Frame and Preparation
Ein Pfund Orangen
Conceptual Frames and Key Concepts
- 1920s
- Neue Sachlichkeit
- Short story/Erzählung
- Gender relations
- Feminism
- Love & sex
Introduction
Since this is a collection of short stories, they make for good teaching materials, especially in their rather unadorned language. Two that are recommended in particular include: “Briefe aus dem gewöhnlichen Leben” and “Ein Pfund Orangen.”
A brief introduction to the aesthetics and cultural impetus behind Neue Sachlichkeit can assist discussions about how form and narration as well as contextualizing the material within a larger cultural framework.
Text and Discussion
Discussion Questions
- Each story portrays a troubled heterosexual couple, often involving the intervention or suspicion of a third party. How are the men and women in each relationship portrayed?
- Compare the ways the man and the woman in each relationship speak to one another and about their relationship. How do their vocabularies differ? In what ways are they the same? What does each person focus on?
- What is important for each character regarding love? What factors make up love, versus sex or just friendship?
- The stories are also comedies of miscommunication. In what ways do the characters talk past or at each other, but not with?
- How do the formal characteristics of Neue Sachlichkeit (sobriety, coldness, dispassionate yet critical depictions of social reality, stifled emotions) interact with the content of the story? Or against it? Is the form of each piece working against the story?
- What are the different expectations regarding sexual behavior for each gender? How do they intersect with other values, such as honesty, honor, and fidelity?
- What image do we get of love between the sexes during the 1920s?