12/17/2022 0 Comments The awakening themeMelchior feels shame when he stands in the graveyard, but unlike Moritz, he is able to overcome it. Wendla's lack of shame reveals that knowledge is in some way necessary for the emotion to arise. Wedekind utilizes the various mistakes and misdeeds in the play to further explore the idea of shame. Even when dead, Moritz is ashamed of himself. At the same time, Moritz's decisions - to push himself hard in school and then to kill himself when he fails - are clearly motivated by shame. Moritz asks Melchior whether he thinks "the sense of shame is simply a product of upbringing." He says he will try to raise his children so that they will feel less shame then he does. Spring Awakening explores the idea of shame and the effects it can have on a person. Wedekind's examples, however, suggest that their theories are no more foolproof than Mrs. Many of the children in the play have their own ideas about how they will raise their children - ideas they believe are better than their parents'. These examples suggest that Wedekind sees the relationship between parents and children as difficult and contentious. Moritz kills himself, Wendla dies, Melchior must displace his parents with the man in the mask, Martha's parents abuse her to the point where it seems she wants to kill them, and Ilse's parents seem to be entirely absent. Almost no parent seems to be successful at bringing up their children to live as they did. In Spring Awakening, relationships between parents and children seem fraught with danger. Spring Awakening seems to caution against extremes and to point the reader towards a balance of nature versus nurture. If he had respected authority figures more, he might not have given in to his urges and raped Wendla. Melchior, however, trusts his own instincts far too much. Moritz has been overly influenced by his teachers - he doesn't trust his own knowledge or instincts, but rather looks to encyclopedias or more intelligent students. Gabor represents the other extreme - she puts her trust in Melchior's instincts and is determined to let him find his own way, even if he becomes exposed to ideas and knowledge she doesn't think that he is ready for. The teachers exemplify the theories of Rousseau, who believed that children are born as "blank slates," and that external authorities must teach them everything from mathematics to the proper way to live. EducationÄifferent characters in the play represent different theories about education. He is wholly excluded from the afterlife. At the same time, it is interesting to note that Wedekind actually seems to uphold the tenets of this form of Christianity Moritz, having committed suicide, cannot go to Heaven, or even to rest. Melchior, in some ways the most positive figure of the play, is an atheist, and his difficulties with religious belief are expressed in a believable and open manner. The town's religious leader, Pastor Skinnytum, lacks sympathy for Moritz's plight. Organized religion is depicted in an extremely negative light in Spring Awakening. To him, that meant providing the audience with alternative possibilities for sexual development, be it Hanschen and Ernst, or Ilse and her artists. The most immediate interpretation of this choice may be that Wedekind strove to represent adolescent sexuality in a true light. One of the most controversial aspects of this topic is Wedekind's inclusion of homosexuality, especially in light of the fact that Hanschen and Ernst's relationship carries none of the tragic consequences of Wendla and Melchior's. Another possibility is that Wedekind uses children rather than adults because adults may have an easier time seeing their own flaws and mistakes when they are represented in youthful forms. One possible purpose for these scenes is to explore whether ideas about sex arise naturally in human beings or are taught by outside forces. However, even today some critics of the play disagree with this evaluation. One might argue that Wedekind used sexuality to provoke thought and raise questions rather than merely to shock viewers. The frank sexuality and sexual experimentation depicted in Spring Awakening immediately positioned it as an extremely controversial work and led to the decades-long censorship of certain scenes and lines in the play.
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