Showing faith in morality...
When reading Reigen, I was struck by the extreme self-centeredness of the characters. There isn't a strong emotional tie between any of the characters besides that they are partners in having a secret affair.They are each motivated merely by their own desire/lust/purpose when they have sex, and often the characters' attitudes change completely after having sex when their initial desire is fulfilled (while it is sometimes the starting point of a desire for the partner). This tendency is common for all characters, whether the character be a count or a wife. In class we talked about how sex was acting as a way of gaining social power (especially for women); it seems also that it is a way of depowering the social hierarchy by showing that everyone is subject to lust.
There is also always a conscious effort to insist that they are not being amoral, e.g. by turning off the light (under belief that being seen naked is shameful), or rejecting once before actually conforming to the act. There is total irony in how the characters value morality in society versus how much faith they actually put in it individually. Perhaps Schnitzler was making a point about what the Viennese said to be immoral (prostitution, liberal sex, etc) and the ironic acts of individuals, especially of the bourgeoisis men who makes daily commutes to prostitutes.
2 comments:
I think you make a really good point about morality about sexual encounters versus what they actually do. I think that the Husband is the best character to represent this idea. He basically says how dirty and worthless and low women who cheat on their husbands are, but then completely contradicts himself.
I think you have a good point here about the morality of the people in Vienna, especially for men. The husband wanted to make sure that his wife and all of her friends were completely moral and would never cheat, but then turns around and cheats on her. Its almost as if they want everyone around them to be moral, but its okay for them not to be. Or, they want to appear moral on the outside, but really are not on the inside.
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