The two sons
The two sons is one of the seventeen stories from Bertolt Brecht's calendar stories . As with other narratives from this book, it is a story that contains an important lesson for life.
Emergence
The story "The Two Sons" was written in 1946 while Bertolt Brecht was in exile. It was first published in Calendar Stories in 1949 . In addition, the work was released in 1970 as an episode called From Our Time in DEFA's German feature film, directed by various directors.
content
The story is about the real mother. This can be seen in the example of the farmer's wife, who sees the face of her biological son in a Russian prisoner of war and thus in a real enemy on a farm in Thuringia. In the course of history, he returns from the Hitler War as a completely different SS man. The prisoners forced laborers then forge escape plans, which are later revealed. The farm owner, the farmer's brother, a war invalid, plans to murder the slave laborers as there is a risk that they could report the return of the son to the approaching Red Army . The Russian forced laborers escape, however, and shortly afterwards the Red Army is at the door. The farmer's wife is able to hide her son, but the latter expresses his intention to return to the front. The peasant woman, as a mother, cannot allow her son to die in the war. After a dispute between the two, she hands him over to the Red Army. Your goal is to keep the son alive in every possible way. Thus one could call the mother the bearer of humanism, which can be considered as a possible intention of the author.
shape
The narration is a typical short story with an open ending, authorial narrator and no paragraphs. It is written in the past tense .
Interpretation / interpretation
In the course of history, the peasant woman develops into an embodiment of humanism . She begins to understand the so-called sub-humans and to pay attention to them as humans. It is all the more difficult for her when her biological son comes home a completely changed SS soldier. On the same evening, he and his uncle want to kill the Russian slave laborers. However, the farmer's wife cannot understand this behavior, she wants to discipline him and pass on her humane thinking. Ultimately, motherly love prevails in connection with the mind, so that she hands her son over to the Red Army in captivity. After all, the main thing is that he lives.
Provocative title
The title "The Two Sons" can be seen as a provocation, since it is actually not about two sons, but only a hallucination of the mother.
hallucination
The peasant woman lives with the idea that the Russians are subhuman. At first she only regards the young slave laborer as a monster, but gradually she discovers her biological son in him. This hallucination repeats itself several times afterwards. She takes care of the prisoners and slowly recognizes the people in them. The monster's vision ceases completely when she helps them with their escape plan. In the end, the peasant woman begins to be human and hereby embodies humanism in an inhumane world.
humanism
The story deals primarily with the idea of humanity or humanism. The farmer's wife perceives the young, sickly forced laborer, who is actually an enemy, in a human way. Bertolt Brecht uses Marxism here , which does not fix humanism to an ideal, like ancient humanism, but aims at a classless society, similar to communism .
War strategy
According to an old Chinese war strategy, the Red Army was obliged to kill Russian prisoners of war because they did not have enough fighting spirit and were therefore captured. This should increase the adrenaline to victory as more men try not to get captured and eventually perish. However, the Red Army did not have to kill German prisoners of war. For this reason, the farmer gives her son into Russian captivity.
Effect / reception
When the book Calendar Stories came out, it was initially rather unpopular. It wasn't until the 1960s and 1970s that it was read more. At the end of the 20th century, the book became more and more popular and was often used as school reading because it had no major unsolvable problems. In addition, the texts are easy to understand without academic knowledge.
literature
- Denise Kratzmeier: Bertolt Brecht Calendar Stories . Text and comment. Suhrkamp Basic Library. 2013. Berlin. ISBN 978-3-518-18931-3
- Egon Ecker: Bertolt Brecht, King's explanation and materials, Volume 82 . C. Bange Verlag - Hollfeld / Obfr. . o. O. o J. ISBN 3-8044-0303-4