This thesis examines Theodor Fontane's novels Effi Briest and Irrungen Wirrungen and shows how he used them to express his dissatisfaction with the Berlin society of his time.

This thesis traces and explicates the changes in Theodor Fontane's landscape depiction in the years 1887- 1892. I examine his novels Cecile (1887), Irrungen, Wirrungen (1888), and unwiederbringlich (1892). I show that Fontane, as though discarding a relic of the Romantic past, used increasingly less landscape in his narratives. He focused on the actions and conversation of his characters, and on their immediate surroundings. When these surroundings were urban, they tended to disappear. The progressive minimalization of landscape, and of cityscape in particular, foreshadowed the appearance in German literature of twentieth-century man: man alienated from nature in cities, and less aware of empirically observable surroundings than of internal forces and realities.

In this thesis an attempt is made to show the peculiar features of Fontane's narrative style as well as his art of characterization. I have tried to interpret his concept of humaneness in the two novels, Unwiederbringlich and Effi Briest, and to show how the composition of these novels is directed to the portrait of the individual. Theodor Fontane's unusual distinction lies in his keen observation of the Prussian scene and his craftsmanship as a cosmopolitan storyteller. The principal elements of his works are a sense of historical continuity and an uncommon perception of the speech and gestures by which his characters reveal their particular virtues. In his early writings about his travels abroad and his excursions through the province of Brandenburg, he developed powers of observation and a narrative style which served him well in his major novels. His composition is picturesque. The plots are enlivened with anecdotes and surprising detail; the portraiture is subtle and precise. Fontane's portrayal of human relationships takes into account the impact of coincidences of life. His symbolism, apparent not only to his readers, but also to his characters, is simple but effective. Fontane seems to favor particularly the individual who is restricted by conventions and whose conflicts derive from these restrictions. His characters, like himself, are caught between the meaningless traditions of former times and the dawn of a new awareness. Fontane seems to favor particularly the individual who is restricted by conventions and whose conflicts derive from these restrictions. His characters, like himself, are caught between the meaningless traditions of former times and the dawn of a new awareness.