DAUGAVPILS UNIVERSITĀTE
KARĪNE LAGANOVSKA
VOLFGANGA BORHERTA DAIĻRADES
MĀKSLINIECISKĀ PASAULE
KÜNSTLERISCHE WELT
IM SCHAFFEN VON WOLFGANG BORCHERT
WOLFGANG BORCHERT'S ARTISTIC WORLD OF
PROSE
PROMOCIJAS DARBA KOPSAVILKUMS
FILOLOĢIJAS DOKTORA GRĀDA IEGŪŠANAI
LITERATŪRZINĀTNES NOZARĒ
CITTAUTU LITERATŪRAS VĒSTURES APAKŠNOZARĒ
Daugavpils
2004
WOLFGANG BORCHERT'S ARTISTIC WORLD
OF PROSE
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DOCTORAL THESIS
Research topicality. The Second World War that was unleashed by Nazi
Germany developed not only into a tragic world catastrophe, but it also
caused a catastrophe that deeply touched upon the German nation. The
shock caused by the war rent human consciousness and led to annihilation of
the national socialist system and ideology. The shock developed into the
process of public fault admission.
The writers who stayed in the motherland (internal immigrants), exile
writers sought for their own niche in literature, as well as a new generation
of writers (junge Generation), who protested against nonpolitical spirituality
and inclined to authentic reflection of reality. However, initially there was a
thematic split between these three groups of writers, each tendency had
specific issues.
Special literary contribution was made by the new generation of writers,
who perceived the situation after 1945 as the time when their unrealized
dreams and talents should come true. The readers paid attention to the works
of W.Borchert, H.E.Nosak, VShnure, H.Bell, V.Kepen. V.Kolbenhof,
A.Andersh, H.V.Rihter felt relevant to this writers' generation. Many
representatives of the new generation of writers were involved in the war as
Nazi army soldiers. Therefore, having returned to their motherland, they
openly wanted to speak about their emotional experience caused by war,
reposing on hatred, being collected in their consciousness for years.
The representatives of new radical literature completely denied the former
language use. They stated the former its application inadmissible.
The correct forms of the German language seemed suspicious and insecure to
many writers, as these forms had been used in the Nazi propaganda.
The second trend in literature preserved traditional literary features that
had already been determined before the Nazi regime in Germany. These
were mainly expressionism elements used by inner emigration writers as
well as exile writers who returned from abroad and hoped to take up their
literary activities. Some new generation writers also used them.
The theme of a soldier returning home gained topicality and W.Borchert
(1921 -1947) wasn't the only writer who wrote about it at that time. In prose
as well as in poetry a prospective writer voiced a protest against national
socialism, but his main merit was that historical issues of universal values
were raised from everyday point of view to a political aspect. Popularity of
radio staging and drama was determined by the revelation of post-war
Germany. There was reflected W.Borchert's personal life experience: war,
persecution, reiterated arrests, imprisonment and serious illness. Just the
illness facilitated his professional growth in literature, as he as well as many
other young writers-soldiers didn't have the other way of self-expression. At
the end of 1930s and at the beginning of 1940s W.Borchert was influenced
by F.Helderlin, KM.Rilke, he got acquainted with banned lyric poetsexpressionists G.Trakl, G.Benn. W.Borchert became well known among the
wide circles of readers in January 1946 by his story "Hundeblume".
In April 1946 doctors informed the young writer that only a year was left
to live. His further lifetime resembled a competition with the approaching
death. He had written 24 stories till the end of the year. The collected stories
"Hundeblume" were published in April 1947. In January 1947 the most
popular drama "Draußen vor der Tür"in post war literature was written (in 8
days period). Afterwards he wrote 22 more stories. In November 1947 he
died (at the age of 26). The next selection of stories" An diesem Dienstag"
was published already after the writer's death. The stories drew attention of
the post-war society, but the drama's issues shocked. In February 1947 the
drama was broadcast as a radio staging. The resonance was tremendous as
the drama's main image revealed the fate of the German youth. W.Borchert
received letters of thanks as well as criticism. On November 21, 1947 in
Hamburg's Theatre took place the drama's first-night. Unfortunately, the
author didn't see it.
Today W.Borchert's contribution into literature has a little more than halfa-century old history. Time and distance attach additional significance to his
prose heritage. Attitudes towards his creative personality have been
different. Evaluating Borhert's prose we could call the short period of his
literary work as a time of self-consciousness, because after the war writers
were looking for possibilities of their identity growth.
W.Borchert is considered to be a post-war writer, who was engaged in a
political struggle. He was the first who gave the new generation of German
writers a literary trend. W.Borchert was the first writer who tried to untie a
knot of Nazi ideology, human fate and a real situation in the wartime and
post-war state.
Although W.Borchert's prose
is sometimes characterized as too
sentimental, emotional, even tearful, and thus not corresponding to the
literature demands of that period, it's worth emphasizing that the thematic
codes he used in his literary works, can be found not only in the post-war
literary works of other German writers but also in the literature of the 1960s
and 1970s. Looking for the truth and justice W.Borchert voiced a protest
against the war, opposed the existing order in the state. With his works
V.Borhert evoked great resonance as the theme of his prose shocked the
readers of that time. The theme of W.Borchert's prose is a key to the all
West German post-war literature.
Some time later nobody wrote on the theme. W.Borchert's prose has become
the evidence of the contemporary historical time and the author was
considered a brilliant representative of the post-war literature, who became a
symbol of his generation. There have been absolutely contrary opinions on
W.Borchert's creative work that proves the topicality of the theme and interest
about his works.
Though there is an opinion that there are more literary investigations of
W.Borchert's prose than the works, the proposed research material is an
attempt to supplement the available research focusing on a new aspect of
contextual analysis.
The theme of the doctoral dissertation is W.Borchert's artistic world of
prose.
The object of the doctoral dissertation is literary structure and semantics of
W.Borchert's artistic world.
The objective of the doctoral dissertation: The goal of the dissertation is to
obtain the description of W.Borchert's prose structure and semantics in order
to review it in the context of historical literary development.
The task of the doctoral dissertation is to analyze literary paradigms of
W.Borchert's artistic world of prose - space, time, man, emphasizing the
writer's significance in the West European historical literary development.
Methodological basis of the doctoral dissertation is a synthesis of historical
and structural approaches provided for the analysis of W.Borchert's prose
significance and value (artistic and aesthetic conceptions, language and style).
CONTENT OF THE DISSERTATION
Chapter 1."Space and time in W.Borchert's prose".
1.1. Returning home. Space is three-dimensional in W.Borchert's artistic
world. One of these three component parts is a man's space that is given
more specifically.
Home as well as city is a protagonist's existential center, because the
reflection of this micro space relates to a complicated transformation of war
events. W.Borchert does not give a detailed home description, but it can be
reconstructed using the stories where the writer mentions some home
dimension.
The protagonist's way as space is reflected linearly. It is an uninterrupted
flux of events. The opposition of external and inner space finds expression
in a mythic and real space transformation. W.Borchert's protagonist
imagined that his parents' house was a separated and confined place that had
saved the past years and had not changed at all. He hoped that everything
that had happened in this space was everlasting. He hoped that his life could
continue from the moment he had left the home. Returning to the sacred
parents' home symbolizes the returning to the pre-war life. At first the
protagonist does not realize that his home is not his home any more. He can't
accept that strange people live there. Thus, he cannot return home, as it does
not exist any more.
Returning from war, the protagonist doesn't stay at home, he lives outside
home - in the street. Almost every story contains a city theme. Thus,
returning home means returning to the native city. Some stories are devoted
to Hamburg. The description of the city suburbs attaches peculiar coloring to
his prose.
Space in W.Borchert's artistic world is formed as a city space, where the
main structural unit is home. W.Borchert's city is presented as a macro world,
but home - as a micro world. The city street resembles a way that leads the
protagonist through the city to nowhere. The direction of the protagonist's
wanderings is not circular. It is linear. It is impossible to return to the start
point, as this point does not exist any more. The protagonist moves away from
the city and home. Nostalgia is identical to the wish to return to the past.
1.2. The river Elba. In W.Borchert's fiction space the river is an integral part
of city. The Elba is a second most significant element of space structure. This
literary image comprises some character features of W.Borchert's mother,
however, the writer avoids the personification. Thus, the image's appearance
is not specified, as inner essence is more important. The mother personifies
human birth, the beginning of life, and the Elba personifies death. Therefore.
the protagonist decides to die in order to return to original point. His attempt
of suicide is an attempt to find out the way out of the situation. River warns
him that his hopes to return to paradise are delusive. The Elba fulfills a
mythic resuscitation function. River was passive until the moment when it
throws out the protagonist to the bank. Therefore, River loses a passive role of
observer. River's activity also changes the drama's plot, as death is an
unconvertible process in real life. The way to the Elba is always full of lights,
contrary to the dark city streets. The way to the river symbolizes the way of
light that gives a chance to leave the dark city. The river is never static. The
Elba symbolizes life and constant development. Water according to
W.Borchert's philosophical views symbolizes a free being in time and space,
as the river flow denotes the cyclic and irretrievable movement of time. There
is a mythic time space that exist parallel real world.
The Elba is considered to be a link between real and unreal time space in
W.Borchert's artistic world of prose.
1.3. God and Death. God and Death images create mythic atmosphere in
W.Borchert's drama. He uses these images in untraditional literary way - he
personifies abstract images. The images resemble human beings by
appearance. Death and God meet in the drama's introduction. Contrary to
traditional image of Death, it has become husky and cheerful and it is
always in good mood. The image of God is an exact opposite to the
common one. Here could be mentioned the following stories: "An diesem
Dienstag", "Gespräch iiber den Dächern", "Generation ohne Abschied",
"Gottes Auge", "Jesus macht nicht mehr mit".
The appearance of both counter-forces is not a mutual fight for the
spheres of influence in this temporary world. The God came to the earth in
order to mourn helplessly over his being's grave. W.Borchert tries to
understand why the post-war society turned away from Christian God and
at the same time denied human values. In the post-war literature the man's
death is accepted as a norm, because the wars have weakened the God's
power. The Death has become so powerful and strong that not only man but
also God himself is unable to change the world.
1.4. Time. During the first post-war years writers avoided to write about
future. They suffered the past. The prevailing time category in W.Borchert's
prose in accordance with the protagonist's negative perception of the world
is night or evening. Darkness symbolizes the initial chaos, war, and death.
The light symbolizes order, peace and life. Night unites the homeless. At
night they hear the voices of the dead so they cannot sleep. They are
frightened. The shadows of the dead are a part of the past. The alive are
realities of the present. The fear limits the protagonist and makes him not
free. The night does not allow the man to move freely in space. The
protagonist does not perceive himself as a human being, he feels as a ghost.
The man-ghost is a part of darkness. He belongs to night. In the darkness and
night the protagonist looks for the light coordinates in order to overcome the
fear. Light-emitting bodies - the stars, the moon - as well as lantern, window
give the man a feeling of safety. The sun is the most significant and powerful
source of light. The rear use of the sun's image indicates that the protagonist
has lost the belief in light. The sun symbolizes the end of night and the
beginning of day. Not only the sun, morning, lantern and love emit the light,
but also snow does it. This time space is real and unreal simultaneously,
because in the next moment it can disappear. Though the image of snow is
used as an opposition to the darkness, it is not solely white and light. The
darkness and snow have also a common feature-inconstancy.
The acoustic elements being used in the stories emphasize the awful night
silence and the day full of life and excitement. Wind lamentation, noise of
waves, rushing along the streets, screaming, women's laughing, music,
crunching of burning house interrupt a monotonous course of time.
W.Borchert mainly abstracts the course of time. The rhythm of time is
attained by contrasting change of darkness and light. This process is constant:
night supersedes day, the day supersedes the night in its turn, darkness - light,
light - darkness.
1.5. Dream and reality. Considering real and unreal threads of
W.Borchert's artistic world it is possible to conclude that space and time are
not homogeneous. It particularly refers to the drama, where unreality of time
and space is presented by the images of the Elba, God and Death. Therefore,
the question appears - where there is verge between a real world and mythic
world, and what can be accepted as reality, and what -as a dream. Special
attention is paid to the writer's main work - drama, its
architectonics, composition, and analysis of plot. The drama's characters can
be divided into real ones (Beckman, Girl, Colonel, Cabaret director, Mrs.
Cramer) and allegoric images (God, Death, Other, Elba, One-legged). The
protagonist is the only one who meets all the drama's characters. The image
of Other unites the mythic and real images. The image of Other personifies
hopes that create a positive perception of world and short - lived feeling of
safety. The drama's conflict makes us to perceive life as absurd.
The analysis of the drama's architectonics gives proof that the point where
reality begins is not indicated. Real facts mix up with unreal events. It is
impossible to say exactly where the dream starts and at what moment it
ends. The main function of unreal images is to interrupt the uniformity of
drama. The drama's text is formed as a flood of consciousness. The
protagonist tries to cross the reality boundary: being drowned in the Elba, in
his dream and retelling the Colonel the nightmares.
Chapter 2. "Man in W.Borchert's prose".
2.1. Soldier and Other . The main literary character in W.Borchert's prose
is an image whose problems were widely reflected in post-war mass media,
newspapers, magazines, on the radio, in films. This man is a soldier. He is
too young to get involved in war. He is a representative of the lost
generation, the soldier who does not find his way home and therefore, he
dies.
W.Borchert's prose ("Die Kuchenuhr", "Generation ohne Abschied", "Die
Krahen fliegen abends nach Hause", "Die Nachtigall singt", "Der Kaffee ist
undefinierbar", "lm Mai, im Mai scrie der Kuckuck") emphasizes that
soldiers who returned from the war have neither home, nor family. A man
by the window is dissatisfied with his place in a post-war society. Therefore,
he wants to escape the real life. His location in the room limits and
depresses him, but he is not ready to leave it in order to go out to the city,
because he
cannot accept the city's order. He does not feel a part of this society and he is
not ready to integrate into it. The man by the window is not decisive. He is
standing at the symbolic boundary between life and suicide, on the halfway
between heavens and ground. A man by the door is life-orientated in the
post-war situation. Contrary to the man by the window, this man is
emotionally stable and well balanced. He is an optimist. The men spend a day
after day in the room thinking of death and life. They come to conclusion that
birth and death are two boundaries, and the human life passes between them.
It is worth emphasizing the significance of the text ending. It differs from the
usual solution to the problems in W.Borchert's prose, where suicide is the
only way out of the situation. The man by the window, in spite of his bad
experience caused by war, in spite of the situation that he considers hopeless,
decides in the life's favor. The striking example of the man by the window is
Beckman, who is standing between life and death. He reproduces the type of
a man who lost his Motherland. His return to home is unsuccessful. At first
he tries to be a rebel who does not keep to the new order, but at the end he
does not endure psychological pressure. He gives up, loses and finds a
solution to his problems in suicide. The image of Other is an alternative to
Beckman. He and the protagonist are two different men, although they have
much in common. Other is Beckman's personified life will. As an image,
Other is Beckman's guide. Beckman always argues with Other. Other is a
man who always looks for new possibilities in hopeless situations. The
protagonist is not idealized. He is a man who suffers physical and mental
load: hunger and cold loneliness, fault consciousness, attitude of the society
towards him as well as further existence with no perspective. There is a
certain misunderstanding between an individual and society. The individual
realizes that he is a stranger in the society. The soldiers who returned home
differ from the rest. They are
marked by their participation in the war. They are unstable in their
judgments. They feel not only as victims of war, but also as guilty in other
people's death.
2.2. System of characters. The protagonist has to restore relationships with
the post-war society. People moved away from each other so far, that their
rapprochement is out of question due to the passive position of both sides
(for instance, "Die Hundeblume", where people do not want to change their
usual way of treatment.) In the story "Die traurigen Geranien" one man is
ready to get free from isolation, while the other is passive. Only in some
stories there is a mutual contact between two people (for instance, "Nachts
schlafen die Ratten doch").
In W.Borchert's creative works there could be distinguished three states of
human existence according to the influence of society on the human
harmonious existence. The models of formation of interrelations are used as
matrix, with the help of which the similarities and differences are stated.
Interrelation model 1 characterizes the initial state of man, when he is at
the harmonious virtually endless safety (as it seems to him) stage, because
in reality it turned to be short-lived. This model finds reflection in the
following stories: "Hamburg", "Die Elbe", "Die Kirschen", "Gottes Auge", "
Marguerite" , "Liebe blaue graue Nacht", "Schischyphusch". These stories
uncover the individual's harmonious existence in society, where he feels in
certain safety.
Interrelation model 2 characterizes the state of protagonist who is at the
disharmonious stage of estrangement. There should be mentioned the
following stories "Die Hundeblume", "Mein bleicher Bruder", "Stimmen
sind da - in der Luft in der Nacht", "Generation ohne Abschied",
"Eisenbahnen, nachmittags und nachts", "Billbrook", "Die Kegelbahn",
"Vier Soldaten", "Der viele viele Schnee", "Jesus macht nicht mehr mit”,
"Die Katze war im Schnee erfroren", "Die Nachtigall singt", "Radi", "An
diesem Dienstag", "Der Kaffee ist undefinierbar", "Die Küchenuhr", "Unser
kleiner Mozart", "Nachts schlafen die Ratten doch", "Er hatte auch viel Ärger
mit den Kriegen", "Im mai, im Mai schrie der Kuckuck", "Die lange lange
Straiße lang", "Das ist unser Manifest" a.o. In these stories the protagonist is
shown as an outsider in the post-war society.
Interrelation model 3 is one of the most important ones, because the
protagonist can realize the opportunity of returning to the society with the
help of other characters. Model 3 mainly refers to the following stories "Das
Holz für Morgen", "Die Krähen fliegen abends nach Hause", "Stimmen sind
da - in der Luft in der Nacht", "Generation ohne Abschied", "Die drei dunklen
Konige", "Der Kaffee ist underfinierbar", "Die Küchenuhr", "Das Brot" a.o.
Interrelation model 3 also concerns the drama's images. The drama's main
character is not a man of crowd. His goal is to confront with different life
positions that are presented by his contemporaries (Colonel, and his family,
Mrs.Cramer, cabaret director).
The model also characterizes the relations between the protagonist and his
parents, who are the most significant and necessary people for him. Family is
a symbol of coziness. Father and mother are people who have a positive
attitude towards their son-soldier who returned from the war. With their help
he could integrate harmoniously into society.
Family ties and coziness for the soldier associate with woman who he could
get acquainted with and stay with her for life. Woman is reflected as a symbol
of warmth, coziness, loneliness, a symbol of fear overcoming. According to
W.Borchert's philosophy, she could be the man's allied, mollify his sadness.
She could protect the soldier from fear. The writer emphasizes that war and
love are two incompatible notions.
2.3. Man conception. W.Borchert considers a man as a value. In post-war
society a man is not a value any more. Material values prevail over spiritual
ones. The mechanism of order forms a basis of human relations. The
consciousness of fault contributes to the work of this mechanism. Nobody
can free a man from the consciousness of fault. Only a man himself can do
it.
Although not all the characters obey the order principle, they are also not
free in their choice. They are dependent on their welfare. These people do
not want to speak about their consciousness of guilt, as they see, hear and
understand only the things that re profitable. These are mainly men of
crowd, who judge and blame others in order to save their seeming
innocence. They do not support the protagonist's views. They change their
political views as often as it is necessary for them.
W.Borchert tells about the spiritual tragedy or German nation, paying
special attention to individual's personal misfortune caused by historical
conditions of that time. W.Borchert stresses the following idea in his
creative works: the future life of German nation depends on how the present
generation will transform the information to the new generation.
Chapter 3. “The system of viewpoints".
Artistic value of creative works to a great extent depends on the author's
style: ideas, themes, composition, images, and language. The writer
expresses his opinion on actual processes at concrete time and space, using
the means of language. The system of viewpoints comprises objective and
subjective spheres. Outside these spheres of viewpoints there is author's
viewpoint. The author creates a text, its structure, and logical connections.
The author's opinion, his world view are expressed in his creative works.
The language, peculiarities of style, characters' behavior express the author's
opinion.
The rhythm of prose also helps to understand the author's viewpoint. The
analysis of rhythm is much more complicated than the analysis of the rhythm
of poetry. There are not definite meters in prose. The opposition of short and
medium-long sense-groups produces the rhythm in W.Borchert's prose.
Alternation of short and medium-sized sense-groups attaches dynamics and
challenge to the intonation system.
Sentence structure also influences the rhythm of W.Borchert's prose. The
majority of his sentences are extended sentences or unextended declarative
sentences. Sometimes the structure of these sentences does not correspond to
the rules of German grammar. The shortest sentences are elliptical sentences.
They consist of one lexical unit, a noun or a verb.
It is worth emphasizing the rich language material Emotional experience is
expressed with the help of differences in quantity of the same phoneme.
W.Borchert avoids being wordy. This writer describes the things as he sees
hears and feels them. Thus, W.Borchert tries to be maximally concrete,
precise and expressive.
Conclusions. W.Borchert accepts the historical reality. The actual events
of that time create W.Borchert's artistic world. W.Borchert's works testify to
the influence expressionism and existentialism trends in literature. It is worth
emphasizing the double revaluation of values. At first, it happened when
national socialists came to the power and destroyed the former culture and
traditions, forcing their ideology. Then, when this ideology was destroyed.
The supporter of this ideology could be anyone who believed in new ideals.
Thus, W.Borchert chooses the image of German soldier, for whom it is very
important to make clear the illusions of the pre-war past in order to revaluate
the former ideals and values. While speaking about the human essence and
existence W.Borchert is ironical and serious at the same time.
New time and life conditions facilitated the development of a new artistic
form (inner dialogue, different levels of time and space in one work).
Evaluating the way of artistic expression that W.Borchert had chosen in
order to uncover a deep essence of the issues, readers and researchers
should take into consideration the fact that he was a witness and an active
participant of the historical events of that time.
The list of sources, literature and quoted writings are added to the
dissertation.