Bedeutsam und düster!

Die Novelle von Hauptmann zählt wohl zu den Klassikern der Weltliteratur. Ein Mann verfällt mehr und mehr dem Wahnsinn, bis es zur Katastrophe kommt.
Epochentypisch handelt es sich nicht um leichte Kost. Viele Themengebiete werden angeschnitten, z.B. der Einfluss und Stellenwert der Technik, Industrialisierung, Abhängigkeit, Misshandlung, Tod, Schuld und Wahnsinn. Insbesondere die Entwicklung Thiels wird sehr deutlich dargestellt. Interessant ist auch der Wechsel des Erzählers und des Erzähltempos, das unter anderem den naturalistischen Sekundenstil aufweist.
Das Werk ist literarisch bedeutsam, aber auch unglaublich düster. Aus diesem Grund ist es eher keine nette Unterhaltung für Zwischendurch und sollte - insbesondere als Schullektüre - sauber aufgearbeitet werden.

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Bahnwärter Thiel: a German naturalistic novel

In literary theory ‘naturalism’ follows ‘realism’. Where authors as Lev Tolstoj or Gustave Flaubert are generally considered as realistis because of there aim to describe reality as adequate as possible in their novels; the naturalistic authors are to be distinguished from realists mainly by their focus on ‘ugliness’, more explicit descriptions of sexual behaviour and violence.
Naturalism has its origins in France, when Émile Zola started writing his Rougon Macquart series (20 novels, published between 1870 and 1893). Slowly naturalism found its way through Europe, also to German literarature, apparently.
Because this short novel by Gerhart Hauptmann is fully naturalistic. Which means you need a strong stomach for reading it. Zola considered himself to be an ‘apostle of truth’, and truth always appears to be ugly for the naturalists. And therefore for Hauptmann, or at least for his main character: Bahnwärter Thiel.


At the start of the novel the waiter loses his wife. The signalman stays alone with his son Tobias. But soon, and there the drama begins, Thiel decides to remarry - unless the doubt of the pastor; by the way, mainly because he needs someone to take care of his son. Later in the story, this fact will appear to be ironically tragic. But, I won’t spoil much more.
During his second marriage Thiel is haunted by memories and dreams of his first wife. He starts to dedicate his working place to her and tries to keep it free from influences from his second wife. After a while she becomes pregnant and Thiel gets a second son.

At the end of the novel all relational tension that intensifies slowly during the story, finds its way in some typical naturalistic scenes of violence.

The main difference berween realism and naturalism is the question they try to answer. Realism is occupied with the question: what is man? For the naturalists this question changed into: how did man became what he is?
This might be concerned as a possible hint, a guiding question, for a naturalistic reading of this story: How did Bahnwärter Thiel became what he is at the end of the novel?

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