The Mask of Masculinity
The Mask of Masculinity: Investigating Arthur Schnitzler’s Portrayals of Manhood
Liam Foster
Abstract
This paper examines representations of insecure masculinity in three plays by Arthur Schnitzler: Anatol (1893), Lieutenant Gustl (1900), and Andreas Thameyers letzter Brief (1900). Each of these three titular characters experiences a crisis of masculinity in relation to the deficiency of the male honour code of the early twentieth century, exposing the acute fragility of masculinity within fin-de-siècle Austrian society.
Arthur Schnitzler was a German-language writer, with his works of art still discussed today for their in-depth view into the themes of gender and identity. His play La Ronde (1920) touches on the societal expectations that shape gender roles, and the novella Traumnovelle (1926) offers a profound examination of sexual psychology and identity. What I will be concentrating on is Schnitzler’s works that focus on issues with men, as many of his pieces portray a crisis of masculinity in the early twentieth century, and I will be doing so with the following three stories: Lieutenant Gustl (1900), Andreas Thameyers letzter Brief (1900), and Anatol (1893). From the deficiency of the male honour code to the insecurities of men based on gender roles, many of Schnitzler’s male characters are uncertain of their own masculinity. In Lieutenant Gustl, the entire story revolves around the main character, who is an Austrian officer in the military around the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s inevitable decline, who has his honour offended when a baker “touches his sword” (Schnitzler, Gustl 77).[1] The baker, not being a member of the military, cannot be a part of a duel and thus Gustl becomes exasperated as he is unable to restore his honour. In his eyes, he then must commit suicide the following day so that way he may regain his honour, which he obviously does not want to do. This form of hegemonic masculinity that existed at the time and especially in the military shows that men might not have been comfortable with their own masculinity that was expected of them by society. While following the theme of the male honour code, we can move on from the military and look towards civil society. In Andreas Thameyers letzter Brief, the narrator is experiencing a similar crisis of masculinity. Thameyer returns from a trip to find his wife is pregnant with a baby that when born is revealed to be half black. While the importance of Thameyer’s racial insecurities cannot be overemphasized, it is also important to note that Thameyer already seemed to have doubts about his masculinity, long before the baby was born. He constantly needs to reassure others and particularly himself that his wife wants to be with him, and he does so by looking to events from the past. “She refused them for my sake, although I was neither handsome nor rich” (Schnitzler, Thameyer 171). The play Anatol, whose main character is the namesake of the title, is a bit different from Lieutenant Gustl and Thameyer. Anatol, a well to do socialite, is shown throughout the play with many different women and his best friend Max. The overarching theme of the play is that Anatol has a deep and debilitating fear. Whether that be a fear of intimacy and getting close to women or of shattering the illusion he builds around himself is up for debate, but regardless the story shows how deeply insecure Anatol is with his own masculinity. In the following, I will explain how these three prominent characters from Schnitzler’s works are experiencing a crisis of their masculinity specifically through the theme of the deficiency of the male honour code, prevalent in the early twentieth century.
Andreas Thameyer is a character that, from the very beginning, is clearly going through a crisis. The first line of the story is already placing him in this situation, “I cannot possibly go on living; for so long as I am alive people will despise me and no one will realise the truth” (Schnitzler, Thameyer 167). The truth Thameyer is referring to is that of the paternity of his wife’s newborn baby. According to Thameyer, although the baby is supposedly his, nobody believes him and therefore, in order to restore his and his family’s honour, he must commit suicide. The baby of course cannot be his, it was born half black while both Thameyer and his wife are white Austrians. The crisis that Thameyer is going through is not the fact that this child is not his, but that because of this fact, his masculinity is being challenged from two distinct angles. Thameyer’s masculinity is firstly being challenged by racial insecurity. He and his wife have been married for four years at this point and have been trying to have a baby from the beginning but failing to do so. Having a baby being born a “peculiar colour” however questions Thameyer’s masculinity. As Boehringer explains, “Thameyer’s child, being of ‘so eigenthümliche[r] Hautfarbe,’[2] clearly challenges the criterion of resemblance, highlights the questionable quality of his paternity, and unmasks Thameyer not only as a failed father, but also as a failed man” (85). If Thameyer cannot produce a baby, but someone who at the time would have been part of a group that was considered lesser could, then Thameyer himself could be considered lesser than them. In the social hierarchy, this would threaten Thameyer’s status and, as someone who seems to continuously go through crises of masculinity, only adds to his paranoia of consistently being judged. Thameyer attempts to combat this apparent threat by using many different medical journals that claim during pregnancy, shock given to the mother can cause the baby to be born ‘abnormal’, “I have read a story … about a child being born with a scar on its cheek because the mother had seen the house opposite burn down” (Schnitzler, Thameyer 169). His masculinity is so threatened that Thameyer uses any resource he can to prove to himself that the baby is his, but not even he believes it enough not to commit to his plans of suicide.
Thameyer also faces a threat to his masculinity in the sense of his overall social status. There are several points in the story that suggest Thameyer was already insecure about his masculinity prior to the baby being born. He speaks to the fact that his wife could not have cheated on him because of their past, in particular, “I knew my wife for seven years before we were married, and she refused two proposals because she loved me” (171). He uses this excuse to try and claim that she loves him and would never cheat on him, but again despite getting married he has been unable to produce a child with his wife. Not being able to have children at all is a crisis and thus Thameyer is threatened by the possibility that he cannot have his own. If he is not masculine enough to do what husbands do, another male could come along and strip him of his self-proclaimed victory all those years ago. Thameyer is concerned with his status amongst all men, from family and friends to people he does not know that he sees on the street. This issue is especially true for his uncle as Boehringer points out, “Their male-male relationship is founded on a certain social hierarchy … Once the sign of Thameyer’s progenital failure enters the dialogue, his uncle ceases to accord him the required respect” (83). The hegemonic masculinity of the early twentieth century is so strong that even though Thameyer has a good paying job, a wife and other attributes that have so far been in line with the current version of masculinity, one mistake is enough for him to lose the respect of the closest male member of his family. The fragility of Thameyer’s masculinity is a product of the times and when all other courses of action fail to try and regain some semblance of fitting into the social hierarchy that is the upper class of Austrian society, he feels that there is no other course of action, than suicide.
Lieutenant Gustl also contemplates suicide, and while he never actually commits it, this is not because of an epiphany that suicide is not the only way to regain his sense of masculinity. Members of the military covet honour and consider it crucial, but this honour can be damaged rather easily. This is shown when a baker touches Lieutenant Gustl’s sword which angers and shocks him, as touching a military members sword is a sign of disrespect. Gustl has never encountered a civilian that had dishonoured him so much, and because of the baker’s low social status, Gustl cannot duel him. Duelling had been used for centuries before the events of Lieutenant Gustl had taken place but dueling being used solely to defend or reclaim one’s honour, or in this case masculinity, was a relatively new concept. The duel was a part of the hegemonic masculinity of the times, which was so fragile that even a simple insult could result in a duel to the death as Roberts explains, “The concept of honour was most dangerous in that it was something of which another person could deprive one through insult. Only through combat (a duel) could this sense of personal honour … be restored” (27). With the idea of a duel being impossible to restore Gustl’s masculinity, he begins to consider other options, of which the only one that worked appeared to be suicide. Schnitzler has the entirety of Lieutenant Gustl take place inside Gustl’s mind and the narrative is his own internal dialogue. Based on his thoughts we can interpret that although committing suicide appears to be the only answer, Gustl certainly does not want to do it, as a generous portion of the story is Gustl trying to find a way out of it, including asking the baker not to speak of the incident. “What if I went to his house and begged him to swear not to tell anyone? … Ah, better to put a bullet through my head right away…. That’d be the best thing to do anyway! … the best thing? Why the best thing?” (Schnitzler, Gustl 78). Lieutenant Gustl even questions the hegemonic masculinity of the honour code he feels bound to and does not fully comprehend why he must commit suicide to regain his honour. He does not want to die and although he questions the need to, he feels compelled to adhere to the honour code based on a mixture of expectations in society and military values. Gustl decides not to kill himself, but this only happens because by the following morning the baker who had insulted him has died, leaving Gustl with his honour, and therefore his masculinity intact. But this does not end his masculinity crisis; if a simple touch of the sword is enough to contemplate a life ending event, then he is only sticking a band-aid over this massive wound of a problem.
Anatol’s issues are exceptionally noticeable in chapters one and five titled; Frage an das Schicksal and Abschiedssouper.[3] In the first chapter, we not only meet Anatol and his friend Max but are instantly thrust into the situation of Anatol’s life when he describes how he is almost certain that his partner Hilda is being unfaithful to him. Something important to note is that while he is concerned with Hilda’s actions, he explains to Max that he has been having many liaisons of his own, but this is brushed off by both men with the explanation that “men and women are different” (Schnitzler, Anatol 6). When Hilda eventually arrives, she asks to be hypnotized by Anatol and once he succeeds in doing so, Max makes a point to ask her whether she is cheating on him. This is really where we begin to see Anatol’s crisis of masculinity. He has the ability to play God and in theory get whatever knowledge out of Hilda he could possibly desire, but when faced with knowing the answer to a question that has been bothering him for quite some time, he does not ask and in fact makes many excuses as to why he cannot ask. Ultimately Anatol agrees to ask the question, but only if Max leaves the room; “‘If I’m to know the worst, I’ll hear it privately. Being hurt is only half as bad as being pitied for it. … you won’t be there for the awful moment’” (16). This shows where Anatol’s fears truly lie, he does not want Hilda to be having an affair, but much worse he does not want Max, or in turn any other man, to hear that his partner is being unfaithful. This is made even more apparent when Anatol still decides not to ask the question to the hypnotized Hilda and gives in by waking her from her slumber fearing the answer he might hear is the one he thinks is true. Here, Schnitzler revisits a kind of masculinity crisis already encountered by his earlier character, Thameyer. In the eyes of Anatol should his partner be cheating on him, it would insinuate that he is unable to satisfy her, or in other words perform his duties as a man, and thus needs to find said satisfaction elsewhere. Anatol would rather nobody, not even himself, know the true answer than risk the secret getting exposed to his friends. Schnitzler again successfully shows the type of hegemonic masculinity present at the time when the story was written. Men were considered masculine for a multitude of reasons, but like Thameyer, the biggest way to prove your masculinity was through your relationships with women.
In Chapter Five we see Anatol with Max getting ready to have a final dinner with his current partner Mimi. Similar to chapter one the scene starts with Anatol explaining a problem he is having to Max. He has fallen in love with a new girl and therefore plans to break up with Mimi, but so far has not been able to, despite the two having an agreement to break up before either of the couple cheats. Anatol’s reasoning for delaying the separation is due to the fear that she might be sad, and he will therefore fall back in love with her. Much to Anatol’s surprise however before Anatol can even get more than a word out, Mimi claims she must break up with Anatol because she has fallen in love with someone else and therefore this would be their last dinner. Anatol cannot believe that a woman would even consider breaking up with him and becomes rather hostile since Mimi has completely disrespected him. His masculinity is being threatened with the thought that Mimi could find a man better than him, and with this realisation he quickly recognizes he is losing his position of power. In his anger Anatol loses all respect for Mimi, who is apparently following the rules of the breakup of their relationship, and he starts to tell her everything about his love affair with this other woman. He even goes on to insult Mimi by comparing her to his new love; “‘She’s younger and rather prettier than you. … And I’d throw six hundred and seventy of your sort into the sea for her’” (79). He needs to show he is in control of the breakup and that he is the one who wanted to leave her first. This is only exasperated by the fact that Max is in the room as well since Anatol needs the approval of his best friend so he can in fact prove he is masculine. Max does not help the situation by being obviously entertained by the breakup and laughing at the situation (72). Anatol’s attempt to command the argument would eventually backfire as Mimi would reveal she in fact has slept with her new love, which completely destroys all of Anatol’s chances of regaining control. Anatol seemingly found it acceptable to break their pact, but when Mimi claimed to have done the same, it further enraged him, “‘Never told me what? That you and he… Oh, go to…!’” (81). Anatol is furious and is silent for the rest of the scene, except for one more astonishing moment when he questions Mimi for deciding to eat ice cream despite the confrontation they just went through. His masculinity is destroyed, his battle is lost, and worst of all, it all happened in front of a trusted confidant from whom he sought validation.
Schnitzler’s male characters are frequently insecure with their masculinity, and although these stories are fin-de-siècle, we can take many aspects of their crises and apply them to contemporary topics.[5] Men today still become pressured into the hegemonic masculinity that exists, even when the majority do not know it. Men can still feel embarrassed for not being able to have children or being insulted in a public setting, and while it is not the expectation that these men kill themselves to be redeemed, there are still assumptions that many members of society have about what the “correct” course of action is to follow. Schnitzler was a writer well ahead of his time and was capable of writing about issues that men had but were not openly able to talk about and since these issues are still around today, should be used as a form of insight as to what can be learned. Thameyer deals with both racial and social status insecurities and through a combination of both undertakes the difficult decision to commit suicide. Gustl, while not committing to do the same, only does so because the source of his dishonour drops dead before he does. Anatol never escapes his fears and throughout his entire life deals with crisis after crisis, including up until the day he gets married. These reactions to their masculinity being called into question is a crisis and should for all intents and purposes be considered a wake-up call for people to realize that this is a crisis that could be easily experienced by all men. Society has certainly evolved since the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. It is far more inclusive to many different genders and identities, but masculinity is still far behind the curve and Schnitzler’s works are some of the best at highlighting these issues that should continue to be addressed.
Works cited
Boehringer, Michael. “Fantasies of White Masculinity in Arthur Schnitzler’s ‘Andreas Thameyers Letzter Brief’ (1900).” The German Quarterly, vol. 84, no. 1, 2011, pp. 80–96. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41237046. Accessed 10 Dec. 2022.
Granville-Barker, Harley, and Arthur Schnitzler. Anatol: A Sequence of Dialogues by Arthur Schnitzler; Paraphrased for the English Stage by Granville Barker, Mitchell Kennerley, 1911, pp. 1–82.
Roberts, A. Clive. “The Code of Honor in ‘Fin-de-Siècle’ Austria: Arthur Schnitzler’s Rejection of the ‘Duellzwang.’” Modern Austrian Literature, vol. 25, no. 3/4, 1992, pp. 25–40. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24647985. Accessed 10 Dec. 2022.
Schnitzler, Arthur. Little Novels. Translated by Eric Sutton, Simon and Schuster, 1929, pp. 167-178.
Schnitzler, Arthur, and Margret Schaefer. “Lieutenant Gustl.” New England Review (1990-), vol. 27, no. 4, 2006, pp. 72–92. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40244888. Accessed 10 Dec. 2022.
Liam Foster was an undergraduate student at Saint Mary’s University. This work was written when he was completing his undergraduate degree.
Picture: “Masks” by Cometstarmoon on Flickr. Licensed under CC2.0. No changes have been made.
