The summary of the individual scenes in Woyzeck by Georg Büchner gives you an overview of the structure of the drama fragment, the most important scenes and possible interpretations.
- The simple soldier Franz Woyzeck has a busy life. In order to be able to support his lover Marie Zickwolf and their child Christian, Woyzeck works as the captain’s subordinate and makes himself available for the doctor’s inhuman experiments.
- Due to his very low financial means, he cannot marry his beloved and the doctor’s experiment, in which Woyzeck is only allowed to feed himself on peas, triggers considerable physical and psychological failures in him over time.
- Woyzeck loves Marie and this love seems to be keeping him alive, but she dreams of a more glamorous life. Marie is dissatisfied with her living conditions and wants social advancement. That’s why she gets involved in an affair with the attractive, but also arrogant and superficial drum major.
- Word of the infidelity gets around among the townspeople and Woyzeck overhears the betrayal at a dance one evening when Marie and the drum major dance past him without noticing him. This completely throws him off course. Woyzeck’s physical and especially his mental state worsens – he begins to hear voices that seem to command him to kill Marie.
- After an unsuccessful fight with the drum major – who is physically superior to Woyzeck – he decides to kill Marie out of revenge. Meanwhile, he continues to be exploited and bullied by the Captain and the Doctor.
- Woyzeck gets a knife and lures his lover to a small lake, where he bloodthirsty stabs her and then throws the murder weapon into the lake. Marie’s body is found and the townsfolk suspect Woyzeck when he appears at the inn with bleeding hands.
- He flees in panic and wants to take his child Christian with him. However, his son turns his back on him, leaving Woyzeck alone as a tragic figure. His further fate remains open at the end.
Figure 1: The plot of the drama fragment WoyzeckSource:
Woyzeck, Scene 1: Open field. The city in the distance
- The two soldiers Franz Woyzeck and Andres are cutting sticks in the bushes in an open field away from the city.
- Woyzeck works up his delusions and scares Andres.
- Andres tries to tear him out of his vision by pointing out the tattoo that can be heard in the distance.
In an open field away from the city, the two soldiers Franz Woyzeck and Andres Stöcke cut through the bushes. Woyzeck appears to be suffering from severe perceptual disturbances.
He hallucinates a human head said to be rolling around the grounds in the evenings. Death will overtake anyone who picks up their head. Woyzeck suspects that the Freemasons are behind this uncanny activity. In addition, he also doubts his sensory impressions because the floor seems hollow to him. Here, too, Woyzeck suspects the Freemasons to be behind it.
Andres then gets scared. Woyzeck gets more and more involved in his fantasies when he suddenly has an end-time vision in the form of the Last Judgment. He then wants to get himself and Andres to safety and drags his comrade into the bushes with him.
Andres tries to free Woyzeck from his delusions by pointing out the tattoo that can be heard in the distance (evening roll call for soldiers).
Key scenes and approaches to interpretation
Woyzeck’s mental state
The two soldiers Woyzeck and Andres are cutting sticks in the bushes, which indicates the low social rank of the two comrades. The spatial distance to the city symbolizes Woyzeck’s social position as an outsider.
The onset of darkness in the scene symbolizes the onset of change in Woyzeck’s mood and fate.
At the beginning of the drama, the protagonist appears as a disturbed person suffering from hallucinatory disorders. His unenlightened worldview is made clear by the blame he assigns to the Freemasons.
Woyzeck: «It goes behind me, under me (stomps on the ground) hollow, do you hear? Everything hollow down there. The Freemasons!»
Woyzeck becomes so delusional that he briefly experiences a heavenly vision of the Last Judgment.
Woyzeck: «Say something! (Stares around.) Andres! How bright! A fire goes round the sky and a roar comes down like trumpets. How it’s brewing! Away. Don’t look behind you (pulls him into the bushes).»
Woyzeck, Scene 2: The City
- Marie Zickwolf, with her child in her arms, watches from the window of her apartment as the drumming soldiers march past.
- At the same time, she talks to her neighbor Margreth about the drum major’s masculine demeanor.
- When he greets the two women, a quarrel breaks out between Marie and Margreth.
- Woyzeck knocked on Marie’s window, frantic and completely beside himself. In a delusion, he explains to his girlfriend that he has to return to the barracks and abruptly leaves the uncomprehending Marie and the child.
Marie Zickwolf leans against the window in her apartment with her child in her arms and watches the tattoo go by. At the same time she talks to her neighbor Margreth. The drumming soldiers of the procession have done it to the two ladies – especially the very masculine demeanor of the drum major seems to impress them very much.
The drum major notices the interest of the two women and greets them. This brief flirtation triggers a serious argument between the two neighbors. Marie and Margreth’s relationship seems to be extremely tense. Marie accuses her neighbor of envy of her attractiveness, whereupon she counters with her own decency and the accusation of an immoral lifestyle. The argument ends with Marie suddenly slamming the window.
Alone with her child, she reflects on her personal life situation. Despite the circumstances – Marie is unmarried, has an illegitimate child and is therefore contrary to social values – the child gives her joy. In a song she expresses her dreams, in which she hopes for social standing and better living conditions.
Woyzeck knocks on the window and Marie notices his inner restlessness and confusion. Woyzeck claims to have to return to the barracks and ignores her request to come inside. He talks nonsense and shows no interest in his own child. Woyzeck disappears again, leaving Marie shaken and with a dark foreboding.
Key scenes and approaches to interpretation
Marie’s life situation
Although Marie has a steady relationship with Woyzeck, she doesn’t mind meeting other men. She dreams of a better life and reacts with joy to the drum major’s attempt to flirt.
Marie: «He stands on his feet like a lion.»
She distances herself from contemporary society’s views that the mother of an illegitimate child is socially ostracized.
Marie: «…Come on my boy. what people want. You’re just a poor whorechild and make your mother happy with your dishonest face.»
In her song, she first expresses her independence from social standing, only to use a horse metaphor to express the joy of abundance in the second stanza.
Marie: «Hansel hitched up your six white horses / Feed him again. / Don’t eat anything, / don’t drink water, / It has to be pure, cool wine. yay! / It must be pure cool wine.»
When Woyzeck appears in front of the window, there is no direct communication between the two because he speaks in very confused phrases. Woyzeck is not interested in either her or their child and leaves Marie confused.
Marie: «The man! So delirious. He didn’t look at his child. He still snaps his thoughts. Why are you so quiet, boy? Are you afraid? It gets so dark you think you’re blind. Otherwise the lantern shines in. I can’t take it. I shiver (exit).”
The window of the apartment (to the outside world) structures the scene in such a way that it first enables Marie to flirt with the drum major, then when it is closed it clarifies her self-reflection and in the end the attempt to communicate with Woyzeck through the window fails.
Woyzeck, Scene 3: Booths. lights. People
- Woyzeck and Marie go to the fair.
- A crier draws attention to his cabinet of curiosities, with which he wants to prove the similarities between humans and animals.
- Woyzeck and Marie decide to attend the show at the booth.
- The drum major and a non-commissioned officer notice Marie and see her as an attractive sex object.
- Inside the booth, the barker performs tricks with a horse. Marie is full of curiosity and pushes her way to the front row.
Woyzeck and Marie visit the fair. There an old man sings about human transience and is accompanied by a dancing child. The couple becomes aware of a town crier promoting their cabinet of curiosities.
With his cabinet, the crier apparently managed to prove the resemblance between humans and animals. It’s all due to the upbringing that man had compared to the animal. The crier compares the monkey to a soldier and places him on the lowest level of human existence.
While Woyzeck and Marie decide to watch the performance in the booth, the drum major and an NCO catch Marie’s attention. However, they do not see Marie as a woman, but as a «pretty woman who is suitable for procreation». Marie is degraded by the two to an object of desire.
Inside the booth, the barker performs tricks with his horse. The performance is supposed to be fun as the barker introduces the horse as a professor and compares its reason to that of humans. The horse can even tell the time, and the non-commissioned officer makes a grand gesture by providing his own watch as a prop. Marie is very curious and pushes her way to the front row to get a better view of the spectacle.
Key scenes and approaches to interpretation
The degradation of human existence
The crier wants to prove the similarity between humans and animals with his cabinet of curiosities. The differences are based on the upbringing of humans, the soldier forms the interface between humans and monkeys (this once again refers to Woyzeck’s position). This calls into question the position of man within creation.
Crier: «All education, have a bestial sense, or rather a quite reasonable bestiality, is not a dumb individual like many people, not counting the honorable public. (…) The monkey is already a soldier, it’s not much, lowest level of human race!»
Marie is not respected as a human being by the drum major and the corporal. They reduce her to a mere sex object.