Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind can be described as all the worst thoughts middle school kids could have come up with and then compact those thoughts into a play. There is no doubt that this play was meant to shock people to the highest degree, but it forces the audience to face all these taboos all at once. The play describes how society has repressed so many thoughts that it forces kids to learn on their own and experiment their thoughts. Wedekind is bluntly telling people to be more open to talking about taboo topics because in the end if people aren’t exposed to different view points they only end up making the same mistakes. Wedekind ingeniously uses very bold and suggestive tactics to shock the audience, where they will never forget the themes and motifs of the play. As a result, the play becomes super controversial and forces society to talk about the play.
Each story in the play just got more and more progressive with each controversial act that succeeded. Wedekind really laid everything on the table, every controversial topic increasingly got edgier, which only made the play much more interesting. It was a very fast paced play with each scene jumping back and forth between previous scenes, forcing the audience to pile on their thoughts about the taboo themes that were presented. Spring Awakening started off on the lower end of the spectrum of controversy with the whether or not Wendla was a woman or girl; then it ramps up to sexual thoughts, incest, suicide, rape and homosexuality. This is very effective in making sure that the audience pays attention what is going, eventually with more exposure they will become more open minded to about these ideas.
Towards the end of the play it becomes more evident what Frank Wedekind was trying to express to the audience. He tries to convince the audience that life isn’t easy and there are many problems that we will have to face eventually, but none of these problems should be solved with death. The more knowledge people have on various topics, it will create a better educated society. There are often times in people’s lives that they just want to give up when the tough gets going, but once they get past these hurdles is when they improve themselves and society as a whole.
People may argue that most of the characters in the play are too young to even experience these thoughts or actions. But are they really too young? The characters are about 14 years old, give or take, a time where they are experiencing a rush of bodily changes. With those bodily changes comes with a completely different mindset than when they were children, a time where they question their identity. If kids aren’t exposed and taught about different things that exist in our world, they will only (in the worse case) repeat what has happened in the play. Wedekind wants to shock his audience to change their mindsets about the way we live our lives.
I agree with your view on the play’s message. Wedekind wanted his readers to value knowledge and to realize that a good education can do wonders. I have read many other reading responses that discuss how unnecessarily vulgar and grotesque some of the scenes are. Like you, I agree that Wedekind used these scenes to shock his readers to the highest degree. He wrote the way he did because he was trying to prove a point. Every passage has a meaning and an important lesson attached to it.
Hi Matt! While I did not see it at first, I completely agree with you when you say you took the message that suicide is never a solution from the play. Moritz had so much to live for and he could have corrected any mistakes he had made in the past, but now he has nothing. Wedekind used conveyed the message perfectly with this example.
I didn’t think about it before reading your post, but I do agree that in some ways Wedekind portrays life’s hardships through the play. Initially, I read the play looking for the taboos that we discussed during class, so my reaction to the play was based of the presence of those taboos. However, without a context, I realize that Spring Awakening in a play that depicts the struggles that are often kept hidden due to society’s constraints. However, they are genuine and real problems that are in need of being acknowledged. And I also agree with your point on age. I don’t feel that age is distinctive of when or how someone will experience particular transitional phases. Each body and each person varies, so it would be incorrect to say that a specific age determines when a problem is justifiable.
You raised a really good point when you said, “life isn’t easy and there are many problems that we will have to face eventually, but none of these problems should be solved with death.” I can’t believe I overlooked Frank Wedekind using an anti-suicide message. After looking a bit into it, Cristina Bradatan of University of Central Florida published a paper where she states, “It was only during the 19th century when discussions on suicide began to be focused on the factors that influenced the phenomenon of suicide – social or psychological causes.” This strongly correlates to what Wedekind was trying to say, according to your post. Perhaps Wedekind even prompted this discussion.