Category: Reading Responses (Page 6 of 11)

Spring Awakening, written by Frank Wedekind, is a German expressionist play depicting the role of taboo subject matter within a conservative society.

After reading the play, my initial reaction was a state of shocked, pensive silence. The play begins with a very subtle, indirect introduction of possible “scandalous” topics, such as women’s attire and the experience of “Manhood’s emotions” (an allusion to the male erection and sexual compulsions). However, as the play progresses, the plot evolves into startling circumstances involving rape, suicide, and discussions with the dead. Although almost all of the events seemed to form a connection with each others, the progression of the plot was extremely choppy and ambiguous. The difference between one scene and the next was stark and each circumstance seemed to pile into completely havoc with minimal to no transition until the final scene of the play. I think the effect of the structure of the play helped Wedekind cover a plethora of tabooed topics, and I feel as though it conveyed a purpose as to why he wrote the play. The impression that I was left with after reading was that beyond creative expression, Wedekind wrote the play in order to shed light on subject matter that society must be able to discuss, when it doesn’t. Without discussion, the youth of said society is left in darkness, battling sensations and emotions that are too novelty to understand; and with this conjecture I agree.

Each theme that is spurred within the play, I feel, is a topic of discussion amongst adolescent and adults that needs to be said. Spring Awakening referred to subject matter such as pornography, rape, suicide, depression and mental health, and homosexuality. And I feel that Wedekind evoked through his play feelings of either concern or acceptance for those who are involved in these subjects, as well as criticism for those who ignored them and their assailants. Those who are victims of or involved in such acts were, and at times still are, depicted as shameful or frightening by society. However, Wedekind combats this with the events that occur in Spring Awakening. For example, two male students called Hanschen and Ernst reveal themselves to be homosexual after kissing each other. The scene where this occurs is carried in a way were feelings of joy and relief are evoked from the audience. The setting is rather calm, the two of them enjoying grapes at the edge of a vineyard, and they discuss their desire to live life by reaping as much pleasure as they can from the time that they’re allotted. Through this, Wedekind associated homosexuality with simple human pleasure, that should be enjoyed and not shamed if the tendency occurs. Although conservative values categorize homosexual men and women as unwanted, Wedekind’s depiction of homosexuality is calm, joyful, and accepting. Such a scene supports the idea that Wedekind used Spring Awakening as a way to show sympathy and tolerance for those that are unjustly expelled from society.

The play Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind, first published in Germany in 1891, explored many different controversial and radical ideals for the time period, including sexuality, rape, and suicide. Even controversial in today’s society, Wedekind’s characters experience many life-altering events

at very young ages. This play depicts the loss of their innocence throughout their teenage lives, and how their parents attempt to shelter their children in order to keep them in a state that is as young and childlike as possible.

The themes in this play explore certain issues at hand that people in that time period didn’t generally discuss in their day-to-day lives. The most prominent of these is sexuality. The direct introduction to sexuality and experimentation begins in the second scene of the play and is noted and expanded upon throughout the piece. The sexual aspect of the play immediately makes the work as a whole an extremely radical work. This in turn led to decades of censorship and omission of scenes and lines throughout the play. However, I don’t think that Wedekind used the idea of sexuality to shock his audience. Rather, I believe that he meant for the play to evoke thought and questioning. One of the most controversial aspects of this topic is Wedekind’s inclusion of homosexuality. This idea was frowned upon in society, and in Germany, you could be jailed for it. Fortunately, the acceptance of homosexuality in society has dramatically increased since that time period, and, though not embraced in totality by all, sexuality is now something that people are quite comfortable discussing regularly.

Another theme that really stuck out to me while I was reading this play was the difference between parents and their children. In Spring Awakening, relationships between parents and children are somewhat unsuccessful. All the parents in the play attempt to bring up their children to live as they did, yet almost all of their efforts seem futile. Moritz commits suicide, Wendla dies, Martha’s parents abuse her consistently, almost to a point where she seems to want to murder them, and Ilse’s parents are entirely absent. For parents that want to shelter their kids from the outside world and prevent them from growing up and learning too fast, they don’t do a great job. Many of the children end up having their own ideas about how they will form their families and raise their children-and they seem to be entirely different from their parents’ ideas.

Overall, the play touched on many different aspects of life that seemed too radical to think about in the 19th century. However, it is interesting to note that, while most of these ideals have been accepted in our modern day society, we still have some trouble discussing other ideals, even ones that are less controversial, such as race. It is noteworthy to mention that the ideas that a society finds controversial reflects on the time period as a whole, which I found very interesting while reading this play.

Based on the discussion we had in class on Wednesday last week, where we talked about the censorship and the history of that time period etc, I had a certain expectation for the play. I thought that by including certain taboo subjects in the play, Wedekind was trying to maybe not normalize, but perhaps publicize and expose certain issues that our world faces today. I thought that he would accomplish this my making all the characters be overly-accepting of such taboo topics like rape, suicide, and abortion, to name of few. But while reading the play I found that the parents took on the more “reserved” and “traditional” ways of thought. I felt that Wedekind created a discord between the parental figures and the child figures. The parents approach these controversial (at the time) topics by “putting them under the rug” or avoiding the conversation altogether, while the children are inquisitive and speak openly about those same topics.

After reading this play, I was shocked by Frank Wedekind’s introduction of controversial subjects such as homosexuality and rape. The events of Wendla’s tragic death from an abortion, Moritz’s suicide from the disturbance of greater knowledge of his sexuality and failure to keep up in school, and Melchior’s departure from social norms caused him to be incarcerated into a reformatory, all progressed quickly throughout the play. The climatic moment was during Wendla’s rape, in that Melchior tried to assert his masculine dominance  by performing the  cruel act.  The overall play left a sinister tone of despair in the end when Melchior hints at committing suicide as well.

What really came to me in the end was that everything including the adolescents’ fates could have been changed if they had more knowledge about sex, instead of parental repression and strict societal norms to keep it taboo. I think that it is rather more responsible to let children know about what occurs to their bodies and changing outlook in life, rather than suppress it and let them become curious to the point that they are harmed in the process. The moral of this play also brought back memories of The Catcher In The Rye, in that Holden realizes that he cannot fully protect the innocence of the children around him, so it is best and a natural part of their lives that they will experience the injustices and dark side of the world.

Even though this play originated way back in 1891, its repercussions to audiences around the world can still be felt. It brings to attention how important it is to recognize and express our sexuality in our world. How our bodies develop, and who we are attracted to was treated as a taboo subject in the past, but society has changed. We no longer have to be stuck within an inner closet because of  fear of exposing our sexual orientation. Part of being human is experiencing mistakes, and nevertheless Wedekind’s play illustrates this in dramatic fashion. His play allows us to reflect and be “inspired” in a grotesque way.

Adolescence is the most awkward and confusing time in an individual’s lifespan. He departs from the innocence and ignorance of childhood and yet doesn’t acquire the full maturity and enlightenment of adulthood. He is caught in limbo. Puberty perverts his body and thoughts and the world he once knew is suddenly turned upside-down. Frank Wedekind’s Spring Awakening, explores the difficulty of this period, amplified by the conservative ideals of the 19th century.

Wedekind explores this conflict from the teenage perspective. We are meant to sympathize with the younger characters as they hurt one-another and make mistakes. While it is easy to blame the characters for the errors they make, Wedekind redirects the blame towards the adults in the play. By trying to shelter, cultivate, and protect their children, they ultimate create the means for their children’s demise.  The effect of this effort by the parents is magnified by the microcosmic setting of the play, with the entire play taking place within a single town and the forest surrounding it. In this environment, the pressures placed upon the children and their effects become very apparent.

Each child becomes a caricature of the different pressures and new emotions placed upon and experienced by adolescents as they embark on their transition into adulthood. Wendla’s story is based around abstinence, Moritz’s is based around academic achievement, Ernst’s is based around sexuality, and Melchior’s is based around sexual exploration. These caricatures are juxtaposed by Martha who is forced into submission by her abusive parents and by Ilse who escaped from the pressures of that society by going on to live a bohemian and promiscuous lifestyle.

The tragic outcomes of most of the stories reveal the impact of these harsh confines on the developing child. They amplify the anxiety and confusion already faced because of development. They draw Moritz to kill himself, Wendla to be unaware of her rape, and Melchior to abandon his society in search of a better alternative. While promoting virtuous christian values, the adults in this play ultimately trigger the tragedy that unfolds. The devil’s controversial appearance at the end of the play furthers this point as Melchior follows him into the uncertainty of secular individualism.

Overall, the Spring Awakening shocks the audience through its departure from common convention, harsh critique of society, and controversial subject matter. When I finished the play I was amazed at the topics the play provoked, some of which are controversial even today. Anti-homosexual sentiment is still prevalent in western society, abortion is still heavily argued, and rape is just as rejected as ever. While society informs its adolescents more of sex and puberty, the problems discussed by this play still exist and make the audience uncomfortable. One could only imagine how someone watching this play a hundred years ago would have felt.

To get a better understanding of the avant-garde movement, I recommend listening to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, as it is just as jarring and provocative musically as the Spring Awakening was in theatre:

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.

Awakening of Spring by Frank Wedekind depicts a group of teenagers raised in a rigid environment where abstinence is preached over education. Teenagers are forbidden from asking anything that has to do with sex or masturbation, which leads to catastrophic results. The fates of the main three characters, Moritz, Wendla, Melchoir demonstrate the dangers that a lack of knowledge can lead to.

The play exposes how the minds of teenagers work as they approach adulthood. Moritz, Wendla, and Melchoir discover different sensations, but have never been told what those thoughts mean. Because the play is written in 1891, the topic of sex, abortions, and suicide is strictly off-limits. The characters battle with their emotions as they try to figure out what these feelings mean. Without a proper education, teenagers cannot be expected to simply transform into adults and know everything. Awakening of Spring proves that sheltering young adults from information simply because it is considered controversial only does harm. Adolescents have the right to correct and comprehensive sexual health information. Statistics have shown that abstinence programs actually increase risk for pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. Virginity pledge programs do not prevent teenagers from having sex and essentially do not deter them from starting younger. With the proper sexual education that has been implemented between 1991 and 2004, the U.S. teen birth rate fell from 62 to 41 per 1,000 female teens. These results further prove that hiding information from teenagers is not the proper path.

Wedekind did not only expose the dangers of a lack of information about sex, but also the dangers of organized religion. Moritz is shamed for committing suicide, and at his funeral the pastor talks about how sinful and immoral his actions are. Although Moritz commits suicide because he loses hope after trying his best in school and failing, people only listen to what the church tells them is right and wrong. This shows how the times have changed. People now question
their religion and look at what is morally right rather than what a pastor tells them. Melchior, who claims to be an atheist, is upset when Wendla tells him that she likes to help the poor. He finds it frustrating that she enjoys something that is supposed to be a sacrifice, but he could never share his thoughts with anyone else.

Frank Wedekind’s first major play, The Awakening of Spring, explores the sexually repressed society of nineteenth century Western culture and what authority figures we should and should not submit to.

In short, The Awakening of Spring follows a number of youths as they explore their emerging sexuality. Notably, the play follows Wendla, Melchior, and Moritz. The lives of the three are ultimately ruined by the authority figures they placed their trust in. After being sexually assaulted, Wendla ends up dead from a failed abortion operation. Moritz commits suicide after becoming a self-perceived failure for failing out of school. Finally, Melchior is expelled for writing a letter to Mortiz about sexuality. Melchior is almost perused to commit suicide by the ghost of Mortiz, but is ultimately stop by the only uncorrupted authority figure in the play, the Masked Man.

There are two clear messages contained within The Awakening of Spring. The first is that it is okay to explore sexuality and discuss it. All these tragedies could have been prevented if the children were better informed and not afraid to discuss their sexuality. Adolescence should be a time of exploration. However, by labeling certain topics as off limits for discussion and preventing them from being discussed we as a culture suffer.

The second, more subtle message, contained within The Awakening of Spring is the importance of questioning authority. All supposed figures of authority in The Awakening of Spring; the Pastor, Mrs. Bergmann, Mrs. Gabor, Martha’s parents, Ilse’s parents, and the teachers, in someway eventually fail the children who trusted them. The only true exception is the Masked Man. It is hard to say exactly what the Masked Man represents. Perhaps, he represents a higher power, in which case the message becomes that the only true authority is that which comes from our own spirituality and our own set of values. Moreover, the Masked Man could represent truth. This would make sense since he reveals what death really is like to Melchior. The message then becomes that we should only value the truth as authority.

Regardless, it is important to discuss and contemplate what the value of labeling “taboos” have within our society and who we should follow.

It started off with a girl telling her mom that she doesn’t want to wear long skirt. That girl ended up dead from a failed abortion operation.

A teenage boy trying to teach his troubled friend about sex education. The life of the boy is ruined after being expelled from school and sent to reformatory.

A teenage boy struggling hard to stay in school. The boy committed suicide after being expelled and lost hope in life.

This play contained many taboo subjects. All of which led to tragedies to occur.

If only the teenagers going through puberty is more well-informed about their sexuality, they would not be as confused and lost. If Wendla Bergmann understood how babies were made, she could be more cautious around boys and use contraceptives. Then she would not have died a tragic death at such a young age. If Moritz Stiefel understood more about puberty and why he is having all the sexual thoughts, he would not be distracted from school and failed school. Then he would not have been so lost and hopeless that he decides to end his life. If Melchior Gabor didn’t have to help inform his friend about sexual education through self-drawn “pornography”, he would not be a scapegoat for his friend’s death. Then he might not have ended up in the reformatory and the eventual escape.

Parents feel the need to shelter their children, but sometimes it’s this protection that’s hurting their children the most. There’s a Chinese saying that this young generation, those born after 1981, is the generation of strawberries (草莓族). Strawberries looks bright but is actually really easily bruised and fragile. The younger generation  often cave under stress and can’t endure hardship. This occurs because this generation is so well-sheltered by their “loving” parents. Parents should just allow their children to be more exposed in order to learn and develop more, especially dealing with their own body.,

So many tragedies would not have occurred if only the teenagers understood their body, puberty and hormones. Which reminds me the first time I had my sex education. It was back in fifth grade and my school even invited a speaker to come in to answer all our questions. At the young age of eleven or twelve, we are already expose to what is going to occur to our body and why it happens. Furthermore it is later emphasized in our biology class and health class. These lessons helped us be more comfortable with our body and understand the awakening of spring.