Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind, 1891, weaves through the interconnected lives of three adolescents as they face their own struggles with growing up in a world of condemnation. The main characters, Melchior, Wendla, and Moritz each have distinct personalities that lead them to their particular fates at the end of the play. Through Wedekind’s writing we are able to understand the importance of education and self understanding during such a vulnerable time in a child’s life. In fact, it was only the one individual, Melchior, who was most knowledged on his emotional/physical state and transition period in life, that ended up surviving. Although a gruesome close, Wedekind used such extreme measures to make this distinction clear.
Before going into the content, one thing I noticed about the structure of the play was that it lacked stage direction and imagery, and oftentimes parts of a scene that may be clear when acted out in person were not obvious in writing alone. One scene where this stuck out to me was the rape scene. Although it was implied through Wendla’s cries, Melchior’s crime was only hinted through the script. There were many scenes where I felt this was a struggle and had such direction of action been included in the text, it may have made the play a little easier to comprehend.
Wendla, a young woman on the brink of maturing, had just begun to play with the idea of emotional and sexual desire when we were introduced to her story. A product of her mother’s conservative mind and overprotective parenting, Wendla did not know exactly what these supposedly devilish feelings meant when she started to experience them. Her innocence, instead of keeping her out of trouble, is what instead could not save her from it. Worst of it all, her mother, because she is unable to accept her daughter’s actions, took drastic measures to undo the mistake Wendla had made and it was the abortion that she ordered for her that ended up killing her. Had Wendla been more aware of how to handle her situation with her pregnancy or with Melchior, she may have been able to change her own fate.
Moritz, Melchior’s more timid best friend, was also suffering with confusion and guilt over the feelings he had started to experience as he had begun to go through puberty. Inexperienced with sex and with becoming an ‘adult’, he ended up committing suicide because he could not handle the pressure of it. He was left with two regrets: not having been in an intimate relationship, and not making it into the higher class at school. Had he known how to cope with his emotions and known that it was okay to feel a bit lost, it may have be enough to save him.
The single one of the three individuals who survived the entirety of the play was Melchior. Although he also had his own bit of teenage disaster in his encounters with Wendla and his sexual conflictions, he was obviously more knowledgeable than his two friends. Even though he was capable of being at the top of his class, he played a bit of a rebel in school because that is what he wanted, and unlike Moritz, he did not put so much worry into his grades. Also, even though he ended up going to a Reformatory for his ‘explicit’ sex essay, he escapes and is able to recognize his wrongdoings and the final few paragraphs of the play describe his remorse and desire to correct himself. Rather than allowing his actions to lead to his demise as they did with the other two main characters of the play, Melchior learns and grows from his mistakes and leaves with some hope for his future.
Had Moritz and Wendla not been so sheltered or undereducated about their transition into becoming adults, the story may have had a different ending. As Wedekind shows through the struggles of the youth, knowledge is the key to success. The parental figures failed in educating their children about their bodies and the troubles they were going to face in the future and it ended up just hindering their development.
I agree that the format of the play makes it a little difficult to understand. Some scenes need to be seen in order to be fully understood. All three of the characters are sheltered from the truth and end up either dead or, like Melchior, regretting what they have done. When teenagers don’t know any better, it is the parents that should be blamed. If Wendla had known what was really happening, she might have been able to prevent that situation. I believe that it was not the characters’ fault, it was their parents’ fault for not educating them.