Georg Büchner, an anomaly in his own century, is frequently viewed as a percursor of Expressionism. With this fact in mind it is the purpose of this thesis to investigate and compare Büchner's Woyzeck and the expressionistic drama Hinkemann by Ernst Toller, noting the same basic theme which, however, gives rise to dissimular solutions. The method of investigating these analogous dramas was essentially one of research into and interpretation of the primary sources. Secondary sources (which were numerous for Büchner but scarce for Toller) were consulted as an aid in the exposition of Woyzeck and Hinkemann as separate plays. There was, however, practically no secondary material available relating directly to the problem under discussion in this work. The conclusions reached were based on private examination of the two dramas. Woyzeck is a poor soldier of the 19th century. Out of love for his "wife" he allows himself to be used as subject for a doctor's scientific experiments. Despite Woyzeck's care and passionate love for her, Marie succumbs to the desires of the sensual drum major. Thus Woyzeck not only experiences physical abuse, but also mental anguish as a result of Marie's infidelity. Through this lonely, senseless suffering his values are put into question. Woyzeck despairs of life and expresses his total rejection of the world by murdering Marie and then by drowning himself. Hinkemann, also a common soldier, returns home from the First World War emasculated by a bullet. Fearing the loss of his wife's love and respect, he too stoops to the level of an animal to compensate for his sexual incapacity. Desiring to provide her a few pleasures, Hinkemann hires himself out to a showman who utilises him in a repulsive circus act. However, his sensual wife, like Marie, also proves unfaithful. Her seducer, Grosshahn, causes Hinkemann's prime suffering by causing him to believe that Grete laughed at him in his debased condition. Although finally convinced that she did not laugh, Hinkemann, like his counterpart Woyzeck, fails to see any good purpose in the world and gives up. He no longer has the strength to struggle and asks his wife to leave him. But Grete, afraid to live alone, commits suicide. Hinkemann goes on existing. Thus the basic pattern is the same in both: Woyzeck and Hinkemann, two soldiers in the prime of life, allow themselves to be misused for the sake of a woman's love. Both lose this love which alone gives, their life meaning. Forced into total isolation by an evil and loveless world, both Woyzeck and Hinkemann no longer see any purpose in life, but the reaction of each is different. Woyzeck reacts violently to this discovery of the lack of good purpose in the universe. Out of vengeance he wants to hurt the world that has hurt him. He ends in complete, active nihilism. Hinkemann, a man weakened by fate, reacts less violently: he comes to a passive acceptance of meaninglessness in the world. For him, struggle is in vain. Thus there is a difference in solution, resulting from an important distinction which lies at the core of these plays. Büchner here deals with one basic theme: isolation ultimately leading to nihilism. Toller, in addition, deals with the problem of the complete man. The loss of either the animal or the spiritual aspect of man's nature renders him ridiculous. And for Toller, it is this ridicule which isolates man. Thus his play is more complex, it has ramifications of the problem which Büchner does not explore. Also contributing to the dissimilar solutions are the authors' different views of life. Woyzeck's nihilistic end is entirely in consonance with Büchner's fatalistic and utterly hopeless view of life. Similarly, Hinkemann's pessimistic resignation corresponds to Toller's poignant disillusionment (but not complete despair) with mankind. / Arts, Faculty of / Central Eastern Northern European Studies, Department of / Graduate

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

This thesis examines the development of the political outlook of the German author and revolutionary politician, Ernst Toller. It begins by looking at Toller's early years and explains how his experience as a front-line soldier during the First World war transformed his views, causing him to reject the conservative-nationalist ethos he had grown up with and to become, in his own description, a revolutionary pacifist. It then looks at his involvement in the revolutionary events which took place in Bavaria at the end of the First World War, the so-called Räterepublik, examines how they affected his understanding of social and political reality and traces their artistic reflection in the plays he wrote in the following period. A recurrent theme in Toller's political thinking throughout the years of the Weimar Republic was the idea of an Einheitsfront, a defence block of workers' organisations, which he advocated as the only means of halting the rise of National Socialism. Unfortunately, Toller's appeals to the main workers' parties to form such a block went unheard, yet they are significant all the same in that they reveal the acute political insight of a man whom many of his contemporaries dismissed as a hopeless utopian. Interestingly, and a point often missed in studies of his politics, Toller abandoned the Einheitsfront after he went into exile in 1933 and came to favour instead the creation of a Volksfront a broad, cross-party anti-fascist coalition which the Soviet Union vigorously promoted all through the 1930s until the signing of the Stalin-Hitler Pact in 1940. Toller's support for this idea, in part a corollary of his support for the Soviet Union itself, had a profound impact on his political outlook in exile, and caused him to close his eyes to the repression suffered by the opponents of the Stalin regime both inside and outside Russia, and, most significantly, led him to ignore the nascent socialist revolution which flourished in Spain after the defeat of Franco's coup d'etat in 1936. This study examines in some detail, therefore, Toller's involvement in the Volksfront, redefines his attitude towards Communist Russia and shows how his efforts to suppress his revolutionary beliefs and to become instead a mere anti-fascist affected his creative spirit during his years of exile.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1960. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 325-339).

Ernst Toller was a German playwright best known for his expressionist plays and for his participation in post World War 1 political upheavels in Münich, Bavaria. In my thesis I focus on three of Toller’s plays - Masses Man (1921), Hinkemann, the German (1923), and Hoppla, We're Alive! (1927) to discuss the relationship between man and masses in Toller’s work. To support my argument I will discuss the importance of theater as Mass Ornament and its implications for the creation of a political theater that saw as its main goal to inform the working class about living conditions in a capitalist society and to urge them to political action against inhuman conditions. Depicted as the battle of a single man who rises from the masses to urge his fellow workers and human beings to a non-violent revolution and change of mind, the pacifist hero in Toller's plays is rejected and treated as an outcast. In Masses Man the heroine is as a woman that is alienated from her husband because of her dedication to the proletarian cause whilst at the same time scorned by the masses for refusing to join their armed battle. In Hinkemann, the German the conflict between man and masses is depicted less as the struggle between conflicting ideas and more like the personal tragedy of a single man who is unable to gain the respect of his fellow beings after a war injury. In Hoppla, We're Alive – a play that is less programmatic and pessimistic than the other two plays – the conflict between man and masses plays out in the life of a revolutionary who after his release from a mental institution is unable to adapt to the changes in political rhetoric after the revolution.

Zugl.: Diss.