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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-10969 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Björkman, Maria |
| Publisher | Växjö universitet, Institutionen för humaniora |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | German |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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