The unworthy old woman

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The unworthy old woman is a story by the German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht . It was created in exile at the end of 1939. He added the short story to his calendar stories in 1949 .

Emergence

The unworthy old woman was first published in 1949 as part of the calendar stories, ten years after it was written in exile. It is believed that this calendar story was written on the occasion of the 100th birthday of Brecht's grandmother, Karoline Brecht, b. Wurzler came into being. That said, it most likely has an autobiographical background. However, according to new research, the plot does not exactly match the life of Caroline. She lived from 1839 to 1919. Brecht was impressed by how much she worked and dedicated a poem to her in 1919 on the occasion of her 80th birthday.

content

The story is about two phases in the life of a now aged woman. The narrator is their grandson, who hears the whole situation through the correspondence between his father and his uncle. Up to the age of 72, the old woman's role is fixed as the mother of her five children and as a housewife. With the death of her husband, she suddenly changes her life. She begins to enjoy the last few years of her life by going to cinemas and inns and making new friends. Her youngest son, a printer, whose family has to live very modestly, is particularly indignant that she leads a self-determined life and hardly follows conventions. He expects his mother to sacrifice herself for her grandchildren too. This leads to disagreements with his brother, the grandson's father. He takes his mother's life situation with humor, describes her as "very lively".

“If you look closely, she lived two lives in a row. One, the first, as a daughter, as a woman and as a mother, and the second simply as Mrs. B. [..] The first life lasted about six decades, the second no more than two years. "

The old woman finally dies at the age of 74. The grandson ends the story with a summary sentence about his grandmother's life:

"She had savored the long years of bondage and the short years of freedom and consumed the bread of life down to the last crumb."

shape

What sets this calendar story apart from most of the rest is the shape. The plot has no tension build-up and no climax, as the story is just a description of the grandson. That makes the different scenes interchangeable. Another contrast to other calendar stories is the lack of an authorial narrator. The narrator in “The Undignified Old Woman” is the grandson who is fictional, i.e. made up. He tells from the reports of his father and from letters from his uncle, so he is not involved in the stories. He tells basically neutrally, although there are passages in the text that indicate a positive as well as a negative point of view.

interpretation

The narrative criticizes gender roles and especially the role assignment to mothers and grandmothers, from whom renunciation, subordination and sacrifice are expected. Self-determination among women, especially older women, is viewed with suspicion by the “middle-class society” and ultimately viewed as unworthy .

In the course of the story, the grandson changes himself and his basic attitude, so that in the end he thinks as modern as his grandmother. The narrator's positive point of view towards the end of the story no longer corresponds to the title “unworthy”. The printer, the old woman's youngest son, also changes his attitude. Compared to the grandson, his development runs in the opposite direction over the course of the story. The grandson thinks more and more positively about the old woman, while the printer gets into the situation.

This story also shows Brecht's socialist way of thinking and attitude. In The Unworthy Greisin he shows that he felt the role of women in the society of that time as unjust.

Effect / reception

The unworthy old woman is one of the better known of the calendar stories . It became really successful in the 1970s, when the women's movement experienced a new upswing. For this reason it was very popular to read during this time. In the 1950s, however, society did not want to know anything about such emancipated women, so it was only known later.

Today it is mentioned in most summaries of the calendar stories and in Bertolt Brecht's work, and is often used as school reading. The reason for this is probably that it is easy to read and that there are no major problems of understanding.

The unworthy old woman is also one of the few calendar stories that have been made into a film.

literature

Film adaptations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klaus Detlef Müller "Brecht Commentary on Narrative Prose". Winkler Verlag Munich 1980, pp. 336–337, ISBN 3-538-07029-6
  2. ^ Bertolt Brecht: Large commented on Berlin and Frankfurt edition . Suhrkamp 1988-1999, vol. 18 p. 431, ISBN 978-3-518-40937-4
  3. ^ Bertolt Brecht: Calendar stories text and commentary . Suhrkamp Basisbibliothek 2013, 1st edition p. 120, ISBN 978-3-518-18931-3
  4. ^ Ana Kugli, Michael Opitz (ed.): Brecht Lexikon . Stuttgart and Weimar 2006, p. 92, ISBN 978-3-476-02091-8