In a family

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The debut novel by Heinrich Mann , written by Dr. Eugen Albert & Co. appeared in Munich. The 21-year-old novelist began his first work in Erlenbruck in August 1892, continued writing in Lausanne, Lübeck and Munich and finished it in Riva in October 1893 .

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The 32-year-old Wellkamp finally gets to know the right person with 17-year-old Anna von Grubeck. After a “fleeting wandering life”, Wellkamp would like to enter the Ehehafen with this girl, who exudes an “ostentatious self-assurance”. The bachelor dreams of "harbor calm". With Anna's father, the major a. D. von Grubeck, Wellkamp finds an open ear when he expresses his intentions. The characters in the novel are not plagued by financial worries. Wellkamp has a considerable maternal legacy. And the major received a large sum of money from his new father-in-law, a wealthy German-Jewish Argentine, immediately after he married Dora, the second wife. The overseas father was happy to get rid of his difficult daughter Dora, and immediately after the marriage steamed off for South America. The 28-year-old Dora lost her mother, a Creole , as a toddler . Even as a young girl, she had a “nervous aversion to physical relationships between the sexes”. It looks as if the marriage to the “unloved” much older major was never consummated. Dora, “unsatisfied”, blames everything on her husband. The major, who said goodbye after an “unfortunate maneuver”, has now just become an art lover, has given up at his age to conquer Dora. His young wife lives musing, reading, cared for by her servant and the attendant , withdrawn in her dim boudoir. The lady in the art-friendly place of residence of Dresden refuses to go to the theater et cetera. Thus she becomes unsympathetic to her future son-in-law.

Dora hates Anna's late mother and transfers this hostility to her quiet stepdaughter Anna. The deep-seated aversion is reciprocated by Anna. This mutual contempt is only expressed in looks or gestures, or the narrator reports this: Anna despises Dora's “dependent mind”. The girl studies writings of socialist content and loves Beethoven. After she quietly married Wellkamp, ​​she does not want to interrupt her “intellectual pursuits” in favor of housekeeping. Wellkamp calls Anna an emancipated woman. The major, the selfish old man who doesn't want to be alone with his young wife, wants to become a grandfather and who neither understands nor loves Anna, has a brilliant idea. With the consent of the young couple, he rents the neighboring apartment. To make matters worse, he has a connecting door between the two apartments broken through. And whoever uses the door has to go through Dora's boudoir. During these installations, which the major eagerly oversees, the newlyweds spend their honeymoon in Berlin. Wellkamp had a mistress there in his Sturm und Drang period. At least Anna is not a “completely naive woman”. When Heinrich Mann writes about “the union of their love” in Berlin, this could perhaps be taken as an indication of the completion of the young marriage.

When the couple returned to Dresden from Berlin, the major presented the fully furnished domicile. Wellkamp is amazed to see a change in the mother-in-law. Dora suddenly appears to be sensible and motherly. To his astonishment, Wellkamp notices that he loves Dora. Of course, he forbids his passion and immediately consults Goethe: How was it in the “ Elective Affinities ”? Wellkamp quotes the relevant passages by heart. The newlywed comes to the conclusion that he has to move out with Anna immediately and immediately. But Wellkamp - in his character weakness - tends to "deceive himself". He stays in Dresden.

Dora, in her "great hatred", is more daring in the fight for the man Anna has. The enemy Anna enjoyed the "free world" with Wellkamp in Berlin. For this Dora wants revenge on her son-in-law. She is four years younger than him and sees a liaison as something like her last opportunity. In a nutshell: Dora wants to “humiliate” and “own” Wellkamp. “This sad connection” can also come about so easily because the major rides out with his daughter every morning. Wellkamp confesses his love to Dora one morning and kisses her on the mouth. After the adultery, Dora, the "fallen" woman, is appalled and feels like a victim. Her tormentor Wellkamp offends her deeply. It does not stop with “carnal love”; both adulterers "physically hurt" each other. The disappointed Wellkamp feels outwitted and captured. He finds a drain valve in Anna and the major. Wellkamp makes the two of them an "insufferable scene". During a lonely forced march over the snow-covered Räcknitzer Höhe, very close to Dresden, Wellkamp becomes aware of the unnatural relationship in the deep snow. On one of the following days, when father and daughter are out riding, he makes a loud scene for his lover. Wellkamp had previously interrogated himself. Father and daughter hadn't even ridden out yet. So the major and Anna, who are listening at the door for their part, learn the terrible truth. The reaction of the betrayed surprises the reader. The major tries to excuse his wife's seducer and politely asks him out of the line of fire. The adulterer should travel alone - as far away as possible and as long as possible. Wellkamp agrees. Then Anna answers, who has already obeyed again. The young woman wants to travel with me. The understanding Anna sticks to Wellkamp. How good for the adulterer! He kneels down in front of the generous Anna in order to then “sit up” on her. The major, without a quantum of energy, doesn't want to get divorced. The young couple is enjoying spring on Lake Geneva and will take a villa on Dresden's Schillerstrasse when they return.

Meanwhile, Dora realizes that with her adultery she also "forged" Wellkamp and Anna together. Moreover, she thinks that with her crime she has strengthened Anna's relationship with the major. “This missed life” is drawing to a close. While the adulteress wants to shoot the villain Wellkamp, ​​she dies of heart failure in the excitement . Dora hadn't checked whether the pistol was loaded at all. Wellkamp complains that he killed Dora. The major is not up to his upcoming obligations. In this probation situation Anna again shows strength: she writes the sensitive letter to Dora's father in Argentina.

The "harbor calm" that Wellkamp dreamed of has been achieved. The couple want a child. It should be a boy. The major, loved by Anna, moves into the villa with his children. Grass grows over Dora's grave.

Quote

We only become ourselves through what happens to us or what we do.

shape

The style is upscale and does not correspond to the spoken language. The author changes his point of view too often when he takes turns analyzing the psyche of the four protagonists. The omniscient narrator knows about the adulterers Wellkamp and Dora: “Their eyes met, she struck down hers. Each had understood the other's thoughts ... "The author sometimes uses a lecturing tone:" There are natures who ... "

Testimonials

  • Heinrich Mann rates his first novel as "not matured".

The novel is dedicated to Paul Bourget . Heinrich Mann writes:

  • "I think I got my method directly from Bourget."

From the afterword of the new edition published by Ullstein in Berlin in 1924 :

  • "I wrote this novel so early that I can't possibly stand by it."
  • The “people” in the novel “have time, money and never worry other than coming to terms with their feelings”.
  • The "middle-class" in the novel is "nobility itself, is tired of doing nothing".

reception

  • In 1931, Thomas Mann , with good-natured and subtle derision, attributed the novel to his brother's “conservative period”, which was in his “youth”.
  • The young author takes the "psychological-analyzing novel" by the French writer and monarchist Paul Bourget as a model.
  • Sprengel , who humorously describes the relationship between Wellkamp and Dora as "quasi incestuous adultery", even speaks in his brief but apt description of the novel of a "strict implementation" of the "principles established" in Burget's works.
  • Schröter comments on the "story of adultery with the conciliatory outcome" that Goethe's "elective affinities" "clearly provided the model".
  • Koopmann calls the text “unfinished” and quotes a passage from which he reads autobiographical features and decadence , as Nietzsche discusses in his later work.
  • Fischer sums up “that Mann's first novel… lacked conceptual clarity in social issues”.
  • Heinrich Mann from Lübeck includes the late romantic Emanuel Geibel from Lübeck in the novel.

literature

expenditure

  • Heinrich Mann: In a family. Novel. 247 pages. New edition of the first from 1894. Berlin 1924. Ullstein books 161

Secondary literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ p. 231, 7th Zvu
  2. ↑ p. 183, 15. Zvo
  3. ↑ p. 260, 13. Zvu
  4. ↑ p. 9
  5. ↑ pp. 302-305
  6. ↑ p. 190, 16. Zvo
  • Sigrid Anger (Ed.): Heinrich Mann. 1871 - 1950. Work and life in documents and pictures. Aufbau-Verlag Berlin and Weimar 1977.
  1. ↑ p. 54
  2. ↑ p. 54
  • Further individual evidence
  1. ↑ Group = "Mann2000"> p. 301
  2. ↑ Group = "Anger"> p. 53, 12th Zvu
  3. ↑ Volker Ebersbach: Heinrich Mann. Life - work - work . Philipp Reclam jun., Leipzig 1978. From a letter to Karl Lemke, p. 62, 17th line vo
  4. ↑ Brigitte Hocke: Heinrich Mann. With 62 illustrations . VEB Bibliographisches Institut Leipzig 1983., p. 25, 4th Zvu
  5. ↑ Peter Sprengel: History of German-Language Literature 1870 - 1900. From the founding of the empire to the turn of the century. CH Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-44104-1 , p. 402 center
  6. ↑ Klaus Schröter: Heinrich Mann . Rowohlt , Reinbek near Hamburg 1967, ISBN 3-499-50125-2 , p. 35
  7. ↑ Koopmann, p. 25, 17. Zvo - p. 26, 10. Zvo
  8. ↑ Torben Fischer: contradicting foundations. Approaches to Heinrich Mann's literary beginnings in the 1890s . In: Walter Delabar (Ed.), Walter Fähnders (Ed.): Heinrich Mann (1871 - 1950) . Weidler Berlin 2005. ISBN 3-89693-437-6 , p. 35, 5th Zvu