FREE ESSAY ON THE BOTTOMLESS PIT - WOYZECK

THE BOTTOMLESS PIT - WOYZECK

Topic# 1: A commentator has remarked, " Clearly Buchner considered that while social
revolution might help the Woyzeck's of the world, it could hardly save them". Is
Buchner's vision of the world of Woyzeck essentially fatalistic, a dystopia from which
there is no escape?
Georg Buchner's classic play "Woyzeck", unfinished, yet ahead of its time, has only this
past century achieved notoriety for its visionary script and modernity. Buchner, a young
radical of his time, intended this work to act as a social protest against the oppression
and conditions of the impoverished. The work shows its audience the extreme tragedies
that befall those trapped in poverty, those who have lost all hope, and therefore become
acquiescent to their environment, which in turn furthers their hardship. Despite the main
characters' pleas for aid, and or spiritual intervention, they are trapped in their
situations. Buchner offers no hope to them of any kind for redemption or salvation. 
Poverty is presented as a vicious cycle, one that destroys everything in its path. The
obvious apocalyptic language and visions that Buchner employs in the play all stress the
pessimism surrounding the characters, and the fatalistic and dystopic environment in
which they are forced to survive. Woyzeck, the central protagonist, and his common law
wife Marie, are left to the mercy of their society and manipulated by those around them.
Characters like the Doctor, Captain, and Drum Major contribute to Woyzeck's downfall, and
the subsequent murder of Marie: the Doctor treats Woyzeck like an animal and is
completely unconnected to his reality, the Captain tries in vain to morally reform
Woyzeck, a man whose hunger is first and foremost on his mind and not the condition of
his morality, and finally, the Drum Major humiliates Woyzeck by seducing his wife, and
later assaults him in front of his peers. All three men cannot possibly understand
Woyzeck's state of mind and situation, and disregard him in all his pain and suffering.
They mock his humanity, and ignore him when he asks for answers to the questions that
might have eased his troubled and irrational mind.
The Captain plants the jealous seed of doubt and anger surrounding Marie's infidelity in
Woyzeck's mind. The effect of this would not have been so successful if Woyzeck had not
been already so desperate, destitute, and verging on madness. Woyzeck explains his dire
existence to the Captain in scene one of the play:
Woyzeck: "When you're poor like us, sir...It's the money, the money! If you haven't got
the money... I mean you can't bring the likes of us into the world on decency. We're
flesh and blood too. Our kind doesn't get a chance in this world or the next. If we go to
heaven they'll put us to work on the thunder" (Pp.108) 
Here one sees that Woyzeck believes that even if he made it to the eternal paradise of
heaven, his suffering would still continue, as he would be made to work on the thunder
along with the rest of the poor. Woyzeck perceives no glimpse of a better life or future
for his family, and accepts his fate to live as a slave to others. He allows the Doctor
to perform weird and degrading experiments on him, such as placing him on a strict diet
of only peas for three months, and he allows himself to be berated for relieving himself
in the street. Woyzeck does all this just so he can earn a few measly dollars to support
Marie and their child. 
There is no utopic blueprint in this play. Buchner does not create a new model for
humanity, or for how poverty should be dealt with, he just shows it to us in all of its
anguish. Woyzeck's only escape from his pathetic life is his love for Marie. She is the
only thing that he loves, and cherishes. Her affair with the Drum Major drives Woyzeck
into insanity, and he ends up killing Marie, the only thing that kept him sane. Woyzeck
says concerning self-control, that the poor can't possibly do anything but obey nature's
call, much like the horse displayed at the fair: Man in his unidealized state. 
Woyzeck: "Oh, self-control. I'm not very strong on that, sir. You see, the likes of us
just don't have any self-control. I mean, we obey nature's call. But if I were a
gentleman and had a hat and a watch and a topcoat and could talk proper, then I'd have
self-control all right. Must be a fine thing, self-control. But I'm a poor man."
(Pp.108)
Marie is the victim of a lust she cannot control. She loves her husband but she is
plagued by her passions for the Drum Major and the perks that come with it, like gold
earrings and a red necklace. When the Drum Major approaches Marie, at first she resists,
but then she just gives into her appetites because in her mind nothing can make life
worse than it is at present.
Drum Major: "And you're what I call a woman. Christ, we'll set up a stud for drum
majors.
Marie: Let me go
Drum Major: Wildcat
Marie [violently]: Don't touch me!
Drum Major: The very devil's in your eyes.
Marie: Oh, what does it matter? It's all one.
Marie knows she will be punished for her sins. She cries out to God for help, to absolve
her of her indiscretions like Jesus did with the biblical adulteress. The only problem is
she cannot truly repent of her affair as she enjoyed it too much. 
Marie: [turning pages of bible]" 'Nor was guile found in his mouth.' Dear God, don't look
at me. 'And the scribes and the Pharisees brought him a woman taken in adultery and set
her in the midst...And Jesus said unto her: Neither do I condemn thee. Go, and sin no
more.' Dear God, I can't. Almighty God, at least give me the strength to pray...'And
stood at his feet weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with
the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with ointment.' Everything
is dead. O Christ my savior, if only I could anoint thy feet." (Pp.126-127)
Marie's prayer does her no good, as soon after this passage Woyzeck brutally murders her
and leaves her body by the pond outside town. Here again, Buchner offers nothing but a
dystopic and brutal end for this woman, a victim of her own birth into poverty and the
society that broke her spirit. There is no freedom from her suffering, there is no way
out.
Marie's despair is most profound in the play, and the pity for her character is strong,
as with Woyzeck. Marie says: "I'm a bad bitch. I could kill myself. - Oh, what's the use?
We're all going to the devil, all of us." (Pp.114) Marie too, like Woyzeck had accepted
her fate. She has allowed herself to acquiesce to society around her. She is no longer
responsible for he own actions as she accepts she will be going to Hell. She does not
care any more because nothing has given her hope to do so. Woyzeck and Marie have fallen
as far as they are going too, their lives and personas are Woyzeck says: "...bottomless
pits: you get dizzy when you look down"(pp.120) 
Marie and Woyzeck's child is another innocent victim caught in the middle of everything.
Woyzeck seems to not really know his son as he is always out and doing things. Marie too,
displays a torrid relationship with her child, and she spouts out language such as:
"You're only a whore's brat but I love your bastard's face." (Pp.110), and she frightens
him with stories of child-thieving gypsy's and bogeyman's to make him "sleep". The young
child unfortunately will also be caught in the cycle, and probably grow up to become
another Woyzeck, orphaned and stuck under the boots of everyone else. This child's
destiny and end are shown as the conclusion for the in the operatic adapt ion of this
play, Wozzeck by Alan Berg.
Woyzeck falls into insanity over Marie. When he is told of her dalliances with the Drum
Major he replies,
Woyzeck: "I'm a poor man Captain. She's all I've got in the world. If you're joking
Captain..."
Captain: Joking? I joke with you?
Doctor: Your pulse Woyzeck. Your pulse. Short, violent, skipping, and irregular.
Woyzeck: Captain, the earth's as hot as hell. But I'm icy cold. Hell is cold, I'd bet on
that. It can't be true. The bitch. It can't be... A fine day Captain, Look. A nice solid
gray sky. Makes you want to knock a nail in and hand yourself. All because of one little
train of thought."(Pp118-119)
The other two men, besides Woyzeck are heartless and cruel to him. The Doctor rambles on
about his medical condition, totally disregarding his feelings, and the captain teases
him about his wife's lover. As in this passage, one can find many examples of apocalyptic
language about hell and heaven, and the world ending. On Page 109, Woyzeck comments that
the sky is on fire, and believes voices are speaking to him out of the ground. Woyzeck
later recounts this experience to Marie quoting the Bible, " 'And behold there was a
smoke coming from the land like the smoke of an oven'?" This idea is again depicted when
Woyzeck is about to stab Marie. Marie comments that the moon is rising red (the color of
blood) and Woyzeck says it is like blood on an iron. It is at this moment that Marie
realizes something terrible is about to happen, and senses her own death. Woyzeck's
wading deeper, and deeper into the water is another symbolic element of his further
descent into the bottomless pit. Perhaps the most haunting passage out of this entire
play, is one in which the little children ask a Grandmother to tell them a story, her
idea of a fairytale is the most despondent, apocalyptic tragedy one could recount:
"Once upon a time there was a poor little boy who had no father or mother. Everything was
dead, and there was nobody left in the whole wide world. Everything was dead, and he went
away and searched day and night. And because there was nobody left he thought he'd go up
to heaven. And the moon looked at him so kindly! But when he reached {it}...he found it
was a piece of rotten wood. And then he went to the sun...and found it was a withered
sunflower...and he wanted to go back to earth, but the earth was an upturned pot. And he
was all alone. And he sat down and cried, and he's sitting there still, all alone"
(pp128)
These are the kind of "fairytales" the children are exposed to and nothing can be
bleaker. Buchner does not even let the children escape either, they are doomed along with
their parents, and the apocalyptic and dystopic way in which the world is presented
compounds these ideas, suggesting an even worse future for them than the one we have just
seen. 
Buchner was a young man at the time of his death, only twenty-three, yet he managed to
leave a legacy behind him, on that has been highly acclaimed in modern times. Woyzeck was
to be a "working - class tragedy", a slice out of real life. His protagonist, Woyzeck, is
a man doomed to a pitiful existence, constantly plagued with questions that will never be
answered. He has a psychosis in which he hallucinates, and this furthers his urge to
murder his wife. Woyzeck is forced to deal with daily humiliation. This play is a
tragedy, as there is no hope for Woyzeck. The murder of Marie forever breaks his
lifeline; he is lost in the abyss around himself. He falls deeper and deeper into
madness. He is a murderer, but he is also a victim of his society, as with his wife. The
very construction of the play's elements, the folk songs, the religious and secular
language, all play a part in the overall dark motif that the play projects onto the
viewer. Buchner wanted to portray real life, with very human characters, and his view is
that society is to blame for all evils, that the world is essentially going to the dogs
for these people, in a never-ending cycle of torment and affliction. Buchner also allows
the reader no hope to fix this situation, as unfortunately the play was never finished
and one shall never know, or feel, the complete conclusion and resolution of" Woyzeck".