William H. McClain

The Case of Hauptmann's Fallen Priest

Few contemporary writers have expressed more eloquently than Gerhart Hauptmann the great spiritual quest of modern man for a meaning for his life and for values by which he can live creatively. Even Hauptmanns earliest heroes might be called souls in search in the sense that most of them experience a conflict between inner self and outer reality. Thiel, Loth, Crampton, Schilling, Kramer, Heinrich the bell-founder, Florian Geyer, Emanuel Quint, are all obsessed by an inward vision which they seek ardently to realize in face of an adverse reality. Unfortunately the striving of most of these characters ends in tragic failure. Personal failure, however, is far from being the most tragic aspect of their lives. At least equally tragic is the terrible isolation in which they carry on their struggle. All of these characters lack in varying degree the ability to communicate their innermost feelings, and from this inability springs their profoundest suffering. All stand thus alone in a world where true human understanding seems not to exist, and where mans natural human longing for genuine sympathy can never be satisfied. It is this basic situation of Hauptmanns early characters which makes them seem akin spiritually to the existentialist heroes of Hesse, Kafka, and Mann, for their great loneliness is also cosmic.