The Firebugs: A Learning-Play Without a Lesson: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Firebugs: A Learning-Play Without a Lesson" is a thought-provoking exploration of characters who embody themes of cowardice, self-deception, and moral failure. The central figure, Gottlieb Biedermann, represents the complacent bourgeoisie, whose adherence to societal norms leads him to ignore clear threats and ultimately enable disaster. His interactions with Sepp Schmitz, the menacing arsonist, reveal Biedermann's inability to confront reality, as he prioritizes social appearances and self-preservation over truth. Schmitz, alongside his accomplice Willi Eisenring, embodies a more sinister force, using intimidation while playing on Biedermann's misguided hospitality. Biedermann's wife, Babette, reflects the dynamics of marital submission and complicity, echoing her husband's weaknesses. The play is further enriched by a chorus of firemen that juxtaposes its serious undertones with a comic element, while a Ph.D. character introduces revolutionary rhetoric, only to abandon it in the face of chaos. Through these characters, the narrative critiques societal complacency and the consequences of willful ignorance in the face of wrongdoing.
The Firebugs: A Learning-Play Without a Lesson: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Max Frisch
First published: Biedermann und die Brandstifter, 1958 (English translation, 1959)
Genre: Play
Locale: The house of Gottlieb Biedermann, in an unidentified city
Plot: Absurdist
Time: The 1950's, but timeless
Gottlieb Biedermann, a solid citizen and the millionaire manufacturer of a dubious hair tonic. His name suggests a respectable, unimaginative bourgeois who adheres rigidly to the social and ethical standards of his class ( bieder means upright, worthy, or gullible). He accordingly believes in hanging as the proper punishment for the arsonists who are at large in the city, according to the newspapers. When a suspicious looking stranger suddenly appears in his living room, Biedermann yields without a struggle to his thinly veiled threats, face-savingly disguised as appeals to humane principles. Far from expelling the stranger, Biedermann allows him to order a meal and then to install himself in the attic. Biedermann's vaunted firmness shows itself only in the case of Knechtling, a dismissed employee with a legitimate claim, whom he drives to suicide. With the intruder, later joined by two companions, Biedermann extends his cowardice and self-deception to protecting his “guests” from police investigation, explaining that the gasoline canisters they have brought into the house contain hair tonic. Finally, he provides the matches with which the arsonists, who have barely troubled to conceal their intentions, light the fuses when the outskirts of the town are in flames. Eisenring suggests that a troubled conscience prevents him from reporting the arson-ists to the police. The dinner party that Biedermann arranges in rough proletarian style to suit Schmitz, but at which the criminals order all the appurtenances of bourgeois elegance, is an effective parable of Biedermann's compliant nature. He consistently disregards the arsonists' increasingly clear announcements of their intentions and ends. In the epilogue, in hell, he still refuses to face the plain truth. His entire existence has been founded on the assumption that words are used to conceal the truth.
Sepp Schmitz, the principal arsonist, who installs himself in Biedermann's attic. His appearance suggests a mixture of prison and circus. His aspect and manner are threatening, and in conversations with Biedermann he refers to his training as a wrestler while genially allowing Biedermann to pretend that humane feelings prompt his hospitality. Schmitz, however, expends no great efforts on the support of this pretense, and his terrorism grows more obvious as the play proceeds and as he introduces accomplices and material for arson.
Babette, Biedermann's wife, who copies her husband slav-ishly in attempting to placate Schmitz. She is assigned unpleasant tasks by her husband; for example, she has breakfast with Schmitz while Biedermann leaves the house. Her only mode of resistance is to reproach her husband for the good nature that allows him to take in strangers.
Willi Eisenring, Schmitz's accomplice, who suddenly turns up in Biedermann's attic. He wears evening dress; he was head waiter at the Metropol “until it burned down.” He joins Schmitz in intimidating Biedermann under a genial exterior. He openly works with gasoline and fuses in Biedermann's attic and utters the principle that truth is the best disguise.
Chorus of firemen, a comic attempt to clothe proceedings in the dignity of Greek tragedy.
APh.D., who turns up with a revolutionary ideology at the same time as the gasoline arrives. He repudiates his former beliefs only when the town is burning. He has little to say but makes a telling point.