Woyzeck and Othello: The Dimensions of Melodrama

Woyzeck and Othello: The Dimensions of Melodrama Terry Otten . . . I am in a chaos of principles—groping in the dark—acting by instinct and not after principle. . . . I perceive there is some­ thing wrong somewhere in our social formulas: what it is can only be discovered by men and women with greater insight than mine—if indeed, they ever discover it—at least in our time. “For who knoweth what is good for man in this life?—and who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?” Hardy, Jude the Obscure Jude the Obscure’s lonely death epitomizes the fate of a whole generation of spiritual orphans. Orphans have always been prominent in literature, of course, and so also their close compatriots—the misshaped, the deranged, the illegitimate, and the disenfranchised. But along with such traditional figures, the nineteenth century spawned a different kind of outcast, having neither the ingeniousness and profundity of great villains like Edmund or Richard III, nor the triumphant innocence of a Tom Jones or a David Copperfield. Such is “Friedrich Johann Franz Woyzeck, soldier, rifleman in the second regiment, second bat­ talion, fourth company, bom on the Feast of the Annunciation . . . thirty years, seven months, and twelve days old.”l He is endowed with few graces—neither intelligence, nor wit, nor daring courage, nor buoyant goodness. If Richard’s destruction is the inevitable result of his own unnatural evil, if Tom Jones’s victory is the fit reward for his essential virtue, Woyzeck’s end is solely the result of his incapacity to live in a world beyond his understanding. He is orphaned not only by birth but by his inability to be. Richard on the one hand and Tom Jones on the other exist in worlds where value and justice are yet in force; punishment or reward, in either case, reaffirms 123 124 Comparative Drama the moral certainty. Both get what they deserve. But Woyzeck, like Jude, earns neither condemnation nor adulation—indeed, scarcely pity. Both he and Jude are defeated by their own pa­ thetic ineffectuality. Victims rather than creators of their fate, they are unfit for tragic consumption. Melodrama, not tragedy, is their province. Or so it seems. To be sure, Woyzeck introduced a new kind of character to drama, one only marginally related to traditional “hierarchical” heroes, defined by socio-political rank, religious function, or moral-ethical principles. Nonetheless, a distinct relationship exists between Biichner’s plays and Shakespearean drama, des­ pite the different Weltanschauungs in which they were written. Like other Sturm und Drang writers, Büchner was much influ­ enced by Shakespeare; and like most nineteenth-century Roman­ tic poets, he tended to interpret Shakespearean drama in terms of character rather than plot. Even allowing for the obvious dif­ ferences in style, circumstance and philosophy, Woyzeck likely owes more to Othello than to any contemporary play in Buch­ ner’s age. Says Hans Mayer, “Ein klarer Fall. Mord aus Eifer­ sucht. Othello im Milieu Leipziger Kleinbürgertums.”2 More than simple comparison is involved, however. The relationship between Woyzeck and Othello is significant not because it demonstrates the general influence of Shakespeare on Büchner, but because it reveals that in forging a new, iconoclastic concept of tragedy, Büchner found particular inspiration in Shake­ speare’s dramatization of an isolated individual adrift in an anchorless world. Acutely aware of the forces that operate upon and within the psyche, Büchner no doubt felt a strong attraction to Othello. In creating a hero so unlike the communal tragic figure, he did not violate Shakespeare’s portrayal of the outsider so much as he extended it to the emerging scientific determinism of his age. In doing so he exposed the potential for melodrama that always resides close to the tragic vision. Like Othello, Woyzeck stretches the idea of tragedy to the breaking point; it flirts with the melodramatic in the creation of plot, character and action. Not all critics agree that Woyzeck bears any relationship to Othello. Although acknowledging that Othello was among the favorite plays of Büchner’s circle of friends of sixth-form boys at the Dormstadt grammar school, Rudolph Majat simply con...