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Part of the book: Character, Ideology, and Symbolism in the Plays of Wedekind, Sternheim, Kaiser, Toller, and Brecht

M. Helena Gonçalves da Silva

MHRA Texts and Dissertations 21

Modern Humanities Research Association

GermanDramaopen

Abstract.  Georg Kaiser and Ernst Toller. War, mass-society and the impossibility of a radical change. The ideal of the 'New Man'. Ill (A): Georg Kaiser. From the failure of the individual to fulfil himself, and the dehumanization of the masses, to the Utopia of the 'New Man'. The prophetic quality of Kaiser's vision and his despair. Von morgens bis mitternachts: The dramatic break- through to freedom of the petit bourgeois. His disappointing search to discover the value of money. The failure of religion to sustain him. Death as the ultimate solution. The Gas Trilogy: Die Koralle: The conflict of generations projected on a sociological level and with stylized representative characters: the advent of socialism (the son) and the downfall of capitalism (the father). Gas I: A stylized model of a socialist system of produc- tion. The reification of man. The growing risk of industrial disaster. The abstract ideals of the 'natu- ral community' and of the 'New Man'. The workers' refusal to resist the stimulus of money. Gas II: A concise model of a country at war. Its consequ- ences: further dehumanization of the masses; increase in the production of war industry (poiso- nous gas); the desire for further destruction through defeat. Kaiser's nihilism, represented in formal sim- plifications Ernst Toller. Abstraction and symbolism as means to portray the struggle for a humanist socialism. The problem of means and ends in a revolution. The opposition between Masse and Mensch. The symbo- lic figure of the leader. His death. Die Wandlung: From ontological despair to social com- mitment. The birth of the 'New Man', as an abstract conception, from the ashes of the war. Masse-Mensch: The leader in moral conflict after having led the masses to violent rebellion. His adoption of pacifism. Die Maschinenstürmer: Historical parable. The quick response of the masses to the pseudo-leader who advocates violence. The sacrificial death of the 'New Man'. Hinkemann: Hinkemann, the symbol of working-class failure in war-torn Germany. Toller's loss of faith in the possibility of a radical transformation of society.

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