“Traveler, when you come to Spa...” The key motive of the story is “the dead” and “the rest” - as a human tragedy

However, Böll shortens the word "Sparta" to "Spa...", which is a reference to the Belgian municipality of Spa, which housed the German command's office during the previous World War I. From which it follows that Böll seeks to show the Second World War as a repetition of history.

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Notes

Literature

• Manuel Baumbach: Wanderer, kommst du nach Sparta. Zur Rezeption eines Simonides-Epigramms. In: Poetica 32 (2000) Issue 1/2, pp. 1-22.
• Klaus Jeziorkowski: Die Ermordung der Novelle. Zu Heinrich Bolls Erzählung In: Heinrich Boll. Zeitschrift der koreanischen Heinrich Böll-Gesellschaft. 1st ed. (2001), pp. 5-19.
• David J. Parent: Böll's "Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa". A Reply to Schiller’s “Der Spaziergang”. In: Essays in Literature 1 (1974), pp. 109-117.
• J. H. Reid: Heinrich Böll, “Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa...” Klassische deutsche Kurzgeschichten. Interpretation. Stuttgart 2004, pp. 96-106.
• Gabriel Sander: “Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa...”. In: Werner Bellmann (Pub.): Heinrich Boll. Romane und Erzählungen. Interpretation. Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-15-017514-3, pp. 44-52.
• Bernhard Sowinski: Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa…. In: Bernhard Sowinski: Heinrich Boll. Kurzgeschichten. Oldenbourg, München 1988, ISBN 3-486-88612-6, pp. 38-51.
• Albrecht Weber: “Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa...”. In: Interpretationen zu Heinrich Böll verfaßt von einem Arbeitskreis. Kurzgeschichten I. 6th ed. Munich 1976, pp. 42-65.

An excerpt characterizing the Traveler, when you come to Spa...

The note submitted by Bennigsen about the need for an offensive, and the information from the Cossacks about the uncovered left flank of the French were only the last signs of the need to order an offensive, and the offensive was scheduled for October 5th.
On the morning of October 4, Kutuzov signed the disposition. Tol read it to Yermolov, inviting him to take care of further orders.
“Okay, okay, I don’t have time now,” said Ermolov and left the hut. The disposition compiled by Tol was very good. Just like in the Austerlitz disposition, it was written, although not in German:
“Die erste Colonne marschiert [The first column goes (German)] this way and that, die zweite Colonne marschiert [the second column goes (German)] this way and that way,” etc. And all these columns on paper they came to their place at the appointed time and destroyed the enemy. Everything was, as in all dispositions, perfectly thought out, and, as in all dispositions, not a single column arrived at its time and in its place.
When the disposition was ready in the required number of copies, an officer was called and sent to Ermolov to hand over the papers to him for execution. A young cavalry officer, Kutuzov’s orderly, pleased with the importance of the assignment given to him, went to Ermolov’s apartment.
“We’ve left,” answered Yermolov’s orderly. The cavalry officer went to the general, who often visited Ermolov.
- No, and there is no general.
The cavalry officer, sitting on horseback, rode to another.
- No, they left.
“How could I not be responsible for the delay! What a shame! - thought the officer. He toured the entire camp. Some said that they saw Ermolov go somewhere with other generals, some said that he was probably home again. The officer, without having lunch, searched until six o'clock in the evening. Ermolov was nowhere and no one knew where he was. The officer quickly had a snack with a comrade and went back to the vanguard to see Miloradovich. Miloradovich was also not at home, but then he was told that Miloradovich was at General Kikin’s ball, and that Yermolov must also be there.
- Where is it?
“Over there, in Echkino,” said the Cossack officer, pointing to a distant landowner’s house.
- What’s it like there, behind the chain?
- They sent two of our regiments into a chain, there is such a revelry going on there now, it’s a disaster! Two musics, three choirs of songwriters.
The officer went behind the chain to Echkin. From afar, approaching the house, he heard the friendly, cheerful sounds of a soldier’s dancing song.
“In the meadows, ah... in the meadows!..” - he heard him whistling and clanking, occasionally drowned out by the shouting of voices. The officer felt joyful in his soul from these sounds, but at the same time he was afraid that he was to blame for not transmitting the important order entrusted to him for so long. It was already nine o'clock. He dismounted from his horse and entered the porch and entrance hall of a large, intact manor house, located between the Russians and the French. In the pantry and in the hallway footmen were bustling around with wines and dishes. There were songbooks under the windows. The officer was led through the door, and he suddenly saw all the most important generals of the army together, including the large, noticeable figure of Ermolov. All the generals were in unbuttoned frock coats, with red, animated faces and were laughing loudly, standing in a semicircle. In the middle of the hall, a handsome short general with a red face was smartly and deftly making a thrasher.
- Ha, ha, ha! Oh yes Nikolai Ivanovich! ha, ha, ha!..
The officer felt that by entering at this moment with an important order, he was doubly guilty, and he wanted to wait; but one of the generals saw him and, having learned what he was for, told Ermolov. Ermolov, with a frowning face, went out to the officer and, after listening, took the paper from him without telling him anything.
- Do you think he left by accident? - a staff comrade said to a cavalry officer about Ermolov that evening. - These are things, it’s all on purpose. Give Konovnitsyn a ride. Look, what a mess it will be tomorrow!

The next day, early in the morning, the decrepit Kutuzov got up, prayed to God, got dressed, and with the unpleasant consciousness that he had to lead a battle that he did not approve of, got into a carriage and drove out of Letashevka, five miles behind Tarutin, to the place where the advancing columns were to be assembled. Kutuzov rode, falling asleep and waking up and listening to see if there were shots on the right, if business had begun? But everything was still quiet. The damp and cloudy dawn was just beginning. autumn day. Approaching Tarutin, Kutuzov noticed cavalrymen leading their horses to water across the road along which the carriage was traveling. Kutuzov took a closer look at them, stopped the carriage and asked which regiment? The cavalrymen were from the column that should have been far ahead in ambush. “It might be a mistake,” thought the old commander-in-chief. But, having driven even further, Kutuzov saw infantry regiments, guns in their trestles, soldiers with porridge and firewood, in their underpants. An officer was called. The officer reported that there was no order to move.

And I loved this work. This has been a difficult piece since 11th grade. Or 10? I tried to understand the meaning of every word, every detailed image. And I am grateful to the people who answered the questions that I still have. Full review under the cut, so as not to stretch your feed.

We chose as the subject of this study tragic work Heinrich Böll “Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa...” (“Traveler, if you come to Spa...”), written after the war, in 1950. G. Böll manages to hide in subtext much of what should have been in the text. The title itself is alarming: an unfinished word and three dots. Only after reading the story to the end can you understand that this chopped off phrase contains the deepest meaning.

The plot of the story is simple. The war is already on the territory of Germany, wounded soldiers are brought to a small town and placed in the drawing room of one of the gymnasiums. In the corner of the hall, behind a blackboard and a white sheet, there is a first aid station (maybe just a dressing room). Hero of the story (protagonist) - former schoolboy, who three months ago was sent from the last class of the gymnasium not to the front, to defend his fatherland. While still in the car he hears:
Die Toten hierhin, hörst du? Und die anderen die Treppe hinauf in den Zeichensaal.
The dead go into the courtyard, and the others go upstairs to the drawing room.

Consequently, yesterday’s schoolboy, crippled by the war, found himself among others, among the living. Neither he nor the reader know yet how seriously wounded he is. The soldier feels unbearable pain in his arms and right leg. Only at the end of the story do we learn that the teenager’s injury is incompatible with life.

We find the hidden meaning in the second paragraph in the simplest phrase:
Aber ich war noch nicht tot, ich gehörte zu den anderen.
But I was not dead yet, I belonged to others.
The intensifying adverb noch (intensifying particle) and the fact that the narrator talks about himself in the past tense make the interpreter and the reader think deeply. G. Böll describes the school props, that gallery of portraits and busts that decorate the corridors and staircases, and which the high school student notices while lying on a stretcher. The author imposes on us compositional construction difficult optics, listing these items and returning to many of them again in the hero’s thoughts.

The first thing yesterday's schoolboy saw was a portrait of Medea in a black frame. We activate our memory and get a lot of associations: Medea, who killed her brother, her rival, her two children, does not accidentally open this gallery of portraits. The motherland is recklessly killing its children. Next is a reproduction of the sculpture “Boy Taking out a Splinter” in a brown frame. This is also a symbol; the underlying plot image and the color of the frame speak for themselves.
The young man’s eyes see this entire gallery of portraits in the order in which they hung in his school, but only his eyes note this order, his heart is silent. He knows that other schools have the same instructions: after Medea and the Boy, there is a mandatory series of portraits, starting with the Great Elector and ending with Hitler. Next come Rassengesichter. The location of the Nietzsche portrait in a gilded frame is surprisingly precisely determined. It hangs upstairs, almost at the entrance to the drawing room, where philosophy is studied. The deeper meaning is that the young man sees only a mustache and nose, because the second half of his face is covered with a hastily written note: Leichte Chirurgie.
Indeed, there are two sides to Nietzsche’s teachings: subtle criticism of his era with all its shortcomings and vices and the cult of the “superman,” which was the ideological justification of the misanthropic theory of fascism, although Nietzsche is not as primitive as the fascists.
It should be noted that none of the modern German interpreters dwells on the obvious facts of Böll's associations, on the true meaning of the “half-pasted” Nietzsche and other “heroes” of the gallery. Their associations, unfortunately, boil down only to the Pandemonium of Babel.
A little earlier, the young man sees portraits and busts of the great Romans, the “face” of Zeus, and brings up the rear of this entire group with Hermessäule. Hermes in Greek myths is the patron of roads, merchants, thieves, but most importantly, he accompanies the dead to the kingdom of darkness. And again a hint for us, which the author hides in the subtext. We capture that expansive view of what is happening, which the author expresses in portrait images.

The schoolboy’s thoughts turn to the monument to the dead students, which stands in the corridor; he assumes that his name will be carved on stone, and in the school album it will be written:
...zog von der Schule ins Feld und fiel für... Aber ich wusste nicht wofür...
...left school for the front and fell for... But I still didn’t know why.
There is no subtext here, everything is open, everything is obvious, only what is noted is that the hero speaks about himself in the third person. While waiting for medical help, our hero smokes a cigarette twice, which is lit and put in his mouth by a man in a fireman's uniform, who also brings him a pot of water. Here he learns that they were all brought to the city of Bendorf, his hometown. But there are three humanitarian gymnasiums in Bendorf, and the hero does not know which of them this hospital will be located in. G. Böll names the Frederick the Great Gymnasium, the Albertus Gymnasium and, of course, the Adolf Hitler Gymnasium, which previously bore completely different names.
Ich war auf der Schule des Alten Fritz gewesen, ach Jahre lang...
I studied at Old Fritz’s gymnasium for eight years...
The pre-past (long past) tense indicates that our hero will never return to his school as a student. WITH eyes closed the young soldier thinks, addressing himself in the second person:
Du musst doch herauskriegen, was du für eine Verwundung hast und ob du in deiner alten Schule bist.
You need to find out what kind of injury you received, and that you are lying in your old school.

Mentally many times the hero repeats in parts and in reverse order all those faces that adorn the humanitarian gymnasium. There is no place here for Goethe, Schiller and those great German humanists who were and are the flower of the nation.
The story is coming to an end. The young man is carried to that corner behind the school board, where he will meet with a doctor. He recalls that a cross once hung above the door to the hall when the school was still named after St. Thomas, but in modern times another cross (Hakenkreuz - swastika) dominated.
The Christian cross was removed, but its outline remained, no matter how much it was painted over, it remained in place, and the budget apparently did not allow repainting the entire hall, choosing the right color. We understand that this sign of mercy and kindness remained in the hall at all times, and the Nazis were unable to erase what they wanted to erase. Once on the table, the wounded soldier sees himself in a huge lamp, he sees a bloody narrow bag wie ein außergewöhnlich subtiler Embrio: das war also ich da oben.

Suddenly our hero became even more frightened, his heart began to beat, because he saw on the blackboard a saying written in his own hand in different fonts: Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa... This was an assignment from the art teacher. Seven times in seven fonts the student had to write the first part of the saying (“Traveler, if you come to Sparta”), but he did not correctly calculate the length of the board, and the phrase turned out to be chopped off. The teacher cursed and tried to write it himself for the seventh time. But the result was the same.
Now we understand the author's intention. Sparta as an aristocratic militant state Ancient Greece was a model for the fascists, but their aspirations to build something similar will not be realized, even if they put all the teenagers of their country on the altar of their ideas. And, besides, the phrase carved on a monument in Greece in honor of the death of three hundred Spartans who defended their homeland from the Persians at Thermopylae testifies to self-sacrifice. This should teach young Germans about sacrifice for the sake of the fatherland.

Translated by Friedrich Schiller into German the full text reads like this:
Wanderer, kommst du nach Sparta, verkündige dorten, du habest uns hier liegen gesehn, wie das
Gesetz es befahl.
In Russian translation this saying sounds like this:
Traveler, take the news to all the citizens of Lacedaemon*, having honestly fulfilled the law, here we lie in the grave [Sergeev 1973: 222].

The meaning of this patriotic phrase was hammered into the minds and hearts of young Germans at every opportunity. The art teacher’s task can be associated with the biblical legend about the creation of the world: God worked for six days and rested on the seventh. Six times the student wrote an unfinished phrase on the board, on the seventh time the teacher wrote it, but their labors were in vain. And if you count the years of Germany’s war against Europe and Russia, you will also get the number seven, which is considered sacred. Böll said all this, but he said it indirectly, subtly, in subtext, forcing us to peer into words, images and situations.

The figure of the fireman cannot be ignored. This is Birgeler, whom the former student recognizes only at the last moment. His position at the Hausmeister school, in our understanding, is supply manager, commandant. There, in the schoolyard in his dimly lit closet, he distributed milk to the students, where they ate their sandwiches and could even secretly smoke a cigarette. He was their patron. Birgeler appeared in the drawing room several times, he brought water to the wounded soldier, lit a cigarette for him, but we do not know whether he recognized the schoolboy who only three months ago ran past all the mentioned portraits down to where Medea hung to eat his sandwich and get milk.
Now our soldier, freed from the bandages, wanted to rise, but could not:
Ich zuckte hoch... ich wollte mich aufstützen, aber ich konnte es nicht: ich blickte an mir herab und nun sah ich es: sie hatten mich ausgewickelt, und ich hatte keine Arme mehr, auch kein rechtes Bein mehr...ich schrie ...
I twitched... I wanted to lean on it, but I couldn’t: I looked at myself and saw this: they unbandaged me, and I no longer had both arms and my right leg... I screamed...

The fireman held the young man tightly by the shoulders, and he could no longer see the board, but at that moment he recognized Birgeler. Where are the teachers, we ask ourselves, who drilled their ideas into children? Only this simple man was nearby. It is also symbolic that he was dressed in a fireman’s uniform, and that only he tried to do at least something for everyone lying in this room. Last words story:
"Milch", sagte ich leise...
“Milk,” I said quietly...

Milk is a vital product for everyone, especially children. This child asks for milk, although we understand that he will live until the syringe wears off. The three dots at the end of the story are also not accidental. Böll makes us think, think, generalize and draw conclusions.
So, external action in the story does not play the main role, although the event sphere is recreated reliably. However, without a background, without repetitions, without an internal monologue, without associations and variations, without deep reflection, it is impossible to understand the depth of what is happening and the author’s method.
The entire story is built on the development of the background; almost every phrase puts the reader and researcher in a special position, forcing him to participate in what is happening, to think out, to build associative series. The conclusion suggests itself that G. Böll’s subtext is a pre-prepared phenomenon that we tried to interpret and convey to the reader.

*Lacedaemon is another designation for Sparta.

Annual All-Russian Scientific Conference of Pupils, Students and Young Scientists “SCIENTIFIC CREATIVITY OF THE XXI CENTURY” (February 2009)

The car stopped, but the engine was still purring; where a large gate opened. Then the engine fell silent, and a voice came from outside:

The dead are here, have you heard? And the rest go up the stairs to the drawing room, understand?

Yes, yes, I understand.

But I was not dead, I belonged to the others, and they carried me upstairs.

First they walked along a long, dimly lit corridor, with green, painted oil paint walls.

From the darkness of the corridor, doors with signs 6-A and 6-B emerged; between those doors hung Feuerbach’s “Medea”. Then there were doors with other signs, between them - “Boy, takes out thorns” - a pink photo with a reddish tint in a brown frame. And on the staircase, on the wall painted yellow, they all stood proud - from the Great Elector to Hitler.

A portrait of old Fritz floated past in a sky-blue uniform, an example of the Aryan breed. Then everything else appeared: a bust of Caesar, Cicero and Marcus Aurelius, a column with a horn for Hermes, on the left in a gold frame - a mustache and the tip of Nietzsche’s nose (the rest of the portrait was covered with the inscription “Minor Surgery”) ... “And before the orderlies began to go to the third floor , I managed to see it too - a table intertwined with a fireplace laurel wreath with the names of the fallen, with a large gold Iron Cross at the top.”

If now, it flashed in my head, if now... Yes, here it is, I’ve already seen it - that landscape, large and bright, flat, like an old engraving... in the foreground there is a large bunch of bananas, on the middle one there was something scratched , I saw the inscription, because, it seems, I scribbled it myself...

I was taken into the drawing room, above the door of which hung an image of Zeus; it smelled of iodine, feces, gauze and tobacco, and it was noisy. All this, I thought, is not yet proof. Finally, in every gymnasium there are drawing rooms, corridors with green and yellow walls, and finally, the fact that “Medea” hangs between 6-A and 6-B is not proof that I am in my school. “... Not a single feeling tells you that you are in your native school, which you left only three months ago... My heart did not respond to me.”

I spat out the cigarette and screamed: when you scream, it becomes easier, you just have to scream louder, screaming felt so good, I screamed like crazy. I asked for a drink and another cigarette, in my pocket, at the top. They brought me water, only then did I open my eyes and see an old, tired face, a firefighter’s uniform, and the spirit of onions and tobacco wafted over me...

Where are we? - I asked.

In Bendorfi.

“Thank you,” I said and took a drag.

Perhaps I’m in Bendorfi, that is, at home.

There are three classical gymnasiums in Bendorfi: the Frederick the Great Gymnasium, the Albert Gymnasium and (maybe it would be better not to say this), but the last, third one is the Adolf Hitler Gymnasium.

Now I heard heavy guns hitting everywhere. The guns beat confidently and measuredly, like solemn organ music. Just like in the war, which they write about in books with pictures... Suddenly it occurred to me that my name would be on the table of the fallen, carved into stone, and in the school calendar next to my name it would be written “I left school for the front and died.” for...” But I still didn’t know why, I didn’t know for sure yet, I was at my school, I wanted to find out something about it now.

I spat out the cigarette into the passage between Solomyanik and tried to push my hands away, but I felt such pain that I screamed again.

Finally, a doctor stood in front of me, looked at me silently, he looked at me for so long that I averted my eyes. Behind him stood a fireman who gave me something to drink. He whispered in the doctor’s ear...

Wait a minute, it's your turn soon...

I closed my eyes again and thought: you must, you must find out what kind of wound you have and that you are really in your school. Everything here was so alien and indifferent to me, as if I had been brought to some museum cities of the dead, into a world that is deeply alien to me and uninteresting. No, it couldn’t be that only three months had passed since I was drawing vases and writing fonts here, and during the breaks I slowly went downstairs - past Nietzsche, Hermes, Togo, past Caesar, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius and went to Birgeler’s watchman to drink milk - in a small, dim closet.

So the orderlies lifted me up and carried me behind the board, and I saw another sign: here, above the door, there was once a cross, as the gymnasium was also called the School of St. Thomas; The cross was then removed, but a fresh dark yellow mark remained on the wall, so expressive that it was, perhaps, even better visible than the old man himself, a small, thin cross. Then, in their hearts, they repainted the entire wall, and the painter was unable to match the paint, and the cross appeared again. They argued and nothing helped. The cross was visible, you could even see the trace of the beech branch that the watchman Birgeler had attached when it was still allowed to attach crosses to schools...

So they put me on the operating table and I saw my reflection in the light of a light bulb. The heavy fireman stood in front of the board and smiled at me, he smiled tiredly and sadly. And suddenly, behind his shoulders, on the unerased other side of the board, I saw something that made my heart beat in my chest - there was an inscription on the board in my hand. Everything else was not yet proof: neither “Medea”, nor Nietzsche, nor Dinaric’s profile of the Verkhovinsky from the film, nor bananas from Togo, nor even the cross above the door, all this could have been according to all other schools. But it’s unlikely that other schools would write on the boards with my hand. There it is, still there, that expression that we were told to write then, in that hopeless life that ended only three months ago: “Traveler, when you come to Spa...” Oh, I remember how I accepted the oversized letters and the art teacher shouted. It was written there seven times – in my script, in Latin, Gothic, italic, Roman, Italian and rock: “Traveler, when you come to Spa...”

I jerked, feeling a prick in my left thigh, I wanted to rise to my elbows and could not, but I managed to look at myself and saw - they had already unwound me - that I had no both arms, no right leg, that’s why I immediately fell on my back, Since I now had nothing to rely on, I screamed; and the doctor just shrugged his shoulders, I wanted to look at the board again, but the fireman was now standing very close to me and was replacing it; he held me tightly by the shoulders, and I heard only the spirit of smoldering and dirt emanating from his uniform, saw only his tired, sorrowful face, and suddenly I recognized him: it was Birgeler.

“Milk,” I said quietly.

Heinrich Belle Traveler, when you come to Spa...

The story is told in the first person.

The car stopped. The voice commanded that those who were still alive be carried to the drawing room. There were painted walls on the sides, signs on the doors, and a photo from the sculpture between them. Next is a column, a sculpture, photographs. And on the small platform where we stopped there was a portrait of Friedrich. Then the hero was carried between Aryan faces and reached the next platform, where there was a monument to the warrior. They carried it quickly, but the hero had the thought that he had seen this somewhere. This is probably due to poor health. Further down the corridor there were three busts of emperors, and at the end of the corridor, above the entrance to the drawing room, hung a mask of Zeus. And again there are signs on the doors, a painting by Nietzsche. The hero foresaw what should appear next. And indeed, he saw a map of Togo. He was carried into the drawing room, which had been converted into a surgery, and given a cigarette. The hero consoled himself with the fact that everything he saw could be in any gymnasium.

He felt no pain. He began to think that he was in the same gymnasium that he graduated from eight years ago. But how could he end up here, she’s far away. Closing his eyes, he again saw the whole string of objects. And he screamed. They again gave him a cigarette and told him that he was in Bendorf, and therefore at home. And he could say with confidence that he was at the gymnasium. They gave him water, but not much. There was little water, the city was burning. The hero looked around and realized that he was in the drawing room of a classical gymnasium. But there are three of them in the city, which one exactly. Artillery salvos could be heard outside the window. The hero began to continue examining the drawing room. His feeling did not tell him that he was in his native gymnasium. He began to remember how he learned to draw and write fonts. It was boring and nothing worked for him. And now he was lying and could not move his arms. He did not remember how he was wounded, and screamed again. The doctor and fireman looked at him. Then they took someone who was lying nearby and carried him behind a sheet, behind which a bright light was burning. The hero closed his eyes again and began to remember his school years. Everything here seemed cold and alien. The orderlies took the stretcher with the hero and carried him behind the blackboard, behind the sheet, where the light was on. And he noticed another coincidence, a mark from a cross above the door. Near the operating table stood a doctor and a fireman who smiled sadly. The hero saw his image in the lamp, and turning his head, froze. On the scribbled side of the board, he saw an inscription in calligraphic handwriting: “Traveler, when you come to Spa...”. It was his handwriting. Nothing he had seen before could be proof. And now he remembered how several times he tried to write this phrase, and each time he did not have enough space on the board. At that moment he was given an injection in the thigh, and he tried to get up, but could not lean. Having examined himself, he discovered that he had been unswaddled, and he no longer had his arms and right leg. He screamed. The doctor and fireman looked at him in horror and held him. He recognized the fireman as the janitor of his school and quietly asked for milk.

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Plan

1. G. Bell - “the conscience of the German nation.”

2. The title of the story, its composition.

3. The hero’s perception of the world around him. Characteristics of the hero.

4. Symbols in the work.

Task for the preparatory period

1. See the stages of identification by the hero of your native school. 2. Let's define the symbols in the work.

Literature

1. Verenko L. The tragedy of the Second World War in the works of G. Böll // Foreign literature. - 2005. - No. 5 (405) - P. 7-8.

2. Belle G. Materials for the study of creativity. // World literature. - 1998. - No. 5. - P. 12-18.

3. Gladyshev V. Study of the works of G. Bell. 11th grade // Foreign literature. - 2005. - No. 5 (405). - P. 3-7.

4. Gordina L. Condemnation of the inhumane essence of war in G. Bell’s story “Traveler, when you come to Spa...” // Foreign literature. - 2005. - No. 5 (405). - P. 9-11.

5. Goridko Yu. The theme of war in the works of G. Bell. 11th grade // Foreign literature. - 2005. - No. 5 (405). - P. 1-3.

6. Zatonsky D. A separate and independent humanity. // Foreign literature. - 2000. - No. 17 (177). - P. 3-6.

7. Chess K. G. Belle // Foreign literature. - 2003. - No. 10. - P. 21-23.

8. Yupin L. Philological analysis literary text G. Bell's story "Traveler, when you come to Spa..." 11th grade. // Foreign literature. - 2005. - pp. 12-13.

9. Loboda A.P."The only thing that matters is being human." Lesson on the novel by A. Camus “The Plague”. 11th grade // Foreign literature. - 2000. - No. 1. - P. 13-18.

10. Goridko Yu. Studying the work of A. Camus // "ZL". - 2005. - No. 3 (403). - P. 5-16.

11. Marchenko Zh.“The absurdity of life is not the end at all, but only the beginning” (Sartre) (Based on the novel “The Plague” by A. Camus) // “ZL”. - 2005. - No. 3 (403). - pp. 17-20.

12. Nagornaya A. Yu. Understanding the writer’s creative style through the prism of philosophical ideas. Based on the novel “The Plague” by Camus // World Literature. - 2005. - No. 6. - P. 61-64.

Instructional and methodological materials

Heinrich Bell is one of the most famous writers post-war Germany. He had to live during a difficult period in the history of his country, when brutal wars determined the existence of entire generations of Germans. The tragedy of the nation did not spare the writer and his family; The writer's father served as a soldier in the First World War. Henry himself fought on the fronts of World War II for six years. Tragic front-line events and their cruelty determined the meaning of the artist’s life and work. Towards the end of his life, Belle opposed the war as a man, a German and a writer. During the Second World War, having arrived at the terrible front (Eastern) in the summer of 1843, he ended up on the territory of Ukraine. The names of cities and villages of this region remained forever in his memory: Galicia, Volyn, Zaporozhye, Lvov, Cherkassy, ​​Odessa, Kherson and many others. They became a symbol of German defeats and numerous deaths.

War in Bell's works is a war of the vanquished. It depicts its last period - the period of retreat and defeat. However, just like Remarque and Hemingway, Bell was interested in people in war.

The plot is based on the gradual identification of a young wounded soldier with the gymnasium where he studied for eight years and left three months ago.

The genre is short story. It is considered to be an example of psychological prose, because:

o a lot of reflections by the hero about the meaning of life in the composition of the story;

o the story is told in the first person;

o principle of contrast;

o the basis of the narrative is the process of the hero’s identification of his own gymnasium (past) and awareness of his future life;

o psychological details (table with the names of the fallen, writing on the board)

o psychological symbolism;

Features of the story composition

1. G. Bell constructed the plot in a somewhat unusual way so that the characters could reveal themselves to the readers themselves, without the author’s interpretations.

2. In G. Bell, the “I” is hidden behind various human characters and the writer himself almost never stood behind it.

3. The action in the work unfolded either through the dialogues of the characters, or through their monologues, stories about the events they witnessed.

5. The hero of the story is only a victim of war, because he did not commit any crimes.

6. The story is constructed in the form of a monologue, a confessional revelation of the soul of the protagonist, in which the reader always heard, to a greater or lesser extent, the voice of the author himself.

Quite strange and incomprehensible at first glance, a name that reeked of antiquity. This phrase is the beginning of an ancient Greek couplet-epitaph about the battle in Thermopylae Gorge, where the Spartan warriors of King Leonidas died defending their homeland. It sounded like this: “Tell, traveler, to the Macedonians that together we lie here dead, faithful to our given word.” the author was Simonides of Keos. These lines were known even in the time of Schiller, who translated the above-mentioned verse. Since Germany became an empire, it has identified itself with harmonious antiquity. Service to the empire was sanctified by the idea of ​​the justice of the wars for which the school prepared German youths, although these wars could only be predatory. The poem about the Battle of Thermopylae is an old formula for heroism in a just war. It was in this spirit that German youth were brought up before and during the Second World War. It is no coincidence that the key phrase appears on the blackboard of a German gymnasium; it reflected the essence of the education system in Germany at that time, built on arrogance and deception.

The main problem of the work is “a man at war,” an ordinary, simple, ordinary person. Belle seemed to deliberately not give his hero a name, depriving him of expressive individual characteristics, emphasizing the individual character of the image.

The hero, having got to his native gymnasium, did not recognize her at first. This process occurs in several stages - from recognition with the eyes to recognition with the heart.

First stage. The wounded hero was carried into the gymnasium, where the medical aid station is now located, carried through the first floor, the landing, and the second floor, where there were drawing rooms. The hero felt nothing. He asked twice where they were now and witnessed how the dead soldiers were separated from the living and placed somewhere in the basements of the school. After some time, he observed how those who were caught alive were soon taken down - that is, to the dead. The school basement turned into a mortuary. So, school is a home of childhood, joy, laughter and school - " dead house", dead. This terrible transformation is in no way accidental. The school, which prepared students for death with its entire educational system, was supposed to become a morgue.

Second stage.“My heart did not respond to me,” the hero of the story stated, even when he saw a very important sign: a cross hung above the door of the drawing room; at that time the gymnasium was still called the school of St. Thomas. And no matter how much they sketched it, it should still remain.

Third stage. The soldier was placed on the operating table. AND Suddenly, behind the doctor’s shoulders on the board, the hero saw something that made his heart respond for the first time since he was in this “dead house.” On the board was written, made by his hand. This culmination of the story, the culmination of identification, took place at the end of the work and is concentrated in the statement “which we were then told to write, in that hopeless life that ended just three months ago...”. The moment of identification in the story coincided with the moment the hero realized what had happened to him: he was missing both arms and his right leg. This is how the educational system that “they” established in the gymnasium of St. Thomas ended (a Christian gymnasium, one of the postulates of which was probably like the biblical commandment: “Thou shalt not kill!”).

The German writer actually disparaged fascism as a phenomenon. His heroes - soldiers, corporals, sergeant majors, chief lieutenants - simple servants, executors of someone else's will, did not find the strength to resist fascism, and therefore they themselves suffered to a certain extent from their involvement in its crimes. No, Belle did not justify them - he sympathized with them as people.

Bell's little story "Traveler, when you come to Spa..." is permeated with enormous anti-war pathos. It spoke of the denial not only of fascism, but also of any war.

The plot of the story is structured as a gradual recognition by the main character, a young crippled soldier, of the gymnasium in which he studied for eight years and which he left only three months ago, when he was sent straight from his school desk to the front.

Describing in detail the props of the gymnasium of the then fascist Germany, Bell suggested to the reader that such props corresponded to a certain system of education and, in this case, the education of racism, national exclusivity, and militancy.

Glancing over all the paintings and sculptures, the hero remained indifferent; everything here is “foreign” to him. AND Only when he got to the operating table, which was located in the drawing room, did he recognize the inscription on the board made by his hand: “Traveler, when will you come to Spa... At that same moment, he realized his condition. This is how the education system ended, which “they” (the fascists) installed in the gymnasium of St. Thomas. The school, which taught to kill, itself turned into a corpse house (dead soldiers were stored in the basements).

It is no coincidence that the teacher forced him to write on the blackboard exactly the ancient Greek couplet of Simonides of Keos about the battle of 300 courageous Spartan warriors at Thermopylae against the conquering Persians. A poem about this battle is an old formula for heroism in a just war. Every single one of the Spartans died defending their homeland.

The fascists, in a pharisaical manner, sought to “identify” themselves with the Spartans. By killing the idea of ​​just wars in the minds of young people, preparing them for a heroic death, fascist ideologists, in fact, were preparing “cannon fodder” for Hitler, which was so necessary for him to carry out his anti-human intentions.

However, the world recognized the heroism of the brave warriors of Sparta, and it also condemned Hitlerism, rebelling against it and destroying it through joint efforts.

Symbolism of the WORK

The main idea of ​​the work

The author convinced that war should not happen again, man was born for life, not for death, it is called to build, to create beauty, and not to destroy the world in which he lives, because by destroying environment, she first of all destroyed herself, because man is responsible for the fate of the world.