How Jappe and Do Escobar fought

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How Jappe and Do Escobar fought is a story by Thomas Mann .

It appeared for the first time in the Süddeutsche Monatshefte , Munich , vol. 8, issue 2, February 1911 . The first book publication followed in 1914 in Das Wunderkind. Novellas published by S. Fischer Verlag . In 1922 the narrative was made into novellas. Vol. I (= Collected Works in Individual Editions) and in 1958 included in the Stockholm Complete Edition of Thomas Mann's Works.

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The little incident is portrayed as a long-ago holiday experience of the first-person narrator: At some point during the summer holidays in Travemünde , this narrator learns from his friend Johnny Bishop that the two city-famous youngsters Jappe and Do Escobar want to meet on the Leuchtenfeld for a kind of duel . While Johnny, a slender half-Englishman who is a little younger than the narrator, is looking forward to this exciting spectacle without reservation, and Jürgen Brattström, the third member of the group, does not seem to be worried, the thirteen-year-old experiences a rollercoaster of emotions. On the one hand, he is also strongly drawn to what is to come, on the other hand he shies away from the “tremors that the sight of a bitter struggle, seriously and, so to speak, to life and death” will cause in him, and finally and finally he is afraid that he perhaps himself, although actually only an uninvolved spectator, could be compelled to prove his courage and his strength - a proof that he detests like nothing else. In addition, according to Johnny Bishop's communication, he immerses himself in the emotional life of the two duelists and imagines the apparently preceding insult, the suppressed urge to strike immediately, and the smoldering vengeance. In short, by the time he finally arrives at the battlefield, he's already half exhausted with excitement.

Jappe, a middle-class boy from the city, and Do Escobar, an exotic stranger, a Spaniard who leads a rather unsupervised life, are supposed to fight under the supervision of the ballet master Knaak, who works in the Kurhaus in summer, but outside the bathing season the city gave dance and decency lessons.

According to the narrator, Knaak, who is viewed with suspicion by the male youth in this role, may not have been reluctant to take this opportunity to prove himself to be the “real guy”, although he should actually prevent the fight due to his official position . In addition, he (like the narrator himself) may be worried about having to intervene himself.

The fight does not get off to a quick start: Jappe and Do Escobar, who the day before were still full of blind fury, cannot immediately decide to strike hard. But finally a “short, blind, frenzied scuffle” and Johnny, who expertly observes the brawl, comments: “Now they are in the mood [...] I bet you that Jappe can get him. Do Escobar is too doable. ”In fact, the Spaniard is on the one hand constantly focused on the effect on the audience, on the other hand he is struggling with a handicap that he has acquired for himself: he threatens to lose his pants because he is vanity before the fight has taken off his suspenders. And so Jappe finally manages to hit him on the nose, which immediately begins to bleed heavily, whereupon Mr. Knaak declares the fight over.

Johnny, who apparently expected more dramatic results, is disappointed. The rest of the audience does not dissipate either, and the moment feared by the narrator seems to have come: Without wanting to, he feels called to join the fight and, against all his feelings and fears , step into the arena . Fortunately, however, it does not come to that, because at this moment someone demands that Mr. Knaak himself take part in the fight. This refuses briefly and elegantly, and the young people begin to entertain themselves with all kinds of acrobatic exercises. But this is not what brought Johnny Bishop to the Leuchtenfeld: "Come on, now let's go," said Johnny [...] That was all Johnny Bishop. He had come here to be offered something real with a bloody outcome. Since the matter was a gimmick, he left.

"He gave me the first impressions of the peculiar superiority of the English national character, whom I later learned to admire so much." So the narrator closes the account of the incident.

Remarks

The story is most likely based on the author's childhood experiences - reminiscences of the vacation in Travemünde are incorporated in more detail in Buddenbrooks .

In the story, the physical quarrel of the title heroes is contrasted antithetically with the quarrel of words, in which the dance teacher Knaak wins through quick-witted answers. With this, Thomas Mann also deeply addresses the confrontation of the artist's sphere with life, which his other works take up again and again.

Johnny Bishop, who is not only portrayed as girlishly pretty and attractive, but also as particularly elegant and "almost stately", is apparently the cause of the narrator's unrest: To this little, delicate in a sailor suit , this skinny " Cupid ", but who can also sing rather slippery verses, to impress, he would eventually even go to the battlefield against his better judgment. The dance teacher Knaak is an old friend: He appears under the same name in Tonio Kröger . In general, the story reads like a review of Tonio Kröger .

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