I want to know why

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Sherwood Anderson in Central Park 1939

I Want to Know Why (dt. I want to know why in the revised translation of 1978 Karl Lerbs and Helene Henze) is a short story by the American writer Sherwood Anderson , the first time in November 1919 in the magazine The Smart Set has been published. The story was then included in the collection The Triumph of the Egg published in New York in 1921 (German: The triumphant egg in the translation of Jürgen Dierking 1997).

In this story unfolds and intensifies Anderson already in Winesburg, Ohio (dt. Winesburg, Ohio. Novel about a small town , 1958 translated by Hans Erich Nossack ) scale issue of initiation of a teenager isolated in his inner world of experience and misunderstood feels .

content

The plot of the story is very simple: the fifteen-year-old first-person narrator describes his love for thoroughbred horses and a disappointment that a horse trainer inflicts on him when he visits a brothel after the victory of one of the horses he admires . The youngster previously thought the trainer was a friend and believed he understood him.

In the first part of the short story, the protagonist shows his almost obsessive enthusiasm for horses and the beginning of the racing season. Fascinated by the beauty of the horses, the smell of the horse stables, what is happening on the runs and saddle areas, as well as the stable boys and horse owners, he and his four take part Friends everything imaginable, in order to be as often as possible in the stables and with the thoroughbred horses in the neighboring cities.

The first-person narrator describes his relationship with his father, a lawyer, as rather distant and hypothermic. At one of the races he finally met the cocky horse trainer Jerry Tillford, whose close relationship with the horses impressed him very much. The trainer whom the young person adores from the beginning becomes a kind of father substitute for him.

After "Sunstreak", a horse that has been highly praised by the two, has confidently won a race and set a world record, the narrator feels a close bond and emotional closeness to the horse trainer and paints due to the shared joy of the triumph and the mutual admiration for the winning horse in every detail how he looked after the horse when it was still a little colt and patiently taught him to walk. The narrator says he loved Jerry Tillford more than his birth father that afternoon.

On the same evening after the race, the youngster follows his idol into town. There he experiences with disgust how the trainer goes into what the narrator sees as disgusting and disgusting brothel, whose women all appear ugly and repulsive to him with their hard mouths, their mean eyes and their indecent clothes. According to the narrator, Jerry Tillford bragged and lied to women in a way that "Sunstreak" would never have done. The coach claimed that he alone “did this horse” (p. 17) and won the race.

The first-person narrator wishes he had never followed the trainer into town after the race and returns to the track disappointed. Since then, as he tells the reader at the age of sixteen next spring, in his story, he's been going on the lanes in the morning as always, but the air doesn't taste as good and it doesn't smell as good as it used to be. The question of why the coach did something like that after the victory has not let go of the young protagonist ever since.

Interpretative approach

I would like to know why treats a relatively new and unusual topic around 1920 in the traditional framework of an initiation story. The youthful narrator in Anderson's short story describes a change and shock, the causes of which he would like to gain clarity. His "striving for understanding and self-knowledge" is, as Christadler emphasizes in his interpretation of I want to know why , "the reason why he tells the story to a listener who remains anonymous."

The crisis in which the author puts his narrator is on the one hand psychological, but also moral. It is triggered by the breakthrough of sexuality in the imagination of the young person, whose love for horses - of course unconsciously - is clearly erotically motivated: “'Sunstreak' is like a girl who you sometimes think of but who you never see . He is immaculate and beautiful. When you see his head, you want to kiss it. "

The strange mixture of horse (a horse!) And girls in the exciting world of the protagonist reveals "a diffuse sensuality , as in the rest [sic] his mainly shaped by the sense of smell perception of the world." The boy describes his relationship with the racehorse in the image of “purity” in ethical and aesthetic terms, but he perceives the atmosphere of the brothel and the heterosexuality of adults as “bad” and “disgusting” (p. 17). Undoubtedly, the disgusted reaction to the sexual is part of the characterization of puberty in a society that taboos and suppresses the instinctual ; however, the vehemence of the protagonist's reaction also shows his excess of feelings.

The contrast between the two symbolic idols of the youth, the horse and the trainer, allows the author to expand the meaning of the story to include a moral problem. While the horse is simply thriving in its "natural" function, running, the trainer surrenders to boasting and self-glorification. For boys in the brothel scene, lies, disloyalty, and selfishness appear as decisive qualities of adulthood; What is striking, however, are his comparisons of prostitutes with those of horses; the faces of love and lust, of idealization and loathing are no longer distinguishable.

The boy becomes aware of contradictions and entanglements that, in his youthful naivety at the racetrack, he had not noticed so far, although they existed: the contradiction between the moral code of whites who denounce a boy to his parents and that of blacks who remain loyal , between the social condemnation of the professional player and his generosity, the moral reservations of men against the players and their own profitable exploitation of the victorious horse. What confuses and upsets him is the premonition that there are no longer any clear, unambiguous boundaries between “clean” and “dirty”, between “good” and “bad”.

Anderson shows the reader how deeply the boy, unconscious of himself, is already entangled in the adult world and its system; his way of speaking contains typical expressions of the judgmental language of adults, the thoughtless frequent use of the discriminatory expression "nigger" (pp. 7, 9, 11ff.) in several parts of the story makes it clear that young people do not evade the conventions and evaluations of their society can. His statement: "I am about to become a man, and I would like to think right and be a decent guy" (p. 10) betray his willingness to adapt or conform, as well as his realization that it is for the son of a lawyer do not send to become a stable boy like a "nigger", although at the same time he admires the black stable boy Bildad. (see p. 10).

Anderson develops his moral problematics from the contrast between the idealized world of the naturally naive and the corrupt reality of adults, without becoming melodramatic in the process, by exposing it as the fiction of an immature narrative consciousness and thereby showing the indissoluble interlocking of the two areas. As Christadler notes in his interpretation, moral conditions are always “complicated and mixed”.

Anderson's short story, however, picks up on another aspect that was already in Winesburg, Ohio. The novel about a small town was in the foreground: the subject of loneliness and communication. The impressionistic mood pictures of the narrator of the morning training with the thoroughbred horses evoke the image of a simple, creature , sensual community. The narrator experiences this atmosphere as a social idyll without social differences or prejudices and without the greed for profit that is common in horse races. In the encounter with Jerry Tillford during the horse race, the narrator feels the feeling of perfect harmony between two people; the overcoming of human isolation in mutual recognition remains temporary and fleeting, however, the relapse into isolation is inevitable from Anderson's point of view, as the scene in the brothel shows: the boy experiences himself as an outcast, woman and man are strangers, objects remain without each other Understanding in pure pleasure without mutual love.

This experience of the isolation of the ego apparently contradicts the narrative style of the short story. Anderson simulates the form of oral storytelling; the narrative situation is that of a fictional dialogue. The renunciation of an exposure , the intimacy of the confessions, the direct address to a "you" may reflect a common horizon for the narrator and the listener, but the opposite remains only an anonymous "you", a mere foil for the self-centeredness of the ego. Narrator who, despite his dialogical efforts, remains trapped in his own world.

With the form of the first- person narration, Anderson dramatizes the subject of adolescence and growing up in the form or from the mouth of a young person. Such a narrative angle requires the author to construct a credible mode of thought and expression that is psychologically and linguistically appropriate to the life horizon of a fifteen year old. Anderson mainly uses three methods with which he characterizes the narrator: narrative, speech and reflection.

According to the linguistic and stylistic expression, I would like to know why appears as an oral monologue-like report by the protagonist; the representation of the events or the action in the actual sense ( plot ) largely takes a back seat to the development of the mental and emotional reactions of the fictional narrator.

The first-person narrator appears spontaneous and naive on the one hand, and worried and confused on the other. The narrator's report does not follow the linear chronological sequence of events, but rather the impulses in the narrator's consciousness, which enables digressions and associations .

In order to express the narrator's psychological world of sensations, Anderson uses a slang expression similar to Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn , which also includes the typical local jargon ( "Southern vernacular" ) of the American South . It is characteristic of the absence of a logical structure and more complex sentence structure; Frequent repetitions of certain phrases and words also create the impression that the narrator has a limited vocabulary. Inner, elusive sensations or more abstract processes are expressed as concrete physical experience: "I have such a lump in my throat when I see a horse running." (P. 11)

Likewise, human behaviors are concretized pictorially: "In the spring Bildad goes a little [sic] to the roll." (P 10); Sensations of smell and taste are carefully noted.

The narrative process and manner of speaking thus illustrate the age-specific mental and intellectual constitution of the narrator, which is not rationally ordered, but appears to be direct, concretely sensual as well as confused and naive. The impression of the wandering and unorganized is carefully calculated by Anderson, the unsystematic narrative style reflects age and mental maturity as well as the inadequate expressiveness of the narrating protagonist.

The repetition of the title sentence at the end of the short story underlines once more his ignorance and simultaneous curiosity; the tension remains even at the end.

Impact history

Anderson's storytelling in I want to know why represents a turn in the development of American short prose against the classic well-made stories of the big popular magazines and mass journals, which have been fought as commercial and formulaic frozen by critics since around 1915. These short stories were characterized by careful plot management, a superficial unity (ie unity) in the sense of EA Poe and an often surprising ending as with O'Henry .

In contrast, I should like to know why - possibly written under the impression of James Joyce's Dubliners - give the appearance of artlessness; Anderson deliberately refrains from “unity” of the form and from obvious “solutions” in order to encourage the reader to participate more closely.

This form of narrative technique is associated with the expansion of a new class of readers who are literarily and aesthetically educated or interested, which has enabled the emergence of a new type of literary periodical: authors, writers and critics, the literary producers par excellence, became, as Christadler points out, the most important ones themselves Target group for “modern” literature.

Anderson's narrative came about at a time when the mythology of the American Dream , the ideology of success, advancement and self-actualization, was being exposed as an illusion and a bad utopia . Anderson was well aware of this change. So he had rebelled against the competitive society and the existing business ethics by giving up his position as head of advertising at a paint factory in order to realize himself as a writer.

After beginning his work on the narratives and sketches of Winesburg, Ohio in the winter of 1915–1916, Anderson was under the influence of the cultural criticism of Waldo Frank and Van Wyck Brooks and formulated his own alienation from modern America in numerous letters.

literature

  • Martin Christadler: Sherwood Anderson I Want to Know Why . In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American Short Story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , pp. 205-2215.
  • James Ellis: Sherwood Anderson's Fear of Sexuality: Horses, Men, and Homosexuality . In: Studies in Short Fiction , Vol. 30, No. 4, fall 1993.
  • Peter Freese : The American Short Story I: Initiation · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching . Schöningh Verlag Paderborn 1986, ISBN 3-506-41084-9 , pp. 191-231.
  • Peter Freese: On the Difficulties of Growing Up: American Stories of Initiation from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Joyce Carol Oates . In: ders. Et al., The Short Story in English Lessons at Secondary Level II · Theory and Practice , Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 1979, pp. 201–255.
  • Siegfried Neuweiler: Sherwood Anderson's “I Want to Know Why”: The structural peculiarity of a “story of initiation” . In: Paul Goetsch (ed.): Studies and materials for the short story. Diesterweg Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 3rd edition 1978, ISBN 3-425-04215-7 , pp. 76-84.
  • Wolfgang Staek: Stories of Initiation · Model Interpretations . Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1979, ISBN 3-12-578430-1 , pp. 22-39.
  • RV Cassill (ed.): Anderson, Sherwood. "I Want to Know Why." The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Fourth Edition. New York: WW Norton, 1990.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In the translation by Karl Lerbs, the German first edition of this anthology was published in 1926 under the title Das Ei triumphiert by Insel Verlag .
  2. ↑ A new translation by Daniel Kehlmann and Eike Schönfeld was published in 2012 by Manesse Verlag in Zurich under the title Winesburg Ohio .
  3. ↑ Cf. Martin Christadler for a detailed explanation of the background: Sherwood Anderson · I Want to Know Why . In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American Short Story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , p. 205 and Peter Freese : The American Short Story I: Initiation · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching . Schöningh Verlag Paderborn 1986, ISBN 3-506-41084-9 , p. 191. and the like: Peter Freese: About the difficulties of growing up: American stories of initiation from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Joyce Carol Oates . In: ders. Et al., The Short Story in English Lessons at Secondary Level II · Theory and Practice , Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 1979, pp. 220f.
  4. ↑ Sherwood Anderson: I want to know why. Translated by Karl Lerbs. Diogenes Verlag Zürich 1978, ISBN 3-257-20514-7 , p. 14. The following text citations are taken from this edition.
  5. ↑ This is how Brooks and Warren, in their influential interpretive volume Understanding Fiction , New York: Appleton-Century Croits, 2nd ed. 1959, pp. 324 and 309, describe Anderson's story as "a story of initiation" . See also Peter Freese: On the Difficulties of Growing Up: American Stories of Initiation from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Joyce Carol Oates . In: ders. Et al., The Short Story in English Lessons in Upper Secondary Level II theory and practice , Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 1979, p. 207.
  6. ↑ Martin Christadler: Sherwood Anderson I Want to Know Why . In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American Short Story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , p. 205. Likewise, the interpretation by Peter Freese: About the difficulties of growing up: American stories of initiation from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Joyce Carol Oates . In: ders. Et al., The Short Story in English Lessons at Secondary Level II · Theory and Practice , Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 1979, p. 221.
  7. ↑ See Sherwood Anderson: I want to know why. Translated by Karl Lerb. Diogenes Verlag Zurich 1978, ISBN 3-257-20514-7 , p. 14. The interpretation here follows Martin Christadler: Sherwood Anderson · I Want to Know Why . In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American Short Story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , p. 206.
  8. ↑ Martin Christadler: Sherwood Anderson I Want to Know Why . In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American Short Story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , p. 206.
  9. ↑ Martin Christadler: Sherwood Anderson I Want to Know Why . In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American Short Story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , p. 207
  10. ↑ Martin Christadler: Sherwood Anderson I Want to Know Why . In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American Short Story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , pp. 207f.
  11. ↑ Martin Christadler: Sherwood Anderson I Want to Know Why . In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American Short Story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , pp. 208ff.
  12. ↑ Martin Christadler: Sherwood Anderson I Want to Know Why . In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American Short Story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , p. 209.
  13. ↑ See in detail Martin Christadler: Sherwood Anderson · I Want to Know Why . In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American Short Story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , p. 210ff. and Peter Freese: On the Difficulties of Growing Up: American Stories of Initiation from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Joyce Carol Oates . In: ders. Et al., The Short Story in English Lessons at Secondary Level II · Theory and Practice , Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 1979, p. 221ff.
  14. ↑ The American edition of the Dubliners appeared in 1916 by the publisher that also brought out Winesburg, Ohio . See Martin Christadler's information: Sherwood Anderson · I Want to Know Why . In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American Short Story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , pp. 2407f.
  15. ↑ Martin Christadler: Sherwood Anderson I Want to Know Why . In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American Short Story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , pp. 213f. Christadler refers here to the presentation of the development of the intellectuals as a new type in Ch. Lasch's study The New Radicalism in America. 1889-1963 (New York 1965).
  16. ↑ Martin Christadler: Sherwood Anderson I Want to Know Why . In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American Short Story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , pp. 214f.