Jans has to die
Jans muss die is a short story by Anna Seghers that was written around 1925, was discovered late by Pierre Radványi among the papers left behind in Paris in 1940 and was published in Berlin in 2000.
In the text from the unfinished manuscript in the author's estate, the death of a seven-year-old worker boy is told from the perspective of his mother, father and little Jans.
content
Jans Jansen likes to hang around with boys of the same age under the bridge that spans the river. The breakneck climbing tours in the iron structure are life-threatening, but are not forbidden by the young parents. The father Martin Jansen works in the factory. The mother, Marie, takes care of the small family, who live cautiously in cramped suburban areas. Jans 'bed is in the parents' bedroom. The boy observes the nocturnal “gymnastics” of the strong, unclothed mother.
When Jans becomes infected with an insidious disease, the mother whispers the eponymous sentence: "Jans must die". The father sends a doctor - on the way to work. He is powerless and recommends bed rest in the darkened bedroom. Sometimes a thread of blood trickles out of Jans' mouth. The boy's face and body shrink into old age. Jans' death dragged on for months. Anna is probably born as a late consequence of the above mentioned bed gymnastics. Since the doctor cannot help Jans, he relaxes his prescription. Jans is even allowed to go back to school; but one class lower. While climbing in the substructure of the bridge structure, Jans falls down and dies.
shape
On December 14, 2000, Fritz J. Raddatz said in Die Zeit that Anna Seghers would certainly have designed some of the unfinished manuscript before it was published. This appropriate relativization should be kept in mind for all fixed thought fragments that follow: In the sixth sentence it looks as if the narrator is rising above the desolate level of reality: “... between ... pillars ... climbed the little boys who drowned at this game last summer ... "
And anyway, the reader has to cope with indefinite narration in the otherwise so concrete text on other occasions. When, for example, little Anna is conceived (see also above under content ), the unenlightened little Jans experiences the act as a gymnastics exercise for the undressed mother. Since the father remains fairly immobile, a riding position might be an option . This positioning fit in with the unequivocally dominating mother in this marriage over the cowardly father until the end of the text. If Anna didn't exist in the story, then that gymnastics exercise of the mother could possibly be played down as a more harmless unsteady dancing - strictly adhering to the shady, misleading text.
On the one hand it seems as if Anna Seghers went to school with Freud . If Anna, who barely acts in the story, is excluded, then there is something like a love triangle in the small family . Jans enjoys the sight of the naked mother - for example the sight of her breasts - when Anna is breastfed. On the other hand, it is not an oedipal issue. Because Jans by no means hates his father. There is no reason for this. The father cares for the dying boy at least as faithfully as the dear mother.
Some turns are unusual. In the face of the deadly serious subject, the reader has to suppress the occasional hilarity. For example, when the non-disabled father climbs the apartment building stairs, he "pulls himself up the railing with heavy entangled legs".
reception
Post-release meetings
- October 7, 2000, Christel Berger, Neues Deutschland : “Death, happiness. Jans must die, a hitherto unknown story by the young Anna Seghers "
- October 17, 2000, Magdeburger Volksstimme : “Jans must die. Seghers story for the first time as a book "
- October 28, 2000, HM, Thüringer Allgemeine : “The boy Jans Jansen must die. When Netty Reiling became Anna Seghers. Aufbau presents a previously unknown story from her early work "
- November 11, 2000, Monika Melchert , Ostthüringer Zeitung Gera: “See in head and heart. Jans must die - a story from the estate of Anna Seghers "
- November 17, 2000, Helga Bittner, Rheinische Post Düsseldorf: “Think little and never doubt. For the 100th birthday of Anna Seghers - Jans must die - a story from her early work has now been published for the first time "
- November 18, 2000, Andrea Köhler , Neue Zürcher Zeitung
- December 14, 2000, Fritz J. Raddatz, Die Zeit
- Axel Helbig : “Jans has to die. First edition of Anna Segher's early story by Aufbau-Verlag ”. Ostragehege Volume IV. 2000
- January 18, 2001, Hans-Jürgen Schmitt , Frankfurter Rundschau
Later statements
- Gunnar Decker complains in the afterword of the edition used that the petty-bourgeois environment watches Jans' death unmoved, and Anna, who is perfectly healthy, takes the place of Jans with the children-loving Jansens.
literature
First edition
- Anna Seghers: Jans has to die. Narrative. With a comment by Pierre Radvanyi and an afterword by Christiane Zehl Romero. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 2000. 89 pages, ISBN 978-3-351-03499-3
expenditure
- Jans has to die. P. 7–48 in Anna Seghers: The Most Beautiful Stories. Selected by Christina Salmen. With an afterword by Gunnar Decker ( Jans must die. The Ziegler . The most beautiful tales of the robber Woynok . Artemis tales . The shelter . Post to the promised land . The excursion of the dead girls . The Argonaut ship . The Führer ). Structure of the publishing group, Berlin 2008 (1st edition), ISBN 978-3-351-03495-5 (edition used)
- Anna Seghers: Jans has to die. Speaker: Hannelore Hoger . Directed by Joachim Staritz . Central German radio . Audiobook Audio Verlag, Berlin 2000, 1 CD. ISBN 3-89813-119-X
Web links
- Pearl divers notes on meetings