Dream novel
The "dream novel " is a novel by Arthur Schnitzler . It appeared in 1925 chapter by chapter in the Berlin fashion magazine Die Dame . The first book edition was published in 1926 by S. Fischer Verlag .
content
In this novella Schnitzler describes the apparently harmonious marriage of the doctor Fridolin and his wife Albertine. Under the surface, both are haunted by unsatisfied erotic desires and dreams , which through mutual alienation grow into a marital crisis.
The mystery of this novel comes from the journey of discovery into the self that Fridolin undertakes, a descent into the depths of his own psyche , and the changes in relationships between people. It embodies an abundance of psychological imagery and symbolism - but in the final discussion it conveys to the protagonists the knowledge of the threat to their relationship through the unconscious and how to cope with it.
Action overview
It tells the strange events of one night and the following day that happened to the doctor Fridolin and his wife Albertine. The very erotically charged experiences of that night threaten to destroy the marriage of the two.
First chapter
Fridolin, in their mid-30s, and Albertine, in their mid-20s, seem to lead a harmonious married life: They have a six-year-old daughter, Fridolin is a doctor at the Vienna General Hospital , and Albertine takes loving care of the child and husband.
On the day after a masked ball at Carnival, where they flirted with others and then spent a night of love together, secret wishes suddenly come to light. Albertine tells of a man who was very attracted to her while on summer vacation in Denmark. Fridolin then said that on the same vacation he had seen a very young, bared girl, whose manner he was fascinated by. None of the spouses has been unfaithful.
Nevertheless, Fridolin found out on this occasion that Albertine was unhappy with her situation: she too would have liked to have had love experiences before marriage, as her husband was allowed to do.
second chapter
In the evening, Fridolin is called late to visit the sick: the councilor had a heart attack . When Fridolin arrives, the councilor is already dead. His daughter Marianne, who has been taken by the events, is sitting by his bed and declares that she is now planning to meet her fiancé Dr. Roediger to move to Göttingen because he was called to the university there. Fridolin suddenly feels small compared to the successful Roediger. Marianne suddenly bursts into tears and confesses her love to Fridolin, who is not very surprised. He pulls her close and kisses her on the forehead, but feels nothing. The arrival of Dr. Roedigers interrupts the embarrassing situation, Fridolin fills out the death certificate , gives condolences and leaves the house.
third chapter
Fridolin wanders confusedly through Vienna at night, unable to make up his mind to simply go back home. He is jostled and laughed at by a student and member of the “blue Alemannia” . He wonders whether to challenge him to a duel and vacillates between total rejection and the question of whether it would be cowardly if he didn't. His aimless wandering leads him to an alley where prostitutes offer their services, and he is persuaded by a girl named Mizzi to follow her to the room. She undresses, wants to kiss him, but he refuses. He says he just wants to talk to her. She regrets that he is visibly afraid, whereupon he wants to get involved with her, which she refuses. Before he leaves, he offers her money, which she refuses. In parting he kisses her hand, which she moves, because this is otherwise only common with women. He decides to send her wine and sweets the next day.
Chapter Four
Fridolin wanders aimlessly through the alleys again and ends up in a coffee house. In the evening paper he reads about a young girl who has poisoned herself. At the next table he discovers his college friend Nachtigall, who meanwhile earns his living playing the piano in coffeehouses and at secret events, at balls at which he is blindfolded. Fridolin insists that Nightingale take him to the ball that will take place that night. Nightingale thinks this is too dangerous, but then lets himself be persuaded.
Fridolin goes to the house of the costume lender Gibiser, who despite the late hour is still ready to lend Fridolin a monk costume. In the camp, the two Gibiser's daughter in Pierrette costume meet with two men in tele-judge costume . Gibiser scolds his daughter, calls her a depraved, insane creature and threatens the men with the police.
As agreed, Fridolin meets Nachtigall in front of the costume rental shop, who tells him the slogan of the evening that is supposed to give him access to the secret orgy . It happens to be "Denmark". Fridolin gets into a carriage and lets this nightingale's carriage follow. The carriages stop in front of a villa, Fridolin is let into a darkened room in which a group of monks and nuns are already staying. Despite the disguise, Fridolin stands out as a stranger, and a woman whispers to him that he should leave immediately. Fridolin stays.
The doors around the hall open and women enter, completely naked except for a veil around their heads. A crackling erotic atmosphere spreads in the hall. The men rush towards the women and begin to dance with them. Fridolin is also asked by a naked woman, but his warner reappears and urges him to flee immediately. Fridolin refuses and claims that the whole secret society is a farce and that they are playing a particularly crazy game with him. Without her he will not go. When Fridolin tries to remove her veil, she backs away and explains what happens to those who are recognized under her mask: Just recently a man had torn the veil off a girl while dancing. He was exposed and flogged. The girl poisoned herself before her wedding day. A man asks Fridolin for the slogan of the inner house, which Fridolin does not know because it is different from the entrance slogan. Fridolin is recognized as an intruder, and the men tell him to take off his mask. Fridolin's Warnerin steps forward and declares to sacrifice herself for him. Fridolin is urged not to investigate and chased out of the house. He can still see the long, dark hair of his rescuer, but does not learn what is happening to her.
In front of the house he is directed to a carriage with darkened windows, which drops him in a field. He goes towards town, takes a carriage there and drives home.
Fifth chapter
At four in the morning Fridolin comes home, hides the costume in the closet and goes into the bedroom. There he finds Albertine, squirming in her sleep and suddenly laughing shrilly. He wakes her up and asks her about her dream. She says: She was with him at the Wörthersee; both dressed like prince and princess, they flew over the landscape. That was their honeymoon. They landed in a meadow and made love there. When we woke up the next morning, the clothes were gone, and Fridolin was horrified and rushed into the valley to get clothes. During his absence, the Dane came and seduced her on the meadow, while there were many other couples around her. Meanwhile, Fridolin was arrested and chained naked in a castle courtyard. The princess wanted to pardon him if he was her lover, but he remained loyal to Albertine. As a result, Fridolin ended up in a torture cellar, the princess stepped up to watch the atrocities and she looked like the girl on the beach in Denmark. After the second request to comply with her wishes, which Fridolin rejects out of bourgeois morality and love for Albertine, he is further tortured. Finally, a cross for Fridolin was erected on the flower meadow, where he was posted in front of Albertine's eyes. Albertine felt no sympathy, but even wanted to mock him for his loyalty to her. Nevertheless she ran towards him, but they had missed each other and she laughed very loudly to at least let him hear her voice.
Fridolin is horrified after this story and can no longer imagine a normal married life with Albertine. In his eyes she really cheated on him and had him crucified. Yet he cannot hate his wife.
Sixth chapter
The next morning Fridolin leaves the house with the costume and, after visiting the sick, goes to the coffee house, where he met Nightingale the evening before. The cashier tells him Nachtigall's pension, and Fridolin goes there. The porter reports that the nightingale was picked up early in the morning by two masked gentlemen.
Next, Fridolin goes to Gibiser's costume distributor and brings the monk's habit back. He wants to talk to Gibiser about his daughter, but Fridolin refuses to interfere. Suddenly one of the judges steps out of Gibiser's daughter's door. Fridolin gives up and drives to the hospital while on duty. Some personnel matters are discussed there, and Fridolin is considering resuming his interrupted research career.
At noon, Fridolin feels the need to look for the villa from the previous night. On the way he wonders what may have become of his savior. In fact, he finds the house, but it seems uninhabited. A servant steps out and hands him a letter addressed to him in which Fridolin receives the second (so the wording, not the last) warning with the request not to investigate. Intimidated, he drives home to eat and wonders why he has no hatred for his wife. He resolves to seize the missed opportunities last night and get revenge on Albertine.
First he goes to Marianne, whom he doesn't seduce. He wishes her all the best for her future, after which she bursts into tears. He feels no compassion, just impatience, and leaves the house. In a brief moment of repentance, he plays with the idea of repenting, but fails to do so. Then he goes to Mizzi's apartment, but he only comes across one of her colleagues who tells him that Mizzi has been taken to the hospital. Fridolin sinks into self-pity and fails to go home. Instead, he reads the newspaper again in a coffee house: A Baroness D. had poisoned herself in a posh hotel. Fridolin feared that it could very well be his savior. He drives to the hospital and learns there that the woman died that afternoon. Fridolin goes to the pathological institute to look for her corpse. He cannot unequivocally identify the dead person shown to him there. He touches her, takes her hand in his and bends down to her. When the pathologist present wonders about it, Fridolin stops immediately.
Seventh chapter
Again in the middle of the night Fridolin comes home and enters the bedroom while Albertine sleeps soundly. He resolves to confess the experience to her as if it had been a dream. Then he saw the mask of his monk's costume lying on his pillow, which he had apparently forgotten to give back. Albertine had found it and put it there. Fridolin interprets this as a mild warning and readiness to forgive him. He cries so that Albertine wakes up and pats him. Fridolin begins his confession, which Albertine does not interrupt once. Both are grateful that they got away safely from the real and the dreamed adventures. - “Now we have woken up,” says Albertine, “for a long time”. The novella ends with the “bright children's laughter” of their daughter the next morning.
Personality characteristics
The two central characters in this novella are Fridolin and Albertine. They are married and it appears they have had an intact relationship so far. However, in the novella it becomes clear that their relationship is in danger of failing as they both succumb to the erotic temptations of others in their minds.
Albertine represents the "typical" woman at the turn of the century. She got married early and had to suppress her instincts in order to enter the marriage as a virgin. Now that she has gotten older, she perceives early marriage and sexual repression as the loss of a savored life for a young woman. She tries to compensate for the renunciation she has experienced with her dream of a love adventure with a strange man. She repeatedly hints at reproaches against her husband, who did not need to suppress his sexuality in his youth . Her dream, in which she lets her - quite beloved - husband torture and even sneers at his crucifixion, can be seen as a kind of unconscious revenge for the forced renunciation of instincts for which she blames her husband.
Fridolin, caught up in patriarchal thinking, cares for his wife according to the typical distribution of roles and does not notice that he thereby incapacitates her. He erroneously thinks that his social care can compensate for his wife's renunciation of instincts. During the two nights Fridolin met many people. But there is no end to any encounter, questions always remain unanswered, for example about the whereabouts of Nightingale, the course of Mizzi's illness or the further life story of the costume distributor's daughter.
Bibliographical
Which was first published in Dream Story in the magazine The Lady , Berlin, Volume 53, Issue 6 (December 1925) to No. 12 (March 1926). The first book edition was published by S. Fischer Verlag in 1926 . The publisher Samuel Fischer had initially suggested to Arthur Schnitzler that the novella No dream is completely a dream . However, the author refused. Schnitzler himself had considered calling his work a double novella (probably because of the two parallel dreams of Albertine and Fridolin or the two levels of unconsciousness and consciousness), but ultimately rejected this suggestion.
Reception history and film adaptations
Despite good reviews, Schnitzler was unable to build on his last great success, the story Fräulein Else from 1924, with his dream novel . As early as the 1920s he was considered a "poet of a sunken world". During the time of National Socialism, Schnitzler's works were banned. It was not until the 1960s that scientific reception began again. The main focus was initially on the artistic form and the historical classification of the work, later individual motifs and aspects were focused and Schnitzler's independent, modern conception of reality was examined more closely.
- In 1969 the dream novel by Wolfgang Glück was filmed with Karlheinz Böhm in the leading role.
- In 1999 Stanley Kubrick processed the material in the film Eyes Wide Shut . The location of the action has been moved to New York and the time of the action has been moved to the present. The main roles were played by Tom Cruise and his then-wife, Nicole Kidman . Eyes Wide Shut was Stanley Kubrick's last completed film.
- In 2007, the film and theater director Ludwig Wüst produced his own adaptation of the dream novel as a revealing chamber play in the Kaiser Suite of the Vienna hour hotel Hotel Orient .
- In 2011 the stage version of Igor Bauersima's dream novella was premiered in the Theater in der Josefstadt .
- In 2012 the Berlin illustrator Jakob Hinrichs published a graphic novel adaptation of the dream novel in the style of the screen prints and woodblock prints of the 1960s, in which he also sets his own interpretive accents.
Radio play editing
- In 2018 Katja Langenbach edited and staged the dream novel as a radio play for Bayerischer Rundfunk , with Katja Bürkle , Shenja Lacher , Steven Scharf , Anna Drexler , Kathrin von Steinburg , Aurel Manthei , René Dumont , Stefan Wilkening and others. a.
literature
- Grobe, Horst: Arthur Schnitzler: Dream novel. King's Explanations and Materials (Vol. 481). Bange Verlag: Hollfeld, 2011. ISBN 978-3-8044-1915-5
- Schwahl, Markus: Arthur Schnitzler, Lieutenant Gustl / Dream Novel. Oldenbourg text navigator for students - table of contents, analysis of the text and preparation for high school graduation. Munich 2011. ISBN 978-3-637-01300-1
- Sebald, WG : The horror of love - To Schnitzler's dream novel ; in: The description of the misfortune , Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1994. ISBN 3-596-12151-5 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Grobe: Dream novel. König's Explanations, Vol. 481, p. 110 f.
- ↑ Christina Böck: The "dream novel" in the Orient: A wet dream ( memento from November 24, 2018 in the Internet Archive ). The press , November 8, 2007.
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from January 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Elise Landschek: Art goes comic: Graphic novel "Traumnovelle" - website of the NDR. ( Memento of February 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Retrieved September 10, 2013.
- ↑ Stefan Fischer: Fin de Siècle radio plays - hearts of darkness . Süddeutsche Zeitung , August 8, 2018. As a podcast / download in the BR radio play pool: Schnitzler, dream novel
