Maria NeCastro
Professor Bishop
Honors 318
Due: 27 March 2013
The Lives of Others Reaction
Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw wrote, “Those who cannot change
their minds cannot change anything.” In the 2006 film, The Lives of Others, we watch
as Stasi officer, HGW changes his mind on his role he plays in the Stasi organization.
This film, as the title conveys, is about the effects of examining and interfering in the
lives of others. As we have discussed in class, the self is largely a reflection of our
surroundings and our trust of others, and this story has a very unnerving
surrounding.
When it becomes HGW’s job to do surveillance on a “suspicious” writer,
Georg Dreyman, and consequently his actress girlfriend, Christa Sieland, the officer
begins to empathize with the “enemies of the state.” As we first encounter Dreyman
at the play he wrote, Facts of Love, Minister Hempf of the East German government,
tells Dreyman that unlike the characters in his plays, “People don’t change.”
Ironically HGW, who originally looked like the story’s antagonist, (spying on a man
who seems to be the story’s protagonist) ends up being the hero in a world in which
everyone that is not part of the state is treated as the “enemy.”
As the story progresses and HGW decides to cover for the criminal acts of
Dreyman and his cohorts. In this work, HGW illustrates how the self depends on
others to define itself. He begins to immerse himself in the lives of Dreyman and
Sieland, gaining pleasure from their innermost thoughts, actions, and
communications. His once hard heart softens as he disproves the belief that people
cannot change. In such a harsh environment, it becomes difficult not to become
swallowed by the negative culture that one is brought up in.
This film also elaborates on the theme of life and death. Dreyman and his
friends, classified as enemies of the state, expose the dark side of living in the dreary
world of 1984’s East Germany, as they write and publish an article about the
nation’s suicide rates. The suicides (including that of his friend, Jerska), were
described (rather frustratingly to Dreyman) as “self-murders.” This article prompts
the demotion of HGW, the betrayal by and death of Sieland, and the near
imprisonment of Dreyman. Each of these tragic events were brought about by the
horrific environment of the story, and thusly the reflections of said environment
with the selves of these characters.
One theme that is relevant in this work as well as our previously discussed
work, The Left Hand of Darkness, is that of truth and trust. As the story evolves and
the pivotal roles are assigned to Sieland and Estraven, (respectively), the question of
who and how much to trust comes to the forefront of the stories. Sieland, however,
proves that she is not worth trusting as she exposes the secrets of her boyfriend,
when she tells the Stasi the location of the typewriter on which wrote the
scandalous article regarding suicide rates in East Germany. She, much like Estraven
comes to a tragic end when she commits a self-murder by running into oncoming
traffic. Sieland illustrates the other prominent theme of the story, that people can
change, as she felt such immense guilt for the potential imprisonment of Dreyman.
This work was a fascinating and compelling chronicle of the lives of HGW and
Dreyman. Its story proves that people who have never met can change each other in
the most monumental ways, through truth, trust, and a bit of extraordinary thinking.