When Irmgard Keun wrote her The Artificial Silk Girl, she created not only an ordinary female novel, but also a fascinating research of the social situation in German in 30-50s and women’s place in all spheres of life. Berlin, a huge metropolis, is depicted as an enormous machine which buries destinies of little people under its wheels, especially if they were unlucky to be women.
Television, advertisements and other types of mass-media always had a great influence on minds and souls of people. Doris becomes a victim of the sugary fairy-tale which promises fame, richness and chic, glamour life and as many others, comes to Berlin looking for success and popularity. She has a symbolic token of luck: a fur coat which she previously stole. Wearing this important item she looks exactly as a film star and feels ready to start her promising adventure to the bright future. She starts making notes which are meant to content thoughts of a future glamour star. She often repeats that she wants to be a shine and tries to reach her goal by all means. She leaves the person who, she thinks, is her only love.
Since Doris is a woman who comes from a working class and an average bit-part actress, she fails to become a popular star. It is natural that Berlin absorbs her. Society is not just for lonely women. Very soon Doris sees that she does not have another opportunity than living with men.
Though she tries to find a decent job Doris is also illiterate, so, she has to withdraw her patron’s attention from finding her mistakes and inserting commas by the means of her feminine charm. As a result, she leaves the work until she is not involved into an undesirable love affair. Though Doris has not received any good education she has a sharp mind and writes her notes keenly describing vividly and to the point the picture of social life in Berlin. She sees that the main problem of a lonely woman, facing bourgeois, is the fact that she is considered a whore even if she is not. Moreover, even if she finds a proper job, she does not receive the same salaries as men do, and does not have chances to hold a high post. All spheres of life are in men’s hands. Decent women are mothers who are rarely seen on streets.
One of the main points of women’s downfall, besides the lack of means of subsistence, was social attitude to a lonely woman. Consequently, Doris finds out, that Mr. Berlin is shining and sparkling; the city reminds a consumer which absorbs everything which is possible to assimilate:
“All the people are in a hurry – and sometimes they look pale under those lights, then the girls’ dresses look like they’re not paid off yet and the men can’t really afford the wine – is nobody really happy? Now it’s all getting dark. Where is my shiny Berlin?” (Keun 101).
Though Doris prostitutes, she does not feel any rejection of her mother who also had to sell her body:
“Dear mother, you had a beautiful voice,.. you were poor, like I am poor, you slept with men because you liked them or because you needed money – I do that, too. Whenever anyone calls my names they call you names as well – I hate everyone…” (Keun 73).
She also feels sympathy to other fancy women, Hulla as well as she understands her fate. Relationships with Ernst teach her, that there are many other things in the world besides fame and shine. In fact, the choice which Doris has in the end of the book is not as bright as it seems: either she leads an idyllic life with a man, Carl, outside the actual borders of Berlin, or she remains a prostitute.
In fact, Doris finds her happy end, but is it so for women in general? Doris does not manage to tear herself away from society limits, she only finds her own lucky niche.
In fact, is it possible to excel social restrictions in similar situation?
Though two books, The Artificial Silk Girl by Irmgard Keun and Frauline Else by Arthur Schnitzler tell, ex facte, are completely different stories, in fact, both authors depict the story of female emancipation. Else is a young nineteen-year-old girl, who faces a controversial dilemma: she hates the society she lives in, and, at the same time, she cannot forget about obligations, her family entrusts her with. She has to keep the reputation of the family and adhere to lifestyle which is alien for her nature.
Else is on vacation when she finds out the necessity to ask for a big loan in order to save her father’s freedom and even life. She receives a letter, in which her mother tells about terrible gambling debts, and asks the girl to come to an acquaintance of their family, Mr. Dorsday who may borrow the required sum of 30.000 guldens. Else does not know him and cannot even imagine how she could come to an unknown man with such a request. Though, she has to fulfill her filial duty.
In contrast to The Artificial Silk Girl, the mother becomes the main opposite in the Frauline Else. She is the one who tries to preserve the image of a decent bourgeois family at any cost. Mother asks Else to make an act which humiliates her dignity and manipulates the whole family. Even in the letter mother calls her daughter a good or dear girl, as if she expects her obedience but not the filial feelings.
Else seeks her father’s attention and love though lacks it. She finds it a few minutes before her death when she speaks with him and child-likely asks to hold her hands, and fly with her (Schnitzler 81).
In fact, they are alike, both rejecting bourgeois lifestyle. Her father gambled, while Else felt protest inside her soul. In contrast to Doris, Else finds a peculiar way out from social snares. Else follows her obligations and carries out Dorsday’s demands: the man watches her nudity but not in private atmosphere. She undresses in a room which is full of people. By this step she keeps her filial obligations and at the same time she dictates conditions, not Mr. Dorsday or her mother or society. The way she answers Dorsday’s demands turn the action from vulgar humiliating act to an expressive protest action. Reading the Schnitzler’s text, we cannot say that the girl abase herself. Moreover, death comes as a logical conclusion to her protest action: one may say that she symbolically breaks off the connections with bourgeois social strata. Though, there is another explanation of novel’s end: the one who violates social standards is not accepted by the society. While Doris submits to social standards Else’s protest ends with death. The main problem is that her attempt to break out from the sanctioned role happens to early; it does not have prospect of success. She only manages to make conditions and direct the performance though its plot has been written long before.
In fact, stories of both characters, Else and Doris, tell us about desperate conditions in which women existed in 30-50s. They faced the problems of hopeless future, rigorous limits, which controlled all spheres of women’s life, absence of decent and well-paid work, social inequality, etc. Both works are indeed emancipatory; they research all society classes to a dot and present precise facts and accurate oversights. Irmgard Keun’s novel was banned in Germany as the work dangerous for social pattern of the country. Arthur Schnitzler wrote several books devoted to the topic of women emancipation. Reading both of them allows to distinct main guidelines authors input. The works are still urgent as vivid pictures of social life and struggle which last even nowadays. Prejudice incites people to various dishonest actions. People still suffer from social inequality and bias. Besides the precise description of the time period in German history books as well as in human’s history, books also discuss the eternal values such as family and universal relationships, life principles and outlook, life values, choice of one’s own way, etc. Both books, The Artificial Silk Girl by Irmgard Keun and Frauline Else by Arthur Schnitzler, may useful for historians as long as for wide audience as they aesthetically rise moral and social questions.
Works cited
Keun, Irmgard. The Artificial Silk Girl. New York: Other Press, 2002. Print.
Schnitzler, Arthur. Frauline Else. London: Pushkin Press, 2006. Print.