Egon Schiele, Portrait of an Officer, 1916
What does the narrative strategy of interior monologue/stream-of-consciousness achieve in terms of rendering the character of Lt.
Gustl? Why do you think this might be
important to what you perceive as Schnitzler’s larger aims?
The strategy of interior monologue/stream of consciousness helps to reveal the scattered thoughts of Lieutenant Gustl. Our constant exposure to his thoughts allows us to see him contemplating suicide. It allows us to see the constant back-and-forth of whether he thinks he should commit suicide or not. We witness Gustl talking himself into waiting longer before he does it.
ReplyDeleteThis narrative strategy of interior monologue is important for Schnitzler's aim at revealing that soldiers are not as brave on the inside as they portray themselves on the outside. It allows the reader to be in the mind of a lieutenant and show that Gustl wants to commit suicide to stop dealing with the pain of war. We also see how Gustl was afraid of when the man was grabbing the hilt of his sword, allowing one to infer that Gustl would be afraid in a war.
I think the purpose of using the narrative strategy, interior monologue/stream of consciousness was effective in proving that Gustl is indeed mad. No normal person frantically leaps form thought to thought in such a haphazard way. There was no guidance and structure to it. Most of his thoughts were barely completed before he was on to the next one. Also he often didn't even know if his thought were being spoken or not, or how loud he was talking. He seemed to have lost all means of proper social functioning. Schnitzler used this to show how the war was affecting the mind's of his countrymen. Good men with families were absolutely losing it because of being in the service. He wants to show that this isn't how the citizens of Russia should be. Something is definitely wrong here and should be changed.
ReplyDeleteUsing interior monologue in this story is good for many reasons. First, it takes place during a time when men, especially soldiers were expected to uphold society's view of what masculinity was. It meant courage, which was being fearless during battle. The character's inner thoughts allow the reader to see how his exterior behavior is different than how he is actually feeling.
ReplyDeleteAlong with that is the reader's ability to form an opinion. From the beginning it is easy to dislike the protagonist. The author creates a horrendous character who is belligerent on many levels. There is a reason the author has done this. Creating a unlikable character comes with purpose.
While there is certainly a lot going on in Gustl’s setting, there is even more going on inside his mind. The stream of consciousness narrative strategy allows readers to understand the internal aspects of his character that would be difficult to convey if the story was narrated differently. Because of this strategy, readers are privy to Gustl’s deliberation about committing suicide, his comments about different classes, and his sexualization of women. And it is these thoughts that make readers dislike Gustl, which is Schnitzler’s intention. One of Schnitzler’s larger aims in writing this piece must have been as a form of social critique, which is why he creates such a dislikable protagonist in Gustl. He can be seen as representative of the flawed society and culture that he exists within. However, while Gustl is unlikable, I do not think that Schnitzler simply wanted readers to hate him. Another component of his social critique is that he wants reader to sympathize with him, though in a conflicted way, because he is a product of a flawed society.
ReplyDeleteIn some ways, the use of stream-of-consciousness in Lieutenant Gustl is an even more effective form of ‘candid’ writing than the diary forms we’ve seen, as in Diary of a Madman and The Double. Although a diary is often a private, and therefore likely more honest/uncensored medium, the action of writing in a diary is presumably more controlled and relatively post-thought, so there’s still the possibility of self-censorship and more structure to the format. In contrast, as its name implies, stream-of-consciousness thought happens in ‘real time,’ and is prior to any sort of coherent structure, censorship, or anything that would happen after it has already been filtered. For Gustl specifically, the stream-of-consciousness method gives us a genuine, albeit sometimes startling insight into the workings – the real workings – of his mind, and we are introduced to a character who is, on the whole, certainly unlikable and, by all accounts, very likely mad. But at the same time, we could make a similar case for Gustl as we have the other characters we’ve encountered: that, while there is no denying that he does not fit into normative society, there is nevertheless something to be said about examining the other side of things, too, to perhaps draw a more nuanced conclusion than the most obvious one (i.e. that Gustl is mad, and that his madness explains everything else that happens as a result). Through Gustl’s thoughts, we see that he is quite high-strung and scattered, and a bigoted, confrontational misanthrope – yet we also know he does have some degree of self-awareness, and even shame in his shortcomings. When he antagonises the baker at the coat check, for instance, and tells him to shut his mouth, he then immediately realises that “that was a bit rough” (Schnitzler 16). Like Golyadkin, he apparently doesn’t, or maybe even can’t go back and fix himself once he has already done something (“Well, I’ve done it now” [16]), but unlike Golyadkin, he seems to at least have more of an awareness of his actions. While this doesn’t necessarily excuse him, and may not make him any more likable, it may make him more sympathetic, or at the very least, humanises him more in a way than, say, the more-dead-than-alive Golyadkin.
ReplyDeleteIn the same vein, there are times when Gustl is a sympathetic character, and particularly if (and/or when) we view him as a victim of his society in a way that Golyadkin or Propischin might have been, too. Gustl seems obsessed with the idea of honour (his own more so than anybody else’s), which is largely shown by both his fear of scandal and his belief that he must kill himself because he isn’t “qualified” for duelling – a sport whose entire purpose is to resolve conflicts of honour (22). This obsession with reputation may really be just his own, but it may also be that Gustl is the product of a society and an institution (the military) that values masculinity and, specifically, its emphasis on emotional stoicism (as opposed, perhaps, to ‘feminine’ irrationality and emotional outburst) that borders on a lack of real emotion and personal propriety. If Gustl is supposed to be another imperial product, he is a defective one, and his ‘madness’ may be more his inability to properly conform, and his consequential suffering, and if this is the case, then he may even be a tragic figure, as suggested in his lamenting ramblings as he considers suicide, including his tendency for dark gallows humour.
Lieutenant Gustl’s stream-of-consciousness narrative is essentially a Freudian exploration of the unconscious. Gustl’s thoughts, like anyone’s thoughts, are raw and uncensored, and it is through them that we may observe his character. His contempt for Jews is apparent right off the bat; he firmly believes that they are “the cause of. . .anti-Semitism”—that they are basically the cause of their own oppression—refusing to acknowledge that nationalist sentiments, perpetuated by Gustl and those like him, are to blame.
ReplyDeleteA staunch adherent to stereotypes, the lieutenant relies mostly on physiognomy to assess character, which he repeatedly demonstrates in his surveillance of Jews and women. He observes that the Mannheimer family “themselves are Jews,” though “they don’t look it—especially Mrs. Mannheimer. . .blond, beautiful figure,” illustrating his inability to comprehend what is not immediately familiar to him (Schnitzler 8).
The egocentric lieutenant “speaks” almost exclusively to himself, aside from a few brief conversations—namely, his conversation with the baker, Herr Habetswallner, who symbolically emasculates Gustl by grabbing the hilt of Gustl’s sword. Such phallic and simultaneously violent imagery is representative of not only the patriarchal society in which they live but a man’s easily shattered sense of masculinity; and so fragile is Gustl’s sense of masculinity—and therefore power—that once it is publicly threatened he resolves to kill himself, rather than contend with the shame. As the previously pugnacious and angry Gustl laments, “it [is] just as though [he] were completely unarmed” (20). This confrontation is emblematic of a threat to conventional society, ergo that of the crumbling Austrian Empire, whose decline Gustl attributes to an infiltration of Jews—of others.
His sense of self—and his perception of others—is as erratic as his emotions. Along with his determination to commit suicide, Gustl’s humiliation and self-deprecation persist. However, there is a continual fluctuation is his sense of reality and convictions about how others will react to his death; he is either extremely egotistical or cynical, which seems to depict a doubling of the self.
Moreover Habetswallner’s fortuitous death appears to represent an elimination of the other, and therefore the threat to the status quo. Thus both Gustl’s masculinity and power, as well as that of the empire, are safe from further contamination.