Abstract

This dissertation engages with depictions of middle class families in six Naturalist dramas: August Strindberg’s Der Vater (Fadren) (1887), Gerhart Hauptmann’s Das Friedensfest (1890) and Einsame Menschen (1891), Arno Holz and Johannes Schlaf’s Die Familie Selicke (1890), Elsa Bernstein’s (pseudonym Ernst Rosmer) Wir Drei (1893), and Hermann Sudermann’s Heimat (1893), by examining how conflicts are realized within the family space and the impact of the family space on familial suffering. The family space may be understood as a collective, relational arrangement of figures, objects, and perceptions—components of space as theorized by sociologist Martina Löw—that creates a representation of the family in these six dramatic works. In addition to Löw’s conception of space, this project considers elements of dramatic space that are important to these texts as performative works. The introduction provides an overview of the German family, Löw’s theory, the spatial turn more broadly, and the approaches taken by the dissertation. The first chapter centers on Einsame Menschen and Wir Drei, two works that depict familial conflict where figures alter their emotional and physical proximity to one another in order to deal with marital discord brought on by the presence of an additional female figure. The second chapter engages with Die Familie Selicke and Der Vater, two plays focused on families whose main conflict(s) are focused on the uncertainty of the future and individuals’ struggles to assert their familial identities. In both dramas, the family space emphasizes impressions of entrapment and the futility of fantasizing about the future with no means of escaping present circumstances, and the family space is reconfigured through figures’ abilities to uphold or upend their familial roles. The final chapter focuses on Das Friedensfest and Heimat, two plays that center on familial conflicts rooted in the past, and it explores how figures are brought back into the family space in order to reconcile with one another but are ultimately unsuccessful in doing so. Both of these dramas engage with whether the past can be overcome as figures reenter the space of the family home, and the space is ultimately a reflection of the past’s impact on the present. Taken together, these six dramas present the family space and its reconfigurations as a means of highlighting familial tensions and conflicts in the texts and on the stage, as familial suffering among the middle classes in the last decades of the nineteenth century is particularly showcased through the family space.

Committee Chair

Lynne Tatlock

Committee Members

Aylin Bademsoy; Gerhild Williams; Matt Erlin; Robert Henke

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Author's Department

Germanic Languages and Literatures

Author's School

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Document Type

Dissertation

Date of Award

8-13-2025

Language

English (en)

Author's ORCID

https://orcid.org/0009-0006-8192-285X

Download

Available for download on Thursday, August 12, 2027

Share

COinS