User:Sindinero/BA/sandbox

Plot summary
Berlin Alexanderplatz takes place in Berlin in 1927 and 1928. As the novel opens, protagonist Franz Biberkopf, former cement and transport worker, has just been released from prison in Tegel, where he served four years for killing his girlfriend Ida in a jealous rage during an argument. As he rides the streetcar back into Berlin and then walks through the streets around Rosenthaler Platz, he is overcome by the sensory overload of the modern metropolis and yearns for the simplicity and monotony of prison life. To regain his bearings, he retreats into the courtyard of an apartment building and begins singing patriotic songs. A passing Jew notices Biberkopf's distraught state and brings him into his family's apartment, where he tries to calm him by telling him stories.


 * attempts to be anständig
 * Begins work as a small-time salesman
 * betrayal by Lüders, retreat
 * acquaintance with Reinhard, Pums crew
 * trading girls
 * betrayal by Reinhard
 * recovery, living with Eva and Herbert
 * meeting Mieze
 * working with Pums again
 * second betrayal by Reinhard
 * arrest, clinic detention
 * end

Style

 * montage (Bernhardt), montage elements
 * motifs (biblical, e.g.
 * narrative voice

Themes
urban modernity, crime, prostitution, homosexuality, politics, war, poverty

Reception
(suggestion for nobel?)

Adaptations
film and radio, censorship (Jelavich)

Legacy
Grossstadtroman, montage, epic writing (Fore, e.g.)