The one with the thousand children
The one with the thousand children is a novel by the German writer Clara Viebig from 1928/1929. The subject of the plot, which takes place in a flashpoint school in East Berlin in the 1930s , is the fate of an elementary school teacher who decides in favor of a life for the benefit of the girls entrusted to her and against private happiness.
action
At the beginning of the action, the 27-year-old Marie-Luise Büchner is shown with the students entrusted to her during class. The educational approach to these girls, who grew up in the desolate East of Berlin, is not easy. There is, among others, the neglected, spoiled Trude Schindler, the shy, motherless Lene Krause and the precocious hairdresser's daughter Irma Mielke. The teacher has her hands full, because every pupil needs to be encouraged in her specialty. Justice should prevail, taunts among the students are to be avoided as much as possible and the class community as a whole must be promoted, whereby the technical management of the lessons must not be neglected:
Despite the stresses and strains of this job, Marie-Luise, who initially worked as a private teacher, is inspired by a high work ethic, with which she wants to fully fill her position in the elementary school. As the daughter of a late school principal, her dream has always been to become a teacher. During her training, Marie-Luise lived with the trainee teacher Marga Moebius, with whom they shared almost passionate feelings beyond a mere friendship. Both lose sight of each other when Marie-Luise is hired as a primary school teacher, while Marga teaches about studying at a so-called 'secondary school for girls'.
Since the death of her father, Marie-Luise has lived with the nervous mother with a cousin on her mother's side. Despite the long way to school, Marie-Luise does not want to give up this apartment because it is located on the green outskirts. Marie-Luise has to learn that her pupils from the poorer sections of the population have serious problems, which often make school operations of secondary importance:
Marie-Luise's work is made more difficult by the fact that the parents do not pull together with the teacher. When she wants to take care of the motherless Lene Krause, the dubious father of the teacher lies in wait and pursues her. The man, who cannot get over the loss of his recently deceased wife, takes out his pain in an insolent way on Marie-Luise, so that Mr Volbert, the headmaster, has to intervene to protect the teacher and she is placed under police protection. After this incident, Volbert indicated his affection for the completely surprised Marie-Luise; however, she rejects the superior.
Marie-Luise enjoys some popularity among her colleagues. In particular, she feels connected to Melitta Ebertz, an old, rather conservative teacher, and to Claire Spiegel, who has plans to marry. Both will later be released; one for reasons of age and the other after the birth of their child. These circumstances and the renewed contact with her childhood friend Marga Moebius contribute to the fact that Marie-Luise's initial idealism begins to wane. Marga, who has a much less complicated clientele in the secondary school for girls, does not feel as responsible for her students as Marie-Luise does.
When Marie-Luise's mother's health deteriorated, Doctor Alwin Droste was called. The doctor and the teacher fall in love. When the mother dies, he proposes marriage to her. Marie-Luise hesitates to accept the application for several reasons. She fears that her marriage will fall victim to the routine of everyday life and only gives her consent on the condition that she will be allowed to continue her job after the marriage. The fate of her colleague Claire Spiegel, meanwhile married Halbhaus, makes her more than thoughtful. The couple's financial means are only sufficient for a limited life, Claire is literally crushed between her duties in her dual role as wife and teacher, and as a pregnant teacher she has to accept a loss of authority that she cannot cope with: although Marie-Luise from the school board does Having obtained permission to continue her service as a married woman, she decides to forego her private happiness in favor of her educational vocation. She rejects Droste, whereupon he changes his place of residence.
By chance, Marie-Luise made the discovery that some of her schoolgirls, dressed in modern clothes and with bob haired hair, were waiting in front of a cinema for men with whom they then went away. It's about Trude, who is taken along by her older sister Alma, and later also about Lenchen Krause.
The teacher feels obliged to report this incident to the principal and to have a pleasant conversation with Trude's mother. Trude is then assigned to welfare education. These events trigger a conflict of conscience in Marie-Luise, but ultimately she comes to the conclusion that she must stand by the neglected children:
The lonely retired colleague Melitta Albertz stood up for Theo Schindler, Trude's brother, after her retirement, but he is only hungry for her money and does not hesitate to accept her death in a burglary at night. The teachers are shocked and seek closeness in the community with their colleagues. Marga asks Marie-Luise to live with her; however, she refuses the friend's request. She looks for a place of her own that is closer to the school.
By chance, Marie-Luise learns that Lenchen Krause is ill with consumption and is on her deathbed. The motherless girl is happy to see the teacher again.
Alwin Droste has now found a good job and offers Marie-Luise the marriage again. Although she still loves this man, she finally decides to devote herself to her teaching profession. Two positive pieces of news contribute to this decision: Trude Schindler has become a decent girl thanks to the welfare upbringing, and Irma Mielke, who has meanwhile become a mother herself, thanks Marie-Luise for her selfless upbringing during school days.
The novel in the context of school literature around 1900
With her novel, Clara Viebig takes up a current topic of the nuanced discussion about education and upbringing since 1900. An important impetus for the numerous novels for teachers and students was the collection of essays “ The Century of the Child ” by the Swedish educationalist Ellen Key , published in 1900 . While works were initially created that can be described as a negative continuation of the educational and development novel under the auspices of a thought that is obligatory to the authorities and destroys young souls, this literary discourse was continued in the Weimar Republic as a more positive reorientation, known as reform pedagogy can be summarized. These pedagogical innovations can be seen as educational proposals that, formulated from different ideological positions, should lead away from the “school nonsense” of the empire.
In the context of this literature, Clara Viebig sets her own priorities. If the teachers in the works of this time were usually male, Clara Viebig chooses the female teacher type and deals in detail with the problems women encountered in the 1930s when they wanted to work in such a profession. She also selects a special group of students, namely the girls of a proletarian district in East Berlin.
In terms of teacher type, Clara Viebig does not design either the authoritarian teacher of the Wilhelmine 'stick school', who destroys his students rather than builds them up, as he is portrayed in Hermann Hesse 's' Unterm Rad ' (1909), for example, nor the buddy type from' Der Kampf der Tertia 'by Wilhelm Speyer (1927) or the charismatic teacher as in' The flying classroom 'by Erich Kästner (1933). However, in the different teaching personalities of Clara Viebig, character traits of such types of teachers are reflected in a weakened form. The old colleague Ebertz is more likely to be attributed to the authoritarian representatives who teach “pretty much according to the old method”, but ultimately she has a good heart. Marie-Luise herself treats her pupils with care, keeping a suitable distance from the pupils.
This has to do with the choice of the student clientele, the choice of which is typical for Clara Viebig. It is a question of different types of pupils than in particular those of the 'boarding school literature', by no means highly sensitive loners like Hesse's' Hans Giebenrath ', not a responsible school community as in' The Flying Classroom ', nor are students who act in solidarity as in' Der Kampf the tertia '.
Viebig's protagonists are socially disadvantaged, neglected girls with little social skills from precarious social conditions in which adequate circumstances, domestic harmony or even a humanistic ideal of education are a distant world. In addition, the girls are threatened with slipping into some form of exploitation, especially in forms of prostitution. Based on these premises, the teacher has a practically oriented educational mandate for girls whom she considers to be in need of leadership. On the other hand, the fact that the parental home cannot adequately fulfill the educational mandate arises the question of the extent to which a teacher is allowed to take on this and where the limits of such substitute actions lie.
Topics of the piece and approaches to interpretation
Adequacy of the educational ideal
The search for an adequate educational ideal is geared towards girls, for whom the path to a higher education is largely blocked. In this respect, Marie-Luise doubts the sense of a humanistic educational ideal for her students. At a loss, she asks herself the question of how she should educate such girls "to a concrete idealism [...] to everything good, true, beautiful and holy", "- oh, dear God, how do you do that?"
Even Marga's elite students hardly manage to find their way into the world of thoughts of poems of idealism. At the same time, however, they come to life when they are given the opportunity to deal with personal issues, with "something that came from the child's own soul". In this respect, the educational ideal of idealism is generally called into question.
Using the example of a blind nightingale, it is made clear that values that are conveyed must correspond to the respective environment. Marie-Luise explains to her students that forest birds must be free, whereupon the hairdresser's daughter releases a caged, blind nightingale. The consequences for the bird are devastating: since it has no eyesight and has forgotten how to fly, the cat fetches it. In this respect, the high value of freedom turns out to be unsuitable for an animal that cannot handle it in any way.
For Marie-Luise it makes sense to teach her students happiness:
“Be happy, be happy! […] Hasn't life been hard enough for them already? To be born as a fifth or sixth child, perhaps not much desired by the parents, isn't that hard? [...] It is also hard to get the father out of the inn, and it is even harder when the father beats the mother and then complains to the children about the man. "
In this sense, happiness is not just to be understood as empty phrases.
An important educational task for the teacher is to make the girls fit as wives and mothers and to educate them to “give the man a supporting hand […] and […] to raise their children as they are brought up " have to. The teacher sees this as a key position for young girls in the future of society.
The role model shown here proves to be aligned with the restrained female being, who sees its task in the typically female maternal virtues. The newly created hairstyle of the bob hairstyle, which is particularly worn by precocious schoolgirls, becomes in this context a symbol of a confident, but also endangered femininity.
Marie-Luise resolves to educate her students to be good people: “To be good, good, that's all. A good person - the highest goal for everyone! ”This rather general statement also has its weight in the context of the story, because in Marie-Luise's time the dispute about the introduction of ideological or denominational schools was fought. For her, both models ultimately contribute to the division of her student body into different denominations or worldviews, which is why she rejects both. She also speaks out against the ideologically nationally oriented school type, as it was propagated and implemented everywhere at the time. Marie-Luise is ultimately based on people. By saying that the school should educate good people, the humanistic ideal of education is inadequate for its students, but she still considers a humane school to be an important matter.
Profession as calling
The question of the extent to which teaching is a vocation runs like a red thread through the novel. The negative aspects that arise in particular from a high workload and great responsibility do not change anything about such a vocation. Clara Viebig dedicates some space to this problematic side of the teaching profession.
A special requirement of the teaching profession is the permanent presence of the teacher, who has to pull everyone along like a locomotive: “The mind was never allowed to fall asleep, not during the entire lesson. And the older the children got, the more alert you had to stay. ”It was not for nothing that Marie-Luise received the advice from the rector at the beginning of her job:“ ... calm, a little calmer. Otherwise you will be exploiting your forces. "
Corrections also require full attention on the one hand, but are annoying on the other. So Marga groans during monotonous proofreading work on unsuccessful essays: “Oh, to have to read everything! That was torture. "
The high level of responsibility is made clear on a class trip:
Despite this responsibility, there is a lack of recognition from society or parents. Even when Marie-Luise succeeds with full commitment in accommodating her students in holiday camps, the ingratitude of the mothers meets her afterwards, because the accommodation does not meet her expectations.
For Marie-Luise, her job is definitely a vocation. In this respect, the heroine “did not choose this profession, but was chosen by him, and cheers, suffers and groans under this demon, as always a person, he is of higher rank Vocation is marked, shaped and shaped by it. "
Limits of the educational responsibility of the teacher
The question of the extent to which teachers are allowed to take responsibility for their students outside the school world is particularly virulent in a socially disadvantaged school. This question is controversially discussed between Marie-Luise and Marga. If the former is of the opinion that school should start where there is no mother, the latter refers to it: “How can I be responsible for things that are outside of the school? That's up to the parents. "
Marie Luise can't help but interfere like an over-mother when her student Lenchen Klause often falls ill:
She feels this obligation particularly where some girls are threatened with slipping. In doing so, she is aware of the problem that teachers who act in this way, as warners and guardians of depraved children, always come into conflict with the parents who, despite their lack of upbringing, refuse to interfere. This is particularly evident in the figure of Mother Schindler.
Ultimately, the teacher sees the fruits of her actions at the end of the novel, when Lenchen is happy about the visit to the hospital bed, Irma Mielke becomes a good mother and even Trudel Schindler has left the immoral path and found a livelihood as a domestic helper.
Female teachers in the 1930s
In addition to these school topics, the novel deals with the tense field between life as a public person and private life at the time the novel was written. The broad public preoccupation with the emancipation of women, including sexual ones, initially did nothing to change the rigid social notion of morality, which was particularly valid for female teachers.
At the time, employers were expected to have female teachers devoted to their jobs and not be married. The conflicts that a teacher got into, got married or even wanted to have children are depicted vividly in the fate of Claire Spiegel or Halbhaus.
In addition to the pressure from the employer, there is social and moral pressure. During her pregnancy, Claire suffered from a loss of respect from her students. This is explained by the fact that the students see the teacher mainly in her role as a moral role model. However, pregnancy reveals to the students that the teacher is also a sensual being with longings and desires.
Practical questions are added to these problems. Housekeeping at that time was exclusively a woman's business. In this respect, a professional and private double burden cannot be avoided, and it is all too easy to foresee when the turmoil between domestic and school duties will drain the married teacher's strengths. In this respect, Marie-Luise's conclusion is logical:
“I have to be free, completely free. Inside and out. I can't half achieve what I have in mind. "
The choice of celibacy paves the way for the teacher to be dedicated during her tenure, but problems arise after the active work phase is over. After hiring new teachers, Marie Luise realizes that everyone is replaceable, and this dampens her ambition. Here friend Marga also acts as a corrective. In doing so, women do not escape the threat of loneliness in old age, as the example of colleague Albertz shows. Ultimately, she wants to counteract the loneliness by accepting Theo Schindler, but does not expect the - extremely limited - manslaughter by her pupil. The reactions of the teachers, who are now looking for company, vividly shows the downside of the overly great commitment, the problem of the lonely retired teacher.
A major problem in the teaching profession is the balance between high professional ethics and reality throughout the novel. It is important to find a balance between overexploitation and division of forces.
Material history
As is often the case in her works, Clara Viebig draws on events and characters from her life in this novel. With the design of the main character Marie-Luise, she created a monument to her long-time friend Angelika Schlüter. This friend worked as a teacher at a school in the Rhineland. The preoccupation with the subject of school may also have been important for Clara Viebig, as she often looked after her two grandchildren when the novel was written, who were approaching school age.
Impact history
The novel received little attention when it appeared in the press. In a contemporary review, Ilse Reicke classifies the book Roman as a readable novel of an idealized teaching profession. Clara Viebig shows "the demon of this profession as a calling, shapes it from its own powerful law".
In later discussions of literary studies with the complete works of Viebig, the book was rated rather negatively. It is criticized that the design of such a material hardly suffices Viebig's artistic skills. Viebig naively portrayed the overcoming of the misery of the proletarian children “by a kind, simple person”.
In the course of the Clara Viebig renaissance around the turn of the millennium, the work was given more attention when looking at the Berlin novels. Michel Durand sees in the depiction of the fate of the elementary school teacher a skilful thematic hook for a naturalistic representation of the urban-proletarian milieu and Clara Viebig's preferred characters. Andrea Müller examines Viebig's portrayal of the role of teachers as “surrogate mothers” and the dangers that girls in particular were exposed to in Berlin at the time.
expenditure
In 1928 the novel was preprinted in Velhagen & Klasing's monthly magazine, and in 1929 the first book edition followed at the DVA, which saw three editions with a total of 14,000 copies in the first year. In 1930 there was another edition of 2,000 copies; In addition, the novel was integrated into the work edition also published in 1930. In 1931 the work was published by the 'Deutscher Bücherschatz' publishing house before interest in the novel declined, not least as a result of political developments. In 1989 Moewig published the novel again. Translations were carried out in Dutch and English.
Translations
- 1930: Levensdoel. (Dutch. ›Purpose‹; ›The one with the thousand children‹), trans. v. J. vd Heuvel, Amsterdam: Nederlandsche Keurboekerij
- 1930: The woman with a thousand children. (Eng. ›The woman with the thousand children‹), trans. v. Brian Lunn, New York: Appleton
Individual evidence
- ↑ See York-Gothart Mix: The school stories and the school history. Literarity in the early modern discourse critical of education and upbringing, in: Der Deutschunterricht 1/2014, (2–13).
- ↑ Heinrich Scharrelmann: Happy children. Advice for the mental health of our children, Hamburg: 1906, p. 173.
- ↑ Clara Viebig: The one with the thousand children, Stuttgart: DVA 1929 (without specifying the edition), p. 31.
- ↑ Clara Viebig: The one with the thousand children, Stuttgart: DVA 1929. P. 37.
- ↑ Clara Viebig: The one with the thousand children, Stuttgart: DVA 1929 (without specifying the edition), p. 95.
- ↑ Cf. Clara Viebig: Die mit die Tausend Kinder, Stuttgart: DVA 1929, pp. 159–160 and p. 191.
- ^ Clara Viebig: The one with the thousand children, Stuttgart: DVA 1929. P. 290.
- ↑ Clara Viebig: The one with the thousand children, Stuttgart: DVA 1929 (without specifying the edition), p. 41.
- ↑ Cf. Andrea Müller: Mother Figures and Motherhood in the Work of Clara Viebig, Marburg: Tectum 2002, p. 226.
- ↑ This hairstyle is sometimes referred to as a "boob head", cf. especially Clara Viebig: The one with the thousand children, Stuttgart: DVA 1929.S. 36, 139, 141, 160, 191, 198, 278.
- ↑ Clara Viebig: The one with the thousand children, Stuttgart: DVA 1929 (without specifying an edition), p. 43.
- ^ Clara Viebig: The one with the thousand children, Stuttgart: DVA 1929. P. 138.
- ↑ Clara Viebig: The one with the thousand children, Stuttgart: DVA 1929 (without specifying the edition), p. 30.
- ^ Clara Viebig: The one with the thousand children, Stuttgart: DVA 1929. P. 95.
- ↑ Cf. Clara Viebig: The one with the thousand children, Stuttgart: DVA 1929. pp. 193–195.
- ↑ Ilse Reicke: The one with the thousand children, in: Das literäre Echo, XXXI. Born 1928/1929 p. 540.
- ^ Clara Viebig: The one with the thousand children, Stuttgart: DVA 1929. P. 281.
- ↑ Clara Viebig: The one with the thousand children, Stuttgart: DVA 1929. P. 284.
- ↑ Charlotte Marlo Werner: Writing life. The poet Clara Viebig, Dreieich: Medu-Verlag 2009, pp. 135-136.
- ↑ Ilse Reicke: The one with the thousand children, in: The literary echo. Vol. 31 Jg. 1928/1929 (540-541), p. 540.
- ↑ Sascha Wingenroth: Clara Viebig and the women's novel of German naturalism, Endingen: Wild 1936, p. 92
- ↑ Urszula Michalska: Clara Viebig. An attempt at a monograph, Diss. Poznań 1968 p. 120.
- ↑ See Michel Durand: Les romans berlinois de Clara Viebig. Contribution à l'étude du naturalisme tardif en Allemagne, Berne, Berlin: Lang 1993, p. 29.
- ↑ Andrea Müller: Mother figures and motherliness in Clara Viebig's work. Marburg: Tectum 2002, p. 226 and the chapter "The oversexualization of the big city - the one with a thousand children". P. 262.