Hinkemann

When he finally has to work as an attraction at a fair, where he tears raw meat with his teeth, his personal fate becomes a bitter indictment against a society that betrays its heroes and loses its humanity. Strength and bravery, rationality and discipline, work and career. These classic male attributes were long considered the image of a man. In the role of provider for the family and characterized by patriotism and honor, there was little room for sensitivity or weakness for men in the traditional understanding of roles.

In the aftermath of the First World War, old gender roles began to falter; Women had increasingly taken on paid work during the war and the loss of physical functions, such as war injuries, often also meant the loss of male identity.


Ernst Toller wrote his tragedy about a time in which the contrasts between traditional understanding of roles and new social challenges led to a transitional period in which the definition of masculinity slowly began to change - a process that would last for decades.



(IN GERMAN)