Having experienced the first-hand
experience of the Second World War and returning home crippled due to the
injuries sustained during the war, Wolfgang Borchert, comes home to a nation
that is also attempting to recollect itself from the ashes. The people are
physical, emotionally, psychologically affected, families are broken or
breaking social structures dysfunctional, and there is clear indication of
distress in the society. In “The Man Outside†he captures the post-war
hopelessness of a character named Beckmann. Beckmann returns home only to find
that he had lost his wife, his home and, as a result, had lost his sense of
belief system. He no longer had anything to believe in or live for and realizes
the evil nature of the consequences of the war. Borchert released the play and
then had a subtitle on the play that read, " play that no theater wants to
perform, and no audience wants to see." (100) He indicated that the people
were not ready to face the realities of the war or even to remember it although
the realities were following them right at home. The post-war destitution and
consequences that inspired Borchert to focus on the plight of the people and he
captured the feeling of stagnation and despair the larger society felt
following the war.
The play right from the beginning
brings in the emotion of stagnation in the consequences of the war as it starts
with inducing the feelings of lack of recovery in the post-war period by the
individuals. It begins with Beckmann washed off to the shore of river Elbe, and
it is an overfed undertaker that is examining the body who symbolizes death.
The play indicates that the body washed on the shore was not the first one
suggesting that more people could not recover from the devastation of the war
and hence opted for the easy way out which is death. God whose part is played
by an old man enters crying and claiming that individuals had lost hope, and
none of the people believed in him anymore. He laments that “Death is the new
God.†It is because; it had become easier for people to choose to die than to
choose life. Death also explains how he had grown fat from the business of War
that had continued to bring massive death. It meant that the people had not
left the war behind them and that death had followed them home and were
haunted. They were not leaving the war behind to recover and were stagnated in
the death and devastation and hence committing suicide just like Beckmann had
done. God also goes ahead to indicate that there was nothing he could do to
stop the people from the obsession with the war and death. Even the river calls
Beckmann faint hearted and therefore, did not allow him to kill himself as if
to offer hope to him, but his fixation with the war was way above the hope he
felt.
As if to try to provide hope in the
post-war period, Beckmann is helped by a girl that wants to offer warmth and
help him recover but cut short when the play introduces the wife of the woman
who has an amputated leg following the war. On seeing the man, the war had
haunted and followed him altogether as he feels the urge to commit suicide
again but is convinced otherwise by Other. Moreover, when the girl removes
Beckmann’s goggles, he could see the world around him as dark and blurry which
was an indication of his perception of the world after the war. It meant that
the bleak chances of life and survival and desperation during the war had
followed him, and he felt haunted by all the men that died under his command in
the war and for men such as the husband to the girl who was an amputee thanks
to his commands. Instead of moving on and accepting the causal ties of war, he
moves further into the past of the war by trying to look for the Colonel that
gave the commands to him so that he may take the blame for the lost lives in
the war under his leadership. He gets into a dream where he could hear all the
dead call out, "Beckmann! Sergeant Beckmann!" (275) which indicated
that he was not recovering from the war but brought a feeling of further
stagnation in the war.
The nihilism in the play is depicted
further when Beckmann finds out that his parents killed themselves during the
post-war denazification. It meant that even with the end of the war abroad. The
war was still at home as the German and Austrian cultures were being gotten rid
of in the new society. It meant that some people still had no place in the
postwar society meaning that the war was not over, and recovery was far from
near. Then destitution of the situation is emphasized when he says, “It is
night, night, and the door is closed. The man is standing outside. Outside on
the doorstep. The man is standing on a riverside, be it the Elbe, the Seine,
the Volga, or the Mississippi. The man stands there crazed, frozen, hungry, and
damn tired.†(280) It further evoked the emotion of stagnation in the war era,
and the people were not on the path to recovery.
In conclusion, Wolfgang Borchert took a
nihilist approach in The Man Outside as he tried to indicate that the war may
have been over on the international scene and individuals going home but they
had not left it behind. It meant that the individuals had brought the war at
home and continued to fight amongst and within them without leaving room for
recovery. He uses symbolism to bring out the feelings of non-recovery in the
post-war era.
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