A Sorrow Beyond Dreams: Analysis of Major Characters
"A Sorrow Beyond Dreams: Analysis of Major Characters" delves into the complex relationships and struggles between the narrator and his mother, set against the backdrop of 20th-century Austria. The narrator, a young writer in his thirties, is grappling with the aftermath of his mother's suicide, prompting him to embark on a memoir that chronicles her challenging life. His aim is to create an authentic and honest portrayal, despite the difficulties posed by grief and the limits of language.
The mother, born in the early 1920s, embodies the constraints of her conservative upbringing, as her potential is stifled by societal expectations regarding women's roles. Despite her intelligence and beauty, she is forced to abandon her education for marriage and motherhood. Her life takes a tragic turn as she becomes involved with a married soldier and later marries an abusive alcoholic, resulting in a descent into despair and chronic depression. Throughout, the narrator reflects on the broader themes of identity, societal pressures, and the painful legacies left by family, ultimately revealing the heavy emotions tied to loss and reflection. This exploration not only highlights the individual struggles of the characters but also raises questions about the societal constructs that shape their lives.
A Sorrow Beyond Dreams: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Peter Handke
First published: Wunschloses Unglück, 1972 (English translation, 1975)
Genre: Novel
Locale: A small Austrian village, Berlin, and Frankfurt
Plot: Philosophical realism
Time: The early 1920's to the early 1970's
The narrator, a young Austrian writer whose mother has recently committed suicide. He is in his early thirties. His mother's death comes as a shock, and he deals with his grief by attempting to write a memoir, a chronicle of her life. He struggles with the problems of writing this difficult book, that is, with both his own painful feelings and the inherent tendency of all language to fictionalize—and therefore distort—its subject. He is committed to trying to write the most honest and authentic account of her life and death that he can. He reflects on the various strategies that he might pursue in composing this work; finally, he decides to look at the kind of language used to describe a woman's life—a typical woman's biography—and to see the ways in which his mother's life is both similar to and different from that of the prototypical woman. He composes a sensitive and touching portrait of his mother but is unable, in the end, to overcome the horror of her death. He is left with his guilt and anxiety.
The narrator's mother, an Austrian woman born in the early 1920's. She is an intelligent and good-looking woman with a winning smile. Her existence is, in certain crucial ways, dictated by the traditional expectations and limitations imposed on a female's life by the rural and conservative society into which she is born. Although she does well in school, she is not supposed to continue her education because a woman's “place” is to get married and have children. Her grandfather finally allows her to study cooking, because this is useful for a “girl.” When the Nazis annex Austria in 1938, she, like many others, embraces the festive spirit engendered by the propaganda machine of the Germans. She falls in love with a married German soldier and gives birth to an illegitimate child, the narrator. To fulfill her duty as a “mother,” she marries another German, who does not really love her. He eventually becomes an abusive alcoholic and repeatedly beats her. Their marriage becomes a prolonged war of silence, and the mother's friendly smile is slowly—and liter-ally—beaten out of her. Her life becomes more solitary and desperate, and she becomes chronically depressed. Despite the narrator's efforts to renew her interest in life through literature, she grows worse, and one night, she takes an overdose of sleeping pills.