Kassandra (Christa Wolf)

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Kassandra is a short story by the East German writer Christa Wolf . The story, published simultaneously in the GDR and the Federal Republic in 1983 , comments on the events of the Trojan War from the perspective of the Trojan king's daughter and seer Kassandra .

According to the author, the idea for Kassandra came about by chance. As one of the few authors in the GDR, Wolf had the opportunity to travel to western countries - more precisely: to Greece. But she missed her flight to Athens and had to spend the night in Berlin. In the absence of other literature, she began the Oresteia of Aeschylus to read. Fascinated by the person of Cassandra, she began researching her and ancient Greece.

Wolf described the creation of the figure Kassandra and the story in four lectures in 1982 as part of the Frankfurt Poetics Lectures . In the Federal Republic of Germany these appeared in a separate volume at the same time as the story. The GDR edition published by Aufbau-Verlag contained lectures and a story in one volume. The lectures were censored in it . There were omissions in some places, which were indicated by ellipses [...] on Wolf's intervention.

content

Kassandra , the daughter of King Priam of Troy and his wife Hecabe , is wooed by the god Apollo and given the gift of vision. Since she refuses to love him, he punishes her by placing a curse on her that no one will believe her prophecies. She has a loving relationship with her father: unlike her siblings, he always lets her stay in the room when he has a political meeting with his wife, Hekabe. Priam rules with his wife, leaving most of the power to her. Hecabe appears as a strict mother. As part of the degrading Entjungferungszeremonie Kassandra first met Aeneas who takes them to, but they do not deflowered. She falls in love with Aeneas. She is later deflowered by Panthoos - "Panthoos the Greek" -, the first Apollo priest after he has ordained her as a priestess. But whenever Panthoos comes to her to sleep with her, she imagines he is Aeneas.

Anchises , the father of Aeneas, teaches Kassandra the story of the first of three ships and tells her that panthoos had been brought along as booty. At the same time the second ship is sent, with Anchises and Kalchas the seers, to bring Hesione , Priam's sister, back to Troy, who was kidnapped by the Spartan Telamon . The enterprise fails, because Hesione is now Telamon's wife and the seer Kalchas does not return, although it is initially uncertain whether he was captured by the Greeks or whether he went over to the Greeks of his own free choice, which later came true.

Shortly afterwards, Paris appears, who turns out to be Cassandra's brother. Kassandra learns from Arisbe , the mother of Aisakos , her half-brother, that Paris was given to a shepherd by Priam to kill him, because Hecabe dreamed before he was born that she would become a log from which countless burning snakes crawl and give birth to Kalchas the seers from this she prophesied that Paris would set Troy on fire. However, the shepherd did not have the heart to kill him, but instead abandoned him, and Paris grew up with shepherds. Aphrodite promised him the most beautiful human woman, Helena , the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta. Paris is initially mocked by its brothers because its name means something like "bag" or "pouch". But Kassandra loves him just as she once loved Aisakos. Aisakos took his own life because his beloved wife Asterope died of puerperal fever; However, Kalchas said that Artemis turned him into a black diving bird with a red neck.

At this time Menelaus comes to Troy, and during the last evening's meal there is a quarrel between Paris (who admires Eumelos from Pherai , the chief of the Trojan palace guard and a kind of Trojan “ Stasi ” authority) and Menelaus is about Helena. While still in the dining room, Kassandra had a fit and was declared insane by her siblings; but Kassandra protects herself from the pain with her only apparent madness, since she foresees the downfall of Troy. Menelaus leaves Troy and the third ship leaves, with Paris at its head. Kassandra gets well again with the help of Arisbe. The third ship returns, but without Paris, because it makes a detour via Egypt with Helena, whom he kidnapped because he was refused Hesione. After months he comes back with a veiled person whom he pretends to be Helena. Kassandra refuses to see that this person is not Helena. After being informed by her family, however, she does not tell “the people” about it because Priam has forbidden her to do so and she still feels that she belongs to him.

The war begins in the spring. On the very first day, Kassandra's brother Troilos is brutally killed by Achilles without adhering to the rules of the fight; since then Kassandra has always called him "Achilles the cattle". Briseis, the beloved wife of Troilos, almost loses her mind and is brought to her father Kalchas, the Greeks, at her request. Aineias helps Kassandra over the death of her brother and a tender and passionate love develops between the two. In this relationship, Kassandra finds the long-missed fulfillment of her wishes and longings. But he cannot stay with her and leaves the next morning. Kassandra now often discusses her grief at Anchises', where some Trojans and Greek slaves meet. Hekabe is no longer allowed to attend the meetings of the council. Polyxena, a sister of Kassandra, falls in love with Andron, Eumelus' officer, begins a relationship and becomes pregnant by him, but loses the child. Kassandra stops going to Anchises and retires to the temple. In the meantime Priam crumbles more and more, the more he emphasizes being a king. Kassandra meets Agamemnon, who gives her jewelry because she looks like his daughter Iphigenia. (Agamemnon sacrificed Iphigenia in Aulis because Kalchas had prophesied that this was the only way the wind would come up so that the seafarers could sail to Troy.) Kassandra went back to Anchises to talk to him about Eumelus, who was increasingly telling Priam to a false one Art influences and dominates. Hector defeats the great Aias in a duel, whereupon Achilles challenges him to a duel and kills him and then demands either Polyxena or as much gold as Hector's corpse weighs. Briseis comes back and hides in the caves of the Ida Mountains, where Arisbe lives and where Kassandra would like to live. Polyxena has to go to Achilles. Aeneas comes back and brings the warlike Amazons with her, with Penthesilea at their head . They want to fight on the side of Troy. Myrine, an Amazon hidden by the Trojans, becomes a good friend of Kassandra. Myrine is badly injured. Panthoos are killed by the Amazons. Achilles kills Penthesilea and desecrates her corpse. After her, all the Amazons are killed with the exception of Myrine, who is well hidden.

Kassandra learns of the plan to kill Achilles: Polyxena is supposed to lure him to the temple on the pretext of a marriage, and Paris is supposed to hit him in the heel there with the spear; because Achilles' only weak point is his heel. Kassandra is against this plan in the interests of Polyxenas, whereupon Priam becomes angry and has her locked up. When she was released, Achilles had already been killed and, while dying, had sworn to Odysseus that Polyxena would be sacrificed at his grave. Kassandra now also lives in the caves and tries, along with the other women who are there and Anchises, to enjoy the time before the fall. In the first spring Priam sends for her to marry Eurypylos, a new ally, who dies the day after their wedding night, on which he rapes Kassandra, making her pregnant. Kassandra returns to the caves in the Ida Mountains and later gives birth to twins.

Paris dies, Kassandra goes to Troy to attend the funeral and sees how bad the city is. One evening she was having a conversation with Aeneas on the city wall. Aeneas insists that Kassandra leave Troy with him to start a new life. Kassandra doesn't want to go with him, assuming that the new masters will dictate their law to all who survive. These new laws would force Aeneas to become a hero soon, and she could not love a hero. She chooses death. Aeneas flees, the collapse comes quickly, because the Trojans bring the horse into the city against Kassandra's will. All Trojans are killed during the night. Polyxena is sacrificed on Achill's grave, Kassandra is raped by little Aias and captured by Agamemnon with her twins and Marpessa, her servant, and taken to Mycenae. There Agamemnon and Kassandra are murdered by Klytaimnestra , his wife, and her lover, Aigisthus, because Klytaimnestra cannot cope with the sacrifice of her daughter Iphigenia.

interpretation

Critical of patriarchy

Kassandra is the story of an outsider, a woman chained to the upper class, in a state that is developing into a pronounced patriarchy , in a warring state in which men are becoming more and more similar to their opponents and women are involved in all decision-making processes - especially political ones relevant - to be pushed out. Kassandra tells the story of a woman who is made an object. Socially tied to the ruling upper class, emotionally tied to her father, to the past and present of the royal family, Kassandra experienced a difficult, lengthy process of detachment. She opts for autonomy and for the death by Aeneas does not follow. Here the story clearly shows feminist tendencies.

Contemporary / socially critical

The work was created in the early 1980s in the GDR, which was increasingly militarizing during the height of the nuclear armament of the blocs inwardly. The book is at the same time an impressive report (and draft) of processes of consciousness within society. Kassandra, who belongs to the Trojan court with a sense of “we” as a matter of course and who feels the rampant “pre-war” and “security” mentality to be completely alien to her, must first become aware of the facts in a laborious self-clarification Life as a king's daughter and priestess is interwoven in the structures that build power at court. Only after self-clarification can she break free from these structures. This makes the story (with Stefan Heym's Der König David report, for example ) one of the rare evidence in the GDR of a consistent self-analysis of himself as an intellectual who is far from power.

Connection Kassandra to Christa Wolf

The story can also be read as Christa Wolf's examination of her role in the GDR. The connection can be seen in the following characters:

  • Eumelos → Security Service / State Security (Stasi) ,
  • Priam → State apparatus,
  • Hecabe → party (SED),
  • Marpessa → working crowd,
  • Arisbe → women's movement.

people

Family tree of the royal Trojan family
  • Achilles : Greek hero, is called "Achilles the cattle" by Kassandra (Greek)
  • Agamemnon : brother of Menelaus, husband Klytaimnestras, sacrificed his own daughter Iphigenia (Greek)
  • Aias the great : is defeated in a duel by Hector (Greek)
  • Aias the little one : raped Kassandra (Greek)
  • Aeneas : son of Anchises, lover of Kassandra, escapes, survives (Trojan)
  • Aisakos : Half-brother of Kassandra, son of Arisbe, committed suicide when his wife Asterope died of childbed fever. (Trojan)
  • Amazons : The Amazons are women warriors who fight on the side of Troy
  • Anchises : father of Aeneas, a kind of second father for Kassandra
  • Andromache : wife of Hector (Trojan)
  • Andron: servant of the court, later follower Eumelus and lover Polyxenas (Trojan)
  • Aphrodite : Does Paris promise the beautiful Helena. (Greek goddess)
  • Apollo : God of seers and muses. He gave Kassandra the power of seeing (Greek god)
  • Arisbe : mother of Aisakos. Lives in the Ida Mountains (Trojan woman)
  • Artemis : goddess of the hunt. Said to have turned Aisakos into a diving bird. (Greek goddess)
  • Asterope : Aisakus's wife, died of childbed fever (Trojan woman)
  • Athena : patron goddess of Athens, is on the side of the Greeks because Paris did not choose her as the most beautiful goddess (Greek goddess)
  • Briseis : daughter of Kalchas, wife of Troilos, goes to her father, to the Greeks, after his death, but returns later and lives from then on in the Ida mountains (Trojan woman)
  • Deiphobos : Second oldest brother of Kassandra (Trojan)
  • Diomedes of Argos (Greek)
  • Eumelos : Chief Officer and Advisor to Priam, spurs war (Trojan)
  • Eurypylos : wants to ally with Troy on condition that Kassandra marries him, falls after their wedding night (Thessalian ruler)
  • Hecabe : Queen Troy, Cassandra's mother (Trojan)
  • Hector : Elder brother Kassandra, is killed by Achilles (Trojan)
  • Helena : wife of Menelaus, kidnapped by Paris, cause of the war (Greek)
  • Helenos : twin brother of Kassandra, Augur (oracle speaker) (Trojan)
  • Herophile : Apollo priestess
  • Hesione : sister of Priam, is kidnapped by Telamon and taken to be his wife (Trojan woman)
  • Iphigenia : daughter of Agamemnon and Klytaimnestra, was sacrificed by her father to Artemis (Greek)
  • Kalchas : "the seer", runs over from the Trojans to the Greeks.
  • Kassandra : First-person narrator, daughter of Priam and Hecabe. She is a priestess in the temple of Apollon, outsider, seer and a booty of Agamemnon.
  • Killa: Achilles young slave
  • Klytaimnestra : wife of Agamemnon, kills Agamemnon and Kassandra as revenge for the sacrifice of Iphigenia (Greek)
  • Cybele : Mysterious goddess who is worshiped in the Ida Mountains
  • Lampos : Brought Panthoos to Troy on the first ship
  • Laocoon : Poseidon priest
  • Lykaon : son of Priam (Trojan)
  • Marpessa : Servant and slave, daughter of the Parthena, a good friend of Kassandra, she brings up Kassandra's twins. (Trojan)
  • Menelaus : husband of Helena, King of Sparta (Greek / Spartan)
  • Merops : interpreter of dreams at court
  • Myrine : Amazon, guards the gift of the Greeks (wooden horse) and is the first to be killed by the soldiers who come out
  • Odysseus : Greek hero
  • Oinone : Before Helena, the mistress of Paris, did a special herbal medicine
  • Panthoos : called 'Panthoos the Greek', highest Apollon priest
  • Paris : Cassandra's brother, should have been killed because there is a curse on him, grew up with shepherds, Helena is promised to him by Aphrodite, he kidnaps her. (Trojan)
  • Parthena : Cassandra's nurse, mother of Marpessa
  • Patroclus : cousin and lover of Achilles (Greek)
  • Penthesilea : leader of the Amazons
  • Polyxena : Sister Kassandra, lures Achilles into the temple where he is killed by Paris, sacrificed by Odysseus to Achilles (Trojan woman)
  • Priam : King of Troy, father of Cassandra
  • Pythia : goddess of fame and honor
  • Telamon : Spartan who kidnapped Hesione
  • Troilos : brother of Kassandra, is killed by Achilles on the first day of the war (Trojan)
  • Trojan Horse : The Greeks faked their departure but hid in the huge Trojan Horse. The Trojans took it into the city, thinking it was a gift from the Greeks to the gods, and so the Greeks were able to storm Troy.
  • Zeus : God, head of the gods

Edits

  • Christa Wolf reads Kassandra. DAV, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86231-207-8 (recorded author reading).
  • Corinna Harfouch reads “Kassandra” by Christa Wolf. Random House Audio Editions, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-89830-975-4 (audio book).
  • The Swiss composer Michael Jarrell chose the story as a template for his 1994 monodrama Cassandre.

output

  • Christa Wolf: Kassandra . Narrative. With a comment by Sonja Hilzinger. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-518-18921-4 .

reception

The novel is still present decades after it was published. Jens Bisky calls Kassandra “a seer who does not see a lot, who is too familiar with the familiar, the traditional too natural.” The outstanding characteristic of the figure is not higher knowledge, but one's own voice. "The impotence to change the course of events, which everyone could foresee, becomes a sting to recognize one's own role, to see through the game."

Kassandra also plays a role in the younger generation . In an interview, the poet Maren Kames (* 1983) described Christa Wolfs Kassandra as one of the two female characters in literature that she addressed, and the novel as a text that she “found important”. She reasoned: "Because Kassandra is characterized by her analytical skills and not by her relationship with a man."

In a contemporary diagnostic reading, for example in the encounter between law and literary studies, Christa Wolf's Kassandra project proves “to be the key to a differentiated understanding of the divided Germany in the final phase of the Cold War, the turning point of 1989 and the following political, social, legal and cultural transformations. Challenged and sensitized by the respective other discipline, moments of crisis take shape in view of myth and law, poetics and politics, the fractures and upheavals of which still shape our present. "

literature

  • Wolf Hellberg: Christa Wolf, Kassandra. Reading aid with detailed table of contents and interpretation. 2nd Edition. Klett, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-12-923043-5 (for the Central Abitur in North Rhine-Westphalia 2009 and 2010).
  • Bernd Matzkowski: Christa Wolf. Kassandra (= King's Explanations and Materials. Volume 372). 3. Edition. Bange, Hollfeld 2006, ISBN 3-8044-1766-3 .
  • Norbert Tholen: Christa Wolf, Kassandra. Analyzes, teaching model, materials and master copies. Krapp & Gutknecht, Rot an der Rot 2009, ISBN 978-3-932609-92-3 .

University publications

  • Alena Janke: Ancient myth and modern literature, on the problem of tradition and innovation in the work of Christa Wolf ("Kassandra" and " Medea: Voices ") , Hamburg 2010, DNB 1006374507 (online dissertation Universität Hamburg 2010, full text online PDF, free of charge , 218 pages, 820 kB).
  • Nikolaos-Ioannis Koskinas: "Foreign I have moved in, foreign I move out again", from Kassandra, via Medea , to Ariadne : Manifestations of the psyche in Christa Wolf's latest work (= Epistemata / Series Literary Studies , Volume 629), Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-8260-3756-6 (Dissertation HU Berlin 2008, 246 pages).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Jens Bisky: Kassandra and the lion of Mycenae. , in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , No. 301, December 31, 2015/1. January 2016, p. 14.
  2. ↑ a b Anna Fastabend in an interview with Alina Herbing, Juliana Kálnay, Maren Kames and Kathrin Bach: Reading and counting. Four young authors of contemporary German-language literature talk about their writing, life as writers and sexism in the literary world. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , No. 169, July 25, 2017, p. 9.
  3. ↑ Alexandra Kemmerer, Doren Wohlleben: In the Cold War of the Sexes. Myth and Law, Poetics and Politics in Christa Wolf's Kassandra Project (Cold War, Gendered: Myth and Law, Poetics and Politics in Christa Wolf's Kassandra Project) . ID 3478655. Social Science Research Network, Rochester, NY October 31, 2019 ( ssrn.com [accessed January 6, 2020]).