Oskar Kokoschka's Murderer, the Hope of Women as a Pre-Expressionist Drama

Abstract

The article reveals an expressionist character of one of Oskar Kokoschka's dramas – Murderer, the Hope of Women. This one-act play written in 1907 deals with the issue of the conflict of the sexes that is treated as a struggle full of aggression and selfishness. Its participants are the characters of Woman and Man treated in an abstract way. They are put in a space that is also abstract, limited by a few elements of scenery: the town walls, a tower, some stairs and the floor that is rising towards the town walls. The protagonists, devoid of any individual features, are accompanied by, respectively, a group of Girls and Warriors, often appearing as personifications of the protagonists' often contrary emotions, thoughts and desires. The abstract quality of these categories of the drama, but also of the time and place, as well as the bombast of the stage images and the didactic-moral significance of Murderer, the Hope of Women, reveal its connections with the morality play. At the same time the rule of the three dramatic unities that is maintained, limiting the number of protagonists to two, its structure and the tragic nature of the drama are a proof of its dependence on the ancient tragedy.

In the content of the play there is a series of images brought to the stage as visions that are saturated by strong stage effects, such as: a murder, sexual acts, a fire, and many other light effects, difficult to achieve on the stage. The vision of a woman and a man's relations that is presented by the author is full of mutual desire, but also of the protagonists' selfishness and aggression. Both sides of the sex conflict want to be together, but this means at the same time destruction for them. In O. Kokoschka's opinion it is impossible to solve this problem. In the struggle between Woman and Man nobody can win; everybody loses.

The features of Oskar Kokoschka's drama Murderer, the Hope of Women discussed above authorize us to call the text an expressionist one.