Grubetsch

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Grubetsch is a short story by Anna Seghers . This first publication by the author was made in 1926 and appeared in mid-March 1927 as a serial in the " Frankfurter Zeitung ". In 1930 the text was added to the collection " On the way to the American embassy ".

Unusual love affairs and unusual deaths are brought up staccato.

content

In a big city, proletarian families vegetate in the backyard of an apartment building. There is also a pub in that completely rebuilt square - Munks Keller.

Marie, the wife of the lathe operator Martin, is bored. The arrival of the raftsman Grubetsch offers a welcome change. The neat, neat woman weighs her breasts when this man arrives. Such behavior is actually astonishing. Is Grubetsch described as "nothing special" and small. Every year, the bachelor Grubetsch spends the winter with friends in the tenement. Years ago, Sebald, another tenant, had brought it with him. The following spring Grubetsch had taken Sebald on a raft to travel to the border. The dangerous job of the raftsman was not the right thing for Sebald. Now he is sitting crippled at home with his wife and little son.

Not only Marie, the woman with the strong braids , lives on when Grubetsch arrives. Her unmarried sister-in-law Anna also promises happiness. Marie predicts a disaster. No matter, Anna hopes for such a misfortune. Brother Martin had taken the young girl, who had served strangers after her parents' death, from her home village to the big city out of pity. Martin can afford it because luckily he has work.

That misfortune, or rather happiness, comes over Anna faster than desired. The girl has sexual intercourse with Grubetsch several times in the stairwell amidst the junk under the stairs and then confesses his love to him. Grubetsch does not go into the vows of love, but refers to the coming spring and its imminent departure. In the backyard, Grubetsch learns of the death of the family man from the mouth of the Sebald's little son.

Marie also approaches the raftsman - but much more cautiously than Anna. Then it gets going. Martin discovers his wife in Munk's cellar, as she revels in the longed-for misfortune at Grubetsch's side. Marie sits there with smiling eyes and a bare chest. She wound her braids around Grubetsch's neck. The husband reacts powerless. A little later Marie confesses to Anna in private that her brother Martin is too boring. From now on Anna Seghers only portrays Martin, who is now unemployed, sliding or crawling on his knees. It has become impossible to walk upright. Arms and legs have grown too long. He appears submissive and tearful to Grubetsch. The worker Paul, who also lives in the same backyard, can only wonder about such unworthy behavior. Paul successfully approached the widow Sebald because he considers himself the prettiest and strongest man in the backyard. When Grubetsch wanted to take the little Sebald with him on the raft, the raftsman brought the barrel to overflow. The widow Sebald blames Grubetsch for the death of her first husband and induces Paul to murder the raftsman. Paul stabs Grubetsch. After the murder, the residents of the backyard fall back into their usual routine. Anna gives in to her propensity for prostitution. The narrator concludes: “It is true that some things still happened ... one ... drowned in the river, Paul's wife took a loved one, and Paul beat her like Sebald had beaten her ... But those were ordinary love affairs, ordinary deaths. "

Testimonials

  • Anna Seghers wrote in 1931: "An evil court, and in the court a man who knows how to guess the secret desires of people to go under and to fulfill each one in his own way."
  • On June 7, 1961, Anna Seghers wrote to her readers: " Grubetsch is playing on the river ( Rhine ?) In an environment that probably worried me as a young thing."

reception

Freud , Dostoyevsky's “ Guilt and Atonement ” and Kafka's nightmarish designs were the inspiration for the story. In addition, Winnen refers to the Kafka model.

The backyard scenery seems unreal to Batt. Grubetsch periodically searches - like the dragon from the legend - the working-class families in their homes and evokes both horror and ecstasy. The casual life of Grubetsch contrasts strongly with the vegetation of the crammed proletariat in the urban slums in the 20s of the 20th century. The egoist Grubetsch rejects all ties, only shakes the working class families, but does not initiate any positive change. Grubetsch was killed because the proletarians did not want to know anything about a life other than theirs. With murder, everyday life triumphs over the outsider.

radio play

literature

Text output

expenditure

Secondary literature

  • Heinz Neugebauer: Anna Seghers. Life and work. With illustrations (research assistant: Irmgard Neugebauer, editorial deadline September 20, 1977). 238 pages. Series “Writers of the Present” (Ed. Kurt Böttcher). People and Knowledge, Berlin 1980, without ISBN
  • Kurt Batt : Anna Seghers. Trial over development and works. With illustrations. 283 pages. Reclam, Leipzig 1973 (2nd edition 1980). Licensor: Röderberg, Frankfurt am Main ( Röderberg-Taschenbuch Vol. 15), ISBN 3-87682-470-2
  • Ute Brandes: Anna Seghers . Colloquium Verlag, Berlin 1992. Volume 117 of the series “Heads of the 20th Century”, ISBN 3-7678-0803-X
  • Andreas Schrade: Anna Seghers . Metzler, Stuttgart 1993 (Metzler Collection, Vol. 275 (Authors)), ISBN 3-476-10275-0
  • Sonja Hilzinger: Anna Seghers. With 12 illustrations. Series of Literature Studies. Reclam, Stuttgart 2000, RUB 17623, ISBN 3-15-017623-9
  • Angelika Winnen: Kafka reception in the literature of the GDR. Productive readings from Anna Seghers, Klaus Schlesinger , Gert Neumann and Wolfgang Hilbig . P. 32–96: Anna Seghers: Die Reiseegegnung . Literary Studies series, vol. 527. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2006. ISBN 3-8260-2969-0 , 317 pages

Remarks

  1. ↑ On p. 33, Batt shows a facsimile of the first series of the first Frankfurt edition of March 10, 1927.
  2. ↑ The title character has no first name in the text.
  3. ↑ The boy of the Sebalds is always referred to in the text as “the little one” or “Sebald's little one”.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Schrade, p. 6, 14th Zvu
  2. ↑ Brandes, p. 31, 9. Zvu
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 363, entry Grubetsch .
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 39 below
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 66, 5. Zvo
  6. ↑ quoted in Hilzinger, p. 90, 11. Zvo
  7. ↑ quoted in Batt, p. 31, 9. Zvo
  8. ↑ Brandes, p. 32, 14. Zvo and Batt, p. 29, 20. Zvo and Batt, p. 31, 7. Zvu
  9. ↑ Neugebauer, p. 18, 7th Zvu
  10. ↑ Winnen, p. 34, 9. Zvo (footnote 63: reference to Friedrich Albrecht, Frank Wagner, Sigrid Bock and Klaus Hermsdorf )
  11. ^ Batt, 29, 10. Zvo
  12. ↑ Batt, p. 30
  13. ^ Schrade, p. 8, 4. Zvo
  14. ^ Schrade, p. 10, 16. Zvu
  15. ^ Schrade, p. 9, 12. Zvo
  16. ^ Schrade, p. 10, 9. Zvu
  17. ^ Batt, p. 32, middle
  18. ↑ radio.ARD.de database ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ard.de