Spring of life

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Spring of Life (original title: The Yearling ) is a 1938 novel by the American author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (* 1896, † 1953). The novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1939 and had a large circulation. It was first published in German in 1939 by von Schroeder Verlag. The translation of Maria Honeit was used for all other, published by Rowohlt Verlag spending. By 1979 the Rowohlt Verlag alone had published a total of 173,000 copies.

content

The main character is 13-year-old Jody, who lived with his parents Ezra "Penny" Baxter and Ora Baxter in the 1870s, close to nature but lonely on a farm in the vast forests of the US state of Florida . Penny Baxter directs his son's life seemingly unintentionally, but with superior wisdom.

The novel only lasts for one year, from spring to spring. During this time, Jody matures from a child to a young man. He finds an abandoned fawn he calls Flag and raises it. Due to the lonely location of his parents' farm, Flag is his only and best friend, with whom he shares all joys and sorrows. Jody feels an intimate, unique friendship with the deer. Life on the farm is characterized by hard work that yields just enough to make a meager life for the small family. But the deer flag begins to follow its natural urge and causes considerable damage to the laboriously cultivated farmland, which endangers the survival of the family. Since Flag does not let himself be abandoned and finds his way back to the farm again and again, the parents must make a decision that is both necessary and desperate. Jody Baxter ultimately has to shoot the yearling Flag. This leads to a break between son and father.

Subject

At first glance, the novel portrays a youth outside of the cities in the USA who are characterized by hardship and hard work, but also by great freedom and closeness to nature. But it is also an accurate representation of the living conditions of those people who, as free settlers, opened up the land by making the wilderness arable. The fawn, which dominates the plot as a motif, is a symbol of youth and freedom par excellence; just as Jody must eventually kill the adult deer, he must leave his youth behind to take responsibility for the farm in the place of his old and sick father. In the last sentence, the novel conjures up the image of the boy with the fawn once again as a vision to make it clear that when Jody grew up, the freedom of the beginning and the youth only came to an end for him, but not fundamentally.

Awards

In 1939 the work received the Pulitzer Prize for novels (Novel) , which was awarded from 1918 to 1947; from 1948 this price was replaced by the Pulitzer Prize for novels (fiction) .

filming

Shortly after the publication of the bestseller, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired the film rights. In 1946 the American film of the same name with Gregory Peck , Jane Wyman and Claude Jarman junior was released (German: The wilderness calls ). Director Clarence Brown's film won three Academy Awards. In addition, an anime series was produced in 1983 that deals with the content of the book and is originally entitled Kojika Monogatari . In Germany the series was broadcast from 1991 under the name Alle Meine Freunde . In 1994 the television film The Yearling with Peter Strauss and Jean Smart was made , but it was unable to build on the success of the original film.

literature