to be lucky

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The short story Glück haben was written by Elisabeth Langgässer in 1946 and published first in the "Frankfurter Heften" (vol. 2, issue 12, December 1947) and then in the anthology "Der Torso" (1947) by Claassen-Verlag.

content

It is about a visitor to a sanatorium who listens to a patient during a monologue about her unhappiness in life, which the patient calls "happiness". This reformulation (misfortune → happiness) represents a typical repression syndrome in post-war political society. To wait for her acquaintance, the visitor sits on a park bench next to an elderly woman who is talking to herself. She tells almost her entire résumé from an early age and looks back on her luck or unhappiness. She describes how her life became more and more unhappy the further east she and her husband moved east during the Second World War . During this escape, she lost her daughter and grandchild as well as her son and son-in-law, who were killed in combat. Although all these events that happened to her should be described as unhappiness, the woman nevertheless emphasizes every positive little thing as happiness, which also confirms the repression syndrome. The portrayal of life ends with the woman, looking for something to eat, finding peeled potatoes in a vat filled with water, but after a short time notices that there are human excrement at the bottom of the vat. Finally the woman yells “shitty life” so loudly, which is also the last word of the monologue, that the nurse rushes over to calm the woman down. But the visitor, taken by the story, hits the nurse, supported by the woman. A short time later, the acquaintance joins the scene and also hits the nurse. Then the visitor is also introduced to the sanatorium. After a while, she believes that the time in the sanatorium was the best time of her life and finally becomes friends with the nurse.

Interpretative approach

The short story is written from the first-person perspective , with the visitor in the sanatorium representing the first-person narrator listening to the older woman's monologue, which she is playing back. The story begins with the woman looking back at the said day on which the monologue took place. From the first sentence the reader learns that this is a "strange ending to self-talk". This introduction creates tension and is absolutely essential for the reader to experience.

Before the actual retelling of this day begins, the visitor raves about the “true paradise” in which she is located. This paradise “comes right behind the cemetery”, which could also mean that it is life after death and that she can finally live again after everything that happened to her during the war. The woman who was taken along by the war knows no other life, except that of everyday war life, in which she met a lot of misfortune. She therefore uses the representation of the cemetery, as it, seen as a symbol , represents a parallel to her life and also stands for the terrible consequences of the world war. Thus, the reason why she calls the sanatorium, in which she is later located, a “true paradise” is confirmed, as it takes her out of the terrible everyday life and the new “calm” and “satisfying” everyday life is something completely for her Is new. That is why she enjoys the time there as if she were really in paradise, which of course also means that there is no misfortune there.

The woman overheard by the visitor repeatedly talks about the luck she has had in life, but one can conclude from the facts that one learns that exactly the opposite is the case. Since she also mentions these consequences, it can be concluded that she is aware of them (e.g. she describes it as lucky that she was able to save the suitcase on the train, although she knows very well that this will make her daughter has lost what she also gives to understand directly behind it), but this glossing over is a purely psychological instinct for self-preservation in her. That the woman cannot cope with the whole misfortune (several miscarriages; death of her husband) can also be seen from the fact that the woman probably repeats it at the end of her monologue when she realizes that the "measure of [her] misfortune is full" Mal has a hysterical attack. These are the unavoidable consequences of the displacement mechanism. Since she is constantly telling herself the positive things in her life and at the same time wants to beautify them, although she knows exactly that this is not possible, she can no longer withstand all the pressure that she is putting on herself. The fact that the woman suffered psychological damage not only from the personal misfortune, but also from the ongoing war, is by no means to be doubted, which is why these consequences come to light after the monologue through the woman's emotional outburst.

Key issues

The actions of the woman and the subsequent consequences she suffers are linked to the Second World War. Through this war, people experienced unprecedented violence. This violence has at least been reflected on a large part of humanity, also on the two women in the sanatorium, as they beat the nurse. They cannot cope with the whole experience, which is why the effects of the war on the two women now come to the fore. In the short story, these women represent two people whose individual fates are exemplary for many fates.

Another key issue is the displacement mechanism, which in this case is directly related to World War II, but it is also caused by other personal blows of fate. The women in the short story are an example of people who are subject to a mechanism of repression due to strokes of fate. The described events in the life of women are very realistic and transferable to many people who lived during the Second World War. It can be assumed that many people will recognize themselves in this short story, and through the reference to reality, the events can be understood very well even without such experiences.

Quote

  • “... I don't know exactly what our misfortune actually started with today. Maybe we shouldn't have gone so terribly far from the west, but who could have guessed that? ... "

literature

text

  • Elisabeth Langgässer: The torso . Claassen & Goverts, Hamburg [1947], DNB 452712300 , pp. 53-58.
  • Elisabeth Langgässer: Selected stories . With an afterword by Horst Krüger. Claassen, Düsseldorf 1979, ISBN 3-546-45838-9 , pp. 230-237.

Research literature

  • Werner Bellmann (Hrsg.): Classic German short stories. Interpretations. Reclam, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-15-017525-9 . [On "Glück haben", pp. 52–62.]
  • JPJ Maassen: The Terror of the Deep. Investigations into Elisabeth Langgässer's stories . Leiden 1973, ISBN 90-6021-180-4 .
  • Johannes Pfeifer: What do we have in a story? Considerations and explanations. Hamburg 1965, DNB 453758118 . [On "Glück haben", pp. 86–90.]