Olalla (short story)

Olalla (English Olalla ) is a narrative of the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson, who at Christmas 1885 in the British literary magazine The Court and Society Review, and in 1887 in the collection The great men and other stories ( engl. The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables ) was published by Chatto & Windus.

Content

During the Spanish War of Independence, the anonymous narrator, a Scottish officer was wounded in the battle against Napoleonic troops. The attending Spanish doctor has done his best and recommends that the convalescent stay in the mountains; more precisely, in the Residencia an impoverished noble family.

The Señor Comandante, as the Scot is dubbed by the Spaniards, following the medical advice and is picked up by Felipe, the son of the anonymous Señora, that the lady of the house. At the Residencia, the Comandante befriends the apparently feeble-minded boys. Felipe has from time to temper tantrums can be both vengeful and forgiving; short, the boy is unpredictable.

The Lady, the last scion of a princely house, lost years before the start of the action father of her two children in circumstances that remain unknown to the narrator. Mostly, the lady of the house sitting in the sun and dreamy day; " Lush wrapped in themselves and sunk in sloth and lust. " While the narrator of this woman is not really smart, but you finally met benevolently. The Señora caresses once even the guest furtively hand.

One day a man cries in the house so terribly like an animal. The comandante, whether he likes it or not, has to go to the phenomenon on the ground, but can not. They locked him. Requires the following day and he gets by Felipe room key.

The next day, the guest Olalla met - this is the lovely daughter of the house. The beautiful girl is like obviously the person on a historical portrait of a lady that hangs in the rooms of the Comandante beside the bed and Olalla resembles again not the old portrait. The Scot falls in love with the young Spaniard. For this is the woman he always coveted. The comandante has a strong sense - Olalla will return his affection.

Error. On unequivocal transfer of the beloved he should still leave the Residencia on the same day. As the Scot reaches out his arms and calls her name, Olalla rushes up to him and hugs him. Then she pushes him back and soon afterwards renewed their rejection in writing. In desperation, the spurned lover brings in a deep cut on the window of his room. He asks the Lady to a emergency bandage. The mother Olallas bites the injured down to the bone in the hand. When these terrible screams from the mouth of the hostess sound again immediately after Beißattacke, white Comandante know. Olalla does the urgent medical help. The Lady cries for a long time.

The Scot says Olalla his love. When he is rejected again, sets him apart Olalla their reasons. The ancestress on the image next to the bed of the guest had long ago evil [A 1] done. The subsequent degeneration of her noble family is not to be overlooked to Felipe and the mother. Therefore Olalla would waive offspring.

The comandante leaves the Residencia, was as important to him, but remains in the vicinity of the property. So it comes to a last meeting of the lovers. The officer wants Olalla take to Scotland - in spite of everything. The Virgin renounced.

Form

While mental illness Felipe is worked out carefully -plastic in the first third, on the other hand falls in the second period from the appropriate characterization of the Lady and the last third of the readers from the 21st century, the intrusive feels pathos Olallas disturbing.

Reception

  • Wirz Berger admired around Stevenson's convincing portrayal of the Spanish mountain landscape around the Residencia and certifies the Author " masterfully crafted horror ".
  • Dölvers emphasizes the assets Stevenson to design vivid sequences, admittedly repeated a number of standard situations. For example, the hero is locked door in Des Sire de Malétroit. I design at Stevenson preparatory character to the final formation of the overall message of the text. For example, the Scot appears by the image of the ancestress beside his bed soon paralyzed and the " bestial sensuality " of the Lady puts the hero even in a kind of trance, which raises fears of coming disaster.

German -language literature

Expenditure

  • Robert Louis Stevenson: Olalla. An adventurous story. ( Europe - Books, Volume 11, bilingual) Foreign languages ​​Society Munich to 1950. 167 pages.
  • Robert Louis Stevenson: Olalla. Pp. 52-105. ( Translator: Barbara Cramer ) in Robert Louis Stevenson: The enigmatic life. Master narratives. (Des Sire de Malétroit door. Markheim. Olalla. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The crooked Janet. John Nicholson's ill-fated adventure. Welcome from the mill. , The pavilion on the dunes ) afterword by Karl -Heinz Wirz Berger. Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Leipzig 1953, 400 pages. [A 2]

Secondary literature

  • Horst Dölvers: The narrator Robert Louis Stevenson. Interpretations. Francke Verlag, Bern 1969, ISBN no. 200 pages
  • Michael Reinbold: Robert Louis Stevenson. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1995, ISBN 3-499-50488- X.
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
615666
de