought it was homesick, a need for his parents. In reality, however, it was something much more indefinite and complex. "(P. 9)
  • “He wasn't vicious. [...] Only his imagination was turned in an unhealthy direction. [...] It was no different than with young people in general. "(P. 30)
  • "But you really shouldn't think that Basini aroused a real and - even if fleeting and confused - real desire in Törless." (P. 109)

Historical background

The novel The Confusions of the Youngster Törless was written around 1900, in a time of uncertainty and upheaval. The Austro-Hungarian monarchy was only supposedly firmly established. The Viennese Modernism was characterized by political, social, technical and cultural changes of profound contradictions (especially the tradition and avant-garde), but especially by the emphasis on individualism (see. Sigmund Freud at that time resulting psychoanalysis ). At that time, conflict-laden tragedies of youthful heroes became a favorite literary subject. In the confusion of the pupil Törless , Musil particularly addresses the social morality and prudery towards the awakening sexuality of pupils. The basic theme of the novel, however, is the self-discovery or establishment of an individual self-confidence in an authoritarian society. Via the detour of self-alienation through the recognition of his own sexual and aggression instincts, an amoral aesthetic awareness finally matures in Törless, which remains speechless, but already allows the later artist to grow in him: “This wordlessness felt delicious, like certainty of a fertilized body that already feels the gentle drawing of the future in its blood ”(last page of the novel).

The representatives of Viennese Modernism had long seen the fall of the “Danube Monarchy” coming, among them Robert Musil, who criticized the influence of the aristocracy, bureaucracy, church, military and school early on. In Törless he demonstrates the dangers of a military-oriented education. Törless' experiences reflect Musil's own experiences. He, too, was to be educated militarily and prepared for a career in civil service and attended the military schools in Eisenstadt and in Mährisch-Weißkirchen , which fundamentally changed his life. In contrast to the boarding school depicted in the novel, which is mainly reserved for the upper class and is dedicated to the education of an elite , Robert Musil's "schools" were more like Spartan breeding institutions in which the pupils had to live and learn cooped up like prisoners. Nevertheless, Musil's novel also served to process what he had experienced and to settle accounts with military “breeding methods”, as they were then, only thirty years later, taken ad absurdum during the time of National Socialism .

reception

The book was included in the ZEIT library of 100 books and also in the ZEIT student library .

expenditure

  • The confusions of the pupil Törless . Vienna / Leipzig: Wiener Verlag, 1906. (first edition)
  • The confusions of the pupil Törless . Munich / Leipzig: Georg Müller, 1911.
  • The confusions of the pupil Törless . 11-15 Thousand. Berlin: Ernst Rowohlt, 1931. [Revised new edition; delivered in December 1930, postdated to 1931; the information "11th – 15th thousand" is an update of the total circulation since 1906].
  • The confusions of the pupil Törless . In: Collected Works . Edited by Adolf Frisé. Reinbek near Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1978. Vol. 2. pp. 7-140.
  • The confusions of the pupil Törless . Reinbek near Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1998. (rororo 10300.)
  • The confusions of the pupil Törless . After the last edition, published in 1930; with comment. Edited by Werner Bellmann. Epilogue: Filippo Smerilli. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2013. [In this edition some text errors are emended that have been handed down for decades; see. Pp. 237-239.]
  • The confusions of the pupil Törless . With a comment by Oliver Pfohlmann. Berlin: Suhrkamp, ​​2013 (SuhrkampBasisBibliothek 130 series). [The edition follows the last edition, published by Ernst Rowohlt Verlag 1931, in cases of doubt the first edition from 1906 was used.]
  • The confusions of the pupil Törless . Edited by Roland Kroemer. Paderborn: Schöningh Verlag, 2015.

Research literature

  • Bernhard Grossmann: Robert Musil, The confusions of the pupil Törless. Interpretation . 3. Edition. Oldenbourg, Munich 1997. ISBN 3-486-88627-4
  • Klaus Johann: Limit and stop: The individual in the “House of Rules”. To German-language boarding school literature. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2003 (= contributions to recent literary history. 201). ISBN 3-8253-1599-1 Table of contents (PDF file) , review (pp. 206-422: the most extensive interpretation of "Törless" to date.)
  • Dorothee Kimmich: The confusions of the pupil Törless (1906). In: Robert Musil Handbook . Edited by Birgit Nübel and Norbert Christian Wolf. De Gruyter, Berlin 2016, pp. 101–112.
  • Roland Kroemer: An endless knot? Robert Musil's "Confusions of the Zöglings Törless" in the mirror of sociological, psychoanalytic and philosophical discourses. Fink, Munich 2004. ISBN 3-7705-3946-X (dissertation) [1]
  • Roland Kroemer and Thomas Zander: Robert Musil: The confusions of the pupil Törless. Teaching model. Simple German. Edited by Johannes Diekhans. Schöningh, Paderborn 2007. ISBN 978-3-14-022400-0 (teacher assistance) [2]
  • Matthias Luserke-Jaqui : School tells. Literary mirror images in the 19th and 20th centuries . Göttingen 1999. [Zum Törless : pp. 78–91]
  • York-Gothart Mix: The Nation's Schools. Criticism of Education in Early Modern Literature . Stuttgart 1995.
  • Robert Müller : Ein Beginner (Robert Musil) in: dsb., Kritische Schriften 2, Igel, Paderborn 1993 ISBN 3-927104-92-2 (contemporary review of the book) pp. 488-490
  • Carl Niekerk: Foucault, Freud, Musil: Power and Masochism in the 'Confusions of the Zöglings Törless' . In: Journal for German Philology 116.4 (1997), pp. 545-566.
  • Oliver Pfohlmann: Robert Musil . Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2012 (series rowohlts monographien), pp. 19–22 (chapter As a pupil in Eisenstadt and Mährisch-Weißkirchen ) a. Pp. 43–49 (chap. The confusions of the Zöglings Törless ) ISBN 978-3-499-50721-2
  • Helmut Pfotenhauer : Robert Musil: "The confusions of the pupil Törless" . In: Readings for the 21st Century. Classics and bestsellers of German literature from 1900 to today . Edited by Sabine Schneider. Würzburg 2005. pp. 1-16.
  • Andrea Rota: I grovigli del racconto: metafore tessili e disarticolazione narrativa ne "The confusions of the pupil Törless" di Robert Musil . In: Studia austriaca 15/2007, pp. 175-192. ISBN 978-88-6001-130-5
  • Filippo Smerilli: Modern - Language - Body. Analysis of the relationship between body experience and language criticism in Robert Musil's narrative texts . V & R Unipress, Göttingen 2009.
  • Uwe Spörl: Godless mysticism in German literature at the turn of the century . Paderborn 1997. [Zum Törless : pp. 280–309]

reading

Adaptations

Web links

Wikiquote: The confusions of the pupil Törless  - Quotes

Remarks

  1. ↑ Oliver Pfohlmann: Robert Musil , p. 44
  2. ↑ See the edition by Werner Bellmann, p. 241.
  3. ↑ See the edition by Werner Bellmann , p. 235f.