Pankraz, the Schmoller

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Pankraz, der Schmoller is the first story from the series of novels The People of Seldwyla by Gottfried Keller , which was published in Braunschweig in 1856.

The title hero works his way up from Seldwyler day thief in a foreign country as a legionnaire to colonel of the French and cannot find happiness in the process.

action

Johann Salomon Hegi (1873): The officer from Algiers comes home

Homecoming

The widow of a Seldwyler lives with her children Estherchen and Pankraz in poor circumstances - close to the city wall. While the hard-working daughter contributes to the survival of the small family, the son hangs around and acknowledges every day-to-day quarrels with persistent pouting. One day Pankraz does not come home and stays away for fifteen years. Estherchen remains unmarried with her mother. Pankraz finally returns home as a 30-year-old colonel. The mother and Estherchen marvel at a lion's skin . This souvenir was carried by a lion that drove the pout out of the newcomer during his lifetime. There is an end to starvation. Pankraz entertains the two women deliciously and tells the listener his "sad story".

First the colonel admits the reason for his secret departure. The constant sulking had been an expression of self-dissatisfaction. Because he didn't deserve his meal, he ran away. Logically, on the way from Switzerland to Hamburg, he had earned his living through physical labor. An English merchantman had him on the box Make taught. The associated smuggling trips to New York had come to an end when Pankraz had been enlisted as a soldier by the East Indian company . Promoted to NCO after completing his military training, he was promoted to the factotum of a regimental commander who was about 50 years old. His wife lived in Ireland and the only daughter Lydia commuted between the island and the East Indies , but mostly lived with her father. After the sergeant had served about five years, his commander rose to become governor in India. From then on, Pankraz worked for his master not only as a soldier, but also as an administrator, gardener, hunter, house friend and pastime.

Drowsy from the unusual good food and drink, the mother and Esther fall asleep while listening. So they don't even notice the following love story. So, as it were, Pankraz only tells the story for the reader.

Lydia

At the time when Pankraz meets the beautiful Lydia, he doesn't know anything about women. During the first year of this acquaintance, he thinks of her like a good friend or relative. Lydia approached Pankraz three times in less than an hour while he was doing gardening in the governor's Indian estate; each time under a different pretext. He has been in love with her since that hour. But his mind reports. What does Lydia want from a poor sergeant? Is she just “a frivolous and frivolous being”? So he gets out of her way. That does not help. He thinks of her all the time. Every now and then, encounters are inevitable. To make matters worse, Lydia begins to speak Pankraz to the mouth on such an occasion. The helpless non-commissioned officer, on the other hand, knows no other means than his proven pouting art. The governor taunts that Lydia is in love with Pankraz. The soldier wants to flee, but stays. His sparse dialogues with the "solid, beautifully built and straight-ahead women's vehicle" Lydia contain nothing but stupid stuff. Confused by being in love, Pankraz is “not needed for anything”. When an opportunity for an honorable retreat arises - Pankraz wants to take part in a campaign against rebellious Indians - the governor protests. He needs his chess partner. The quiet, noble Lydia then follows the sergeant through her father's garden. Pankraz thinks that if this woman loves him, then it should be and he would like to "serve her until death". The booby asks what she wants. When Lydia accuses him of cockiness and rudeness, she has achieved her goal. Pankraz falls at her feet. Lydia rejects the crying kneeling man. But the proud lady is finally surprised by the sergeant's reaction when he calls out: “O Miss! You're the biggest donkey I've ever seen! "

Pankraz blames himself for the rift. His "unfortunate pout" stood in the way of timely, clarifying discussions with Lydia. A more talkative lover would have been more likely to have recognized the poor character of the beloved woman. In any case, it is easy for Pankraz to retreat to the Indian mountains. Decimated in the grueling battle against the rebellious Indians, the English make the sergeant a lieutenant and then a captain .

Only among Indians does Pankraz long for Lydia; he would like to marry her. When he returns from the mountainous wilderness to the more civilized realms of the governor and approaches the beautiful, he rebounds. Lydia is flattered by a crowd of "straw heads" and "monkey tails". Pankraz says goodbye to the English army and goes to Paris. In the area around Algiers he soon struggled with the Kabyle in the service of the French and was promoted to colonel.

Estherchen and the mother wake up and want to hear the love story again. Pankraz refuses and sends his two ladies to bed. When they both repeat their wish the next morning, the colonel stands firm and tells how he got the lion's skin.

Lion hunt

His pouting in India prevented closer acquaintance with the beautiful English woman, but this Algerian lion turned the "Murrkopf" Pankraz into an "unfriendly person" during his lifetime. Killing the animal had been anything but easy. Before Pankraz could place the two shots from the musket in the lion's ear, the hunter and the hunted had pouted for hours. A patrol, consisting of two subordinate French soldiers, sent after their "evil colonel", had put an end to the stalemate. The tough, wild lion had survived the shots and had to be beaten to death by the three men with the butts. After that, the two funny French were very impressed by their suddenly friendly and talkative superior. Pankraz then quit his service with the French in order to return to Switzerland forever.

The colonel moves with Estherchen and Seldwyla's mother to the canton capital, stays there and makes himself useful. A relapse into his former nature - so the narrator - was not observed with Pankraz.

shape

Although the narrator always allows his protagonist Pankraz to speak, the resulting model of the two narrators does not adequately describe the structure. Selbmann's approach, according to which we are dealing with three stories, seems more suitable. In the second story - titled "Lydia" above - Pankraz confesses to the reader his unhappy love for this beautiful English woman. In the first story - titled "Homecoming" above - some things come up that happened to the hero before the encounter with this woman. In the third story - titled "Lion Hunt" above - Pankraz explains how he overcame his pout and what made him return.

reception

Statements from the 19th century

  • In a review from April 17, 1856, Berthold Auerbach appears to have drawn many motifs by the hair. In addition, the reviewer finds the subjectivity of this little autobiographical novel more than questionable.
  • In a meeting on August 14, 1856, Robert Prutz was repelled "by all kinds of romantic whims and naughtiness".
  • Heinrich von Treitschke can neither attest a clear lecture in 1860 nor discover any punch line.
  • In 1874, Friedrich Theodor Vischer criticized the inadequate correlation between the different parts of the text.
  • In 1874, Fontane classifies the novella as “quite weak” despite the promising start.

Recent comments

  • Literary studies disagree on categorization. Usually one speaks of a novella. In line with this, Böning argues that the Goethean novella dictum of the unheard-of incident is perfectly legible. A cross-dangerous predator does the educational work at Pankraz that normally falls to the people involved. Breitenbruch, however, speaks of a little novel, because Gottfried Keller declared the text in a letter to Vieweg in association with " Frau Regel Amrain and her youngest " as "stories or life pictures" and did not emphasize the novelistic in it. However, the narrative speed in the two small works for a novel is quite fast.
  • Neumann analyzes the title, based on the word meanings Pankrazius - the "ruler of everything" and the pout that originally stood for "unwillingly silent" and "smile". Neumann also invokes - freely after Kaiser - the eponymous ice saint and calls Pankraz a “frozen Christian”. In search of the deeper meaning of the text, Neumann finds a materialistic interpretation: Work makes people human. By accepting any physical work on the way to India without complaint, Pankraz was realizing a life plan for the human species. The very successful mercenary Pankraz represents - historically speaking - one of the roots of the Swiss wealth. Neumann illuminates the hero's instinctual fate psychoanalytically . By putting an end to the lion, Pankraz overcomes his one-sided love for Lydia on the way to becoming a sober citizen. As a well-behaved citizen, Pankraz tells about this passion without a listener. Gottfried Keller lets the listening Estherchen and the listening mother nod off beforehand. Everything that is not rational is "shot, beaten to death and ... hushed up". There was no place for poetry in prose in the mid-19th century. In this context, it is symptomatic that when Pankraz returns home, laughter has left the “furrowed soldier face”. The prodigal son confronts the trembling mother "with the thin and tough seriousness of a strange warrior".
  • Schilling takes Seldwyla as a synonym for impossible personal development. Pankraz can only make a career abroad and remains homeless after his return home.
  • Based on the title-giving pout, Selbmann highlights one of the hero's unmistakable character weaknesses - his dealings with women.
  • The man as a victim: According to Hannelore Schlaffer, Keller points out the possible harmful consequences of physical love for the man.
  • Breitenbruch, Neumann and Selbmann refer to further points:

literature

First edition

  • Pankraz, the Schmoller in: The people of Seldwyla. Stories by Gottfried Keller. Friedrich Vieweg , Braunschweig 1856. 523 pages

Used edition

  • Pankraz, the Schmoller. P. 15–68 in: Thomas Böning (Ed.): Gottfried Keller. The people of Seldwyla. German classic publisher in paperback. Volume 10, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-618-68010-4 (corresponds to "Gottfried Keller, all works in seven volumes" (at the same place of publication by the same editor))

Secondary literature

Web links

annotation

  1. ↑ For Selbmann (Selbmann, p. 57, 11. Zvo), however, the pouting lion for hours is Pankraz's mirror figure, who, as the last deed of his terrible predatory life, exorcizes the colonel from pouting. At the end of his review, Selbmann (Selbmann, p. 59, 5. Zvo) quotes passages in the text which prove that the bachelor Pankraz still loves Lydia.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edition used, textual delivery, p. 665 below, Sigel A
  2. ↑ Edition used, p. 57, 4. Zvo
  3. ↑ Selbmann, p. 58
  4. ↑ From the " Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung" quoted in the edition used, p. 638, 5th Zvu, by the publisher Böning
  5. ↑ Quoted from the " Deutsches Museum " in the edition used, p. 637 middle, by the publisher Böning
  6. ↑ From the “ Prussian Year Books ”, Vol. 5, pp. 70-87, quoted in the edition used, pp. 639, 12. Zvo, by the editor Böning
  7. ^ "Augsburger Allgemeine", quoted in the edition used, p. 640, 6th Zvu, by the editor Böning
  8. ↑ from Kurt Schreinert (ed.): Theodor Fontane. Literary essays and studies, part 1 (all works, vol. 21/1) , p. 258, Munich 1963, cited in the edition used, p. 644, 19. Zvo, by the editor Böning
  9. ↑ see for example Neumann, p. 121, 8th Zvu
  10. ^ Böning in the edition used, p. 645, 7. Zvo
  11. ↑ Breitenbruch, p. 84, 8. Zvo
  12. ^ Neumann, p. 123 middle
  13. ↑ Neumann, p. 123, 18. Zvu
  14. ^ Neumann, p. 123, 6th Zvu
  15. ^ Neumann, p. 124, 12. Zvu
  16. ^ Neumann, pp. 127–129
  17. ↑ Edition used, pp. 23, 32. Zvo
  18. ↑ Schilling, p. 117
  19. ↑ Hannelore Schlaffer, p. 101
  20. ↑ Breitenbruch, p. 183
  21. ↑ engl. Modern Language Review
  22. ^ Neumann, p. 353
  23. ↑ Selbmann, pp. 187–188 and 190