GEORG HEYM: DER IRRE ALS GEGENBILD ZUR GESELLSCHAFT
GEORG HEYM: DER IRRE ALS GEGENBILD ZUR GESELLSCHAFT

Summary/Abstract: Georg Heym describes in his text Der Irre (The Crazy) the numerous psychotic disorders of a recently released mad man from an asylum. Rage gives birth to „an animalŖ in the protagonist. He suffers a personality scission. The shame transforms itself into rage, becomes independent and murderous. The transformation into an animal is clearly expressed through appearance and voice: he barks like a jackal and crawl like an animal, has a mane and claws. The animal represents the primitive element and destructive savageness, suggested by the jackal and the hyena. The mad man transforms himself into an animal. Heymřs plot is not the pathological constraint that destroys the seemingly secure existence of a bourgeois existence, but moreover, the murderous start of instinct and ecstasy of the mad in a peaceful environment.

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