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THE BRIDE BY THE WATER: DUTY, PROCESSION, AND SACRIFICE IN THEODOR FONTANE'S UNWIEDERBRINGLICH
Author(s) -
Sorenson Alexander
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
german life and letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 1468-0483
pISSN - 0016-8777
DOI - 10.1111/glal.12225
Subject(s) - duty , context (archaeology) , wife , sacrifice , german , order (exchange) , literature , argument (complex analysis) , procession , topos theory , philosophy , history , art , law , theology , archaeology , political science , biochemistry , chemistry , finance , economics
Scholars of Theodor Fontane's Unwiederbringlich (1891) have long been intrigued by the protagonist's pious wife, Christine Holk, and especially by her suicidal drowning at the end of the story. After all, death by water – a ubiquitous topos of German Realism – at first seems to contradict Christine's inner system of law and its Lutheran precepts of duty. However, the motivic context surrounding the drowning suggests that her death is motivated by precisely this interior domain of ‘Pflicht’. In order to pursue this argument, the present article focuses upon the leitmotif of wedding and funeral processions, and particularly the way in which they become intertwined in Fontane's novel. The juxtaposition of both processional rites is strikingly anticipated by Euripides’ Alcestis , and the article suggests that comparing these two texts allows us to see Christine's suicidal drowning in a new light: not as an act of revenge or despair, but instead as a sacrificial exchange of moral paradigms. By transgressing against an individual system of duty, Christine aims to inculcate a collective model of duty that is rooted in the communal, ceremonial act of memorialisation.