Page - 360 - in Wien und die jüdische Erfahrung 1900-1938 - Akkulturation - Antisemitismus - Zionismus

0 Sandra Goldstein sided love story“. Indeed, Thea does not love Gordweil. She does not consider him a man or even a human being, calling him Rabbit. Most of the time he is a thing to her, later a nothing. She uses his money. She married him to pay lip service to bourgeois/ liberal society, while in fact she is antisemitic. The parallels are clear. Gordweil, on the other hand, loves her, he would do everything for her and mostly he is afraid to be rejected again. He tries to ignore the nightmarish corner of his soul and finds excuses for his wife’s behavior and betrayal, gives her the benefit of the doubt and interprets the plain facts in a special light. After she has hit him, he is always ready to run to her to appease her and ask her for forgiveness. The Jews were always grateful for their ac- ceptance into society, believing in partnership and integration and ignoring any other observation. The major difference between fiction and reality is that Gordweil is able to say at the end of the novel : “Thea ist heute nacht gestorben“ , and thus save his honor as a human being while the Jews have not been able to do so. The Modern Metropolis Yet, David Vogel’s Married Life has a larger context as a reflection of the city life where the protagonists are the representatives of the incongruous conditions, conflicting hopes and fears of 20th century modern man in a modern metropolis. The parallels between the married couple’s life and the urban portrait of modern Vienna as the op- pressor of modern man can be illustrated in a schematic way as follows : – The expectation of achieving happiness through marriage is a parallel to the “myth“ of Vienna. In the protagonist’s declarations of love the reader is led to wonder whether he is referring to the city or to his wife, as both are twofold and ambiva- lent : at once attractive and terrifying. Towards the end, the ambivalence fades, only the hatred and the imminent apocalypse is felt and takes over. – Married life is an illusion of safety, protection, happiness and hypocrisy just like city life is. – From the beginning the marriage and the metropolis carry the knowledge that the new already contains the seeds of death. – The deterioration within the marriage is a metaphor for the path of modern city life. All along, the reader feels the threat of disintegration. – The dehumanized married life is reminiscent of the turmoil and horrors of the city. External social decay is mirrored by despair, cruelty and disintegration within the Ibid., p. 444.