FMP | WOYZECK

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Upon initial contextual research into Children's Story I discovered that the story itself was written by the German playwright Georg Büchner and appears in his play Woyzeck. Further research reveals that the story of this play is extremely complicated and consequently a rich source potential of contextual referencing...

Turns out that Büchner died before completing the manuscript and the fragments were edited together after his death, so it is an enduring mystery as to how the play might have been different. Also, Büchner's Woyzeck is in part based on the factual account of a murder committed by Johann Christian Woyzeck in 1824.



SYNOPSIS
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Franz Woyzeck, a lowly soldier stationed in a provincial German town, is the father of an illegitimate child by his mistress Marie. Woyzeck earns extra money for his family by performing menial jobs for the Captain and agreeing to take part in medical experiments conducted by the Doctor. As one of these experiments, the Doctor tells Woyzeck he must eat nothing but peas. It is obvious that Woyzeck's mental health is breaking down and he begins to experience a series of apocalyptic visions. Meanwhile, Marie grows tired of Woyzeck and turns her attentions to a handsome drum major, who in an ambiguous scene taking place in Marie's bedroom, arguably rapes her.

With his jealous suspicions growing, Woyzeck confronts the drum major, who beats him up and humiliates him. Finally, Woyzeck stabs Marie to death by a pond.

Woyzeck is considered as morally lacking by other characters of higher status, such as the Captain, particularly in the scene in which Woyzeck shaves the Captain. The Captain links wealth and status with morality suggesting Woyzeck cannot have morals as he is poor. It is the exploitation of the character Woyzeck by the Doctor and the Captain which ultimately pushes him over the edge.

The passage used in Tom Waits' Children's Story is academically referred to as 'Grandmother's fable' and appears towards the end of the play as a warning to Marie of her impending demise. I think that the poor child refered to in the fable is Woyzeck himself who is destined to an eternity of purgatory locked inside his deterioratimng mental state.

Woyzeck has also been adapted into a film by German filmmaker Werner Herzog with the title character played by long time collaborator Klaus Kinski.



Interestingly, Herzog also reinterprets the 'Grandmother's fable' by retaining the passage verbatim, but it is delivered by Marie herself, when being persued by the enraged Woyzeck she gives in to the pleadings of local children to "tell them a story".