An Essay on “Dragon slayer´s father” by Gerhard Gundermann
Some of Gerhard Gundermann´s lyrics contain narrative structures
that are typical of allegorical texts. In my essays on “Linda”
and on “Dragon slayer´s Father” I have followed the clues they
provide for an interpretation of the lyrics.
All the translations into English are my own.
I have also posted an overview of the theory with the title
“Allegory” on this blog.
The website http://gundi.de/gundermann/interviews.shtml
by
Gundermanns Seilschaft e.V. provides information on Gundermann and
his work.
The song “Dragon slayer´s father“ (1982) is a father´s tirade given at his sons´s return from an unsuccessful mission („a hero who has failed“). In four stanzas the father holds up the mirror to his son and blames him for his failure. In the course of this act of humiliation the father sees himself confronted with the hatred in his son´s gaze, then unexpectedly declares that he´ll join his son in a new quest or battle.
At first glance I was deeply moved by this turn of events. It appeared to be a strong expression of fatherly love as was the preceding tirade in which the father gave vent to his pent-up emotions. On closer examination, however, the sequence of blame and affection is not as spontaneous as it seems to be, because the speech is artfully composed, which is a clue that it might be a means to an end, that it serves the purpose of bending the son to his own will. Both the allegorical narrative patterns underlying the lyrics and the father´s rhetoric support this view.
Allegorical narrative
The title is the first of a number of clues encouraging an allegorical interpretation. It evokes the narrative pattern of the heroic quest. The son is the hero who ventured out and had to face challenges and to fight against evil in order to receive social recognition.
The father confronting his son evokes the allegorical narrative pattern of the debate, which in this song lyrics is dominated entirely by the father. As the son is denied the sought-for recognition, his only reply is his gaze full of hatred.
The mindsets of father and son can be reconstructed from the tirade. From the father´s point of view the son appears as an idealist. The name “dragonslayer“ itself is an allusion to the legend of St. George who is considered an epitome of courage in the face of evil and of strength of belief.1 In his tirade the father blames his son for pursuing high-minded goals (“die kopfstehende Welt umdrehen“), and for not heeding the dangers enough. All these clues indicate that the son represents an idealist world view.
The father´s arguments, by contrast, point to a materialist attitude. Focusing on the obstacles and the injuries his son received he concludes that the adventure wasn´t worth the effort. In his opinion his son has failed because he set himself unreachable goals („die kopfstehende Welt umdrehen“, „die Sonne zu hissen“), overestimated himself and underestimated his opponents and the challenges ahead („all die Steine im Weg zerfallen zu Staub“, „und böse Drachen wärn … mehr was zum Lachen“). He points out to his son that his idealism has not led to anything but a breakdown with symptoms of a burnout syndrome. („Die Seele erfriert und am Ende die Kraft“).
Instead of acknowledging his son´s efforts as is the convention and thus fulfilling his son´s expectations, he denounces them until he finally sees himself confronted by the hatred in his son´s eyes which causes him pain. If he wanted to make his son come to his senses, he just managed to arouse resentment and hostility. To ease the tension he points to his old age making use of the topoi of the complaint of old age “ich bin fast ein Greis“ and the praise of old age “ich bin schon weise“.
As the song lyrics is actually a speech (from the beginning to stanza 4 a tirade), the rhetoric also contributes to a characterization of the speaker and his relationship with his son.
Rhetorical analysis
The title “Dragonslayer´s Father” indicates that the lyrics is a dramatic monologue which entails that the personality of the father is at the centre of attention.2 In the father´s monologue the constellation of characters with the father facing his son is evoked in the first line (“Nun stehst du vor mir ...). As the line is repeated at the beginning of stanzas 3 and 5 (paralellism), this constellation remains present in the readers´ minds and takes on the function of a leitmotif. Each time it occurs it is followed by an assessment of the son´s physical and mental condition. Likewise, stanzas 2 and 4 are linked by parallelism in their first lines. These first lines are also the beginnings of rhetorical questions about the magnitude of the delusion his son must have been under when he ventured out on his mission.
The profuse rhetoric clashes with the father´s materialistic outlook, who is entirely focused on the outcome of the adventure, which would comply with a more economical style.
steht im Gegensatz zu der materialistischen Weltanschauung des Vaters, welcher sich sich ja ganz auf die Bilanz des Abenteuers konzentriert, wozu eine sachlichere
The dominant figure is the hyperbola. The son´s adventure is characterized by cosmic metaphors (“die Sonne zu hissen“, “zu den Wolken gestartet“) or metaphors from epic or fairy tales („und böse Drachen“), which make it appear megalomaniac. The father uses hyperbolic metaphors to point to his son´s misjudgments (“Ja hast du gedacht es wird wie ein Fest“, “du solltest doch wissen, es ist kein Spiel“, “und böse Drachen wärn feige und faul“).
Throughout the first four stanzas the father confronts his son with his failure in loving detail using a high rate of poetic and rhetorical devices such as metaphors, parallelism, internal rhyme, assonance and alliteration – to give colour to his elaborations. The extravagant style of his speech characterizes the father as self-absorbed and therefore blind to his son´s needs. The parable of the Lost Son in the New Testament with the father welcoming his son back could serve as a frame of reference for this value judgment3.
Dialectic
The ending with the father announcing a joint mission seems like an offer of a reconciliation after the tirade. According to the theory of dialectic materialism the father´s plan corresponds to the synthesis which develops from the antithetical constellation of the world views of father and son.4 On the one hand, “Ich werde mitgehn.“ implies that the father makes his son´s aims his own. His words seem to communicate his willingness to sacrifice his own life for his son which appears like a noble gesture. On the other hand the father doesn´t give his son the opportunity to speak for himself. He seems to treat him more like a puppet than a human being with his own ideas and aims. By taking the lead his attitude can be seen as patronizing or even domineering at the expense of the son´s independence.
Looking at the speech as a coherent whole it would even make sense to assume that the father pursues an agenda of his own from the beginning, that he denounces his son´s efforts in order to make him feel worthless and the more grateful for the offer of a joint mission.
Initial and allegorical meaning
In the light of this allegorical interpretation, how can my first impression be explained? It is certainly not wrong, but corresponds to the initial meaning of the lyrics. Initial and allegorical meaning relate to each other in the same way as the two pictures of a flip-flop image (e.g. rabbit – duck). It is only possible to see one of the pictures at one moment in time. If the other pops up in front of your eyes, the first one disappears and vice versa. In the lyrics the father´s good-natured telling-off and his noble final gesture, the initial meaning, suddenly change into an assertion of authority. It depends on the reader whether they are able to decode this allegorical meaning, guided by the clues revealing the power play or whether the initial meaning remains stable to them.5
The lyrics of “Dragonslayer´s Father” certainly originates from the author´s experience, but the father-son constellation can also be interpreted as an allegorical representation of typical power relations in society.
Possible biographical and socio-historical context
Gerhard Gundermann was one of those GDR artists who believed in the ideals of socialism, but were dissatisfied with its realization in the GDR.6 It might well be that the allegorical narrative of „Dragonslayer´s Father“ originated in the struggles of the young Gundermann in the 1970s and 80s with representatives of party and state about this obvious discrepancy.7 Not only did he criticize the conditions in open cast mining, but he also made suggestions on how to increase both productivity and the security of the miners. Thus, his role corresponds to that of the idealist son in „Dragonslayer´s Father“ - the dragonslayer St. George is among others the patron saint of miners - with the party functionaries as the father. This makes the allegorical mode the final stage in a process of abstraction which ultimately serves as a code enabling indirect criticism of contemporary circumstances.8
In the end it was due to his desire to improve GDR society/change GDR society for the better which led him to collaborate temporarily with the Stasi, the secret service of the GDR. The father-son relationship in the song can be interpreted as a representation of his inner conflict in this context.9
The figure of the „dragon slayer“ might also be an allusion to Gundermann´s childhood dream of being a hero and of fighting in the socialist revolutions of Central America. ”Chile 73, da wollte ich sofort hin.“ [Chile 73, I would have gone right away. (My translation)]10
Topicality
As a representation of power relations the lyrics of „Dragonslayer´s father“ is still up-to-date. It exposes a common strategy of the representatives of „Realpolitik“ when they are faced with
more idealist positions.
The reactions of some politicians to the „Fridays for Future“ demonstrations are the latest example of a patronising stance as illustrated by dragonslayer´s father. Their advice for the protesting youth to trust the „experts“ or to join political parties is another way of saying „Ich werde mitgehn und zwar vor dir her.“ and certainly an attempt to make the protesters toe the line, in order to be able to get back to business as usual and put the youths´ just cause on the
back burner.
Power relations during the reunification of Germany in 1990, which led to a one-to-one assimilation of East Germany to West Germany with Chancellor Helmut Kohl promising flourishing landscapes, („blühende Landschaften“)11, can also be seen as corresponding to the father-son-constellation in the song. Gundermann was one of those who were gravely disappointed with this development.
1So the legend is a possible praetext. (Kurz, p. 44)
2 For want of access to a research library, I drew on the most appropriate internet definition of a dramatic monologue: poetic form in which a single character, addressing a silent auditor at a critical moment, reveals himself or herself and the dramatic situation. www.dictionary.com/browse/dramatic-monologue
3Lukas Chapter 15, 11-24.
4Dialectical materialism was fundamental to the state ideology of the GDR. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism. The song “und musst du weinen” is also structured according to the principle of antithetical stanzas being followed by a kind of synthesis.
5 „[...], the allegory enabled the author to broach politically problematic topics in public and to make the reader responsible for socially unacceptable content.“ Haselstein, Allegorie, DFG-Symposion 2014, S. 338, my translation.
6 David Robb has found that the discrepancy between the utopia and the reality of socialism was in important theme for Liedermacher in the GDR. David Robb ed., Protest song in East and West Germany since the 1960s, Rochester: Camden House, 2007, p. 4
7 The GDR was a single-party state with the SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei) as the ruling party.
8Gundermanns´s analysis of the role of workers and management in the production process show a high degree of abstraction („Da müssen wir wohl die Füsse bemühn“, Interview mit Gerhard Gundermann, FDJ-Singe No 17, found in the archives without a date, but definitely from before 1989).
9 In allegories like Pilgrim´s Progress (1678) by John Bunyan the protagonist fights against personified virtues and vices, a tradition which goes back to the Psychomachia (first decade of the 5th century AD) by Prudentius (Jeremy Tambling, Allegory, London [u.a.]: Routledge, 2009, p. 48-9).
10 Da müssen wir wohl die Füsse bemühn“, Interview mit Gerhard Gundermann, FDJ-Singe No 17
11 One possible source is his televised speech of July 1, 1990.
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen