"Amok", S. Zweig: summary, storyline, reviews

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Story within a story was Stefan Zweig's favorite literary device. In the short story "Amok" the main plot is the story told to the protagonist by a stranger. A story within a story, or, as it is also called, the “matryoshka principle”, Zweig used in “Impatience of the Heart”, “Letter from a Stranger” and a number of his other works.

March 1912. An incident occurs in the port of Naples, which European newspapers will write about a few days later. What exactly happened, the reader will find out later, after the main character becomes aware of the story of a man who suffered from a mental illness called amok. Zweig did not give the main character a name. However, the narrator is not the central character. The main character is a doctor who is mad with love.

A chapter-by-chapter summary of Zweig's Amok cannot be presented. The author did not divide his work into parts. The following is the content of Stefan Zweig's "Amok" according to the following plan:

1. On deck.
2. Europeanin India.
3. Reason for early departure.
4. Spleen.
5. Englishwoman.
6. A terrible secret.
7. Death.
8. The case in Naples.

On deck

So, the hero of Zweig's novel "Amok" miraculously gets on board the "Oceania" and goes to Europe. One night, suffering from insomnia, he goes on deck, where he meets a man with a gloomy, terribly distorted face.

The stranger is talking to him. It turns out that it was no coincidence that this man ended up on a deserted deck at night. He does not tolerate society, he does not like the laughter and conversations of people. He yearns for solitude. But even the most notorious misanthrope sometimes has a desire to speak out…

The strange man on deck is a doctor by profession. His story is told below, but we will call this character a doctor, because Zweig did not give him a name either.

European in India

The doctor visited this country for the first time seven years before the events set forth in Zweig's short story "Amok". Then he appreciated the charm of the tropics, palm trees and quaint buildings. He was still a young man, not devoid of romance. He dreamed of treating the natives, learning their language, working for the sake of science. But later his attitude towards this country changed.

According to the hero of Stefan Zweig's short story "Amok", in India the European loses his moral character, becomes lethargic and weak-willed. The same thing happened to a doctor who spent several years in this country.

Reason for imminent departure

All the same to India doctorwent not only because he dreamed of treating local residents. He admits that he has always been attracted to daring, powerful women. In Germany, where he graduated from the university, he began an affair with one of these persons. She treated him coldly, arrogantly, and it drove him crazy. One day the doctor decided to leave Europe, to run away from the one that tormented him.

Spleen

He arrived at a small village eight hours away from the city. He dreamed of loneliness, and got it in full. Two boring officials, several Europeans and natives - such was the environment of the Austrian doctor.

At first he tried to keep himself busy. Collected weapons of local residents, played golf with other Europeans. But he soon got bored with it all. He stopped communicating with anyone, drank more and more often and indulged in unhappy thoughts.

English

Torrential rains began, which aggravated the already depressive state of the doctor. After receiving patients, he went to his home, where he spent time in the company of Scotch whiskey. During all this time he did not see a single European woman. Whenever a European novel fell into his hands, and he read in it about white-faced ladies, nostalgia began to unbearably torment him. One day something happened that completely changed his life. An Englishwoman appeared to him - the main character of Zweig's short story "Amok", the appearance of which is the plot plot.

Terrible secret

The moment the woman crossed the threshold of the office, the doctorpremonition. He worked in the wilderness, rarely visited by patients from the city. And suddenly a woman appears in his house, who came from afar. And she behaves rather strangely.

She didn't lift her veil, she talked a lot, nervously, non-stop. The woman asked the doctor about the reasons for his reclusive lifestyle, about what books he likes to read, about the weather, about the writer Flaubert. But nothing about the reason that prompted her to come to such a distance. And only after she, as if by the way, complained of a slight ailment, which is expressed in dizziness and nausea, the doctor understood everything.

The woman was pregnant. As soon as her interlocutor asked a few direct questions, her tone completely changed. She no longer had inconsequential conversations, no longer asked inappropriate questions. There was a hardness in her voice.

Deal

The woman unusually worried him, at the same time aroused anger in him. This cold, impregnable aristocrat came to make a deal with him: he gives her a certificate allowing her to terminate the pregnancy, she also pays him 12 thousand guilders, but he receives the check in Amsterdam. The woman did not want anyone to know about the circumstances of her personal life. The doctor was struck by her prudence, coldness, arrogance.

Madness

He suddenly wanted her to feel at his mercy. At first he pretended not to understand her hints, and then, when their conversation became frank, he refused her. From that moment on, he seemed to be losing his mind.

What is amok?The hero of the novel explains the meaning of this word. This is the kind of intoxication that was once found among the Malays. However, according to modern concepts, this is the name of one of the mental disorders. The hero of Stefan Zweig's novel "Amok" was not a madman. However, in the last days of his life, he did illogical, very strange things.

After the doctor refused the lady, she did not humiliate herself in front of him, beg him for help. She looked at him with contempt and left his house. He later learned that she was the wife of a very rich man who had been in Europe for a year now. He tried to find her, wanted to talk to her and ask her forgiveness. The doctor was already ready to help her arrange a secret abortion. But she didn't want to listen to him either.

One day at a party, the doctor saw her. She knew how to control herself, but the absurd vehemence that seized the doctor frightened her quite a bit. The woman began to avoid the distraught doctor.

Death

One day an Englishwoman's servant brought a note from her. Even in such a difficult situation, she behaved arrogantly. The note was just a few words: “Late. Wait at home, perhaps I will call you.”

The same day he came to her. From the situation in the room, the doctor realized that she "let herself be crippled", and all in order to avoid publicity. A woman had an underground abortion by an unknown doctor. She was dying, but she made him promise never, under any circumstances, to tell anyone about what had happened to her. He promised.

It was hard for the doctor to explainpeople from which a he althy young woman died. He did everything to get a death certificate, which stated that he had a paralysis of the heart. And then he met an officer, the same person with whom she had an affair. For several days he hid in his house - the husband of the deceased, who arrived in India and did not believe in the version of a heart attack, was looking for him.

On the ship where the doctor met the main character, there was also the husband of an Englishwoman. He was taking her body to England for an autopsy that could determine the true cause of death.

The case in Naples

The night after the doctor told his casual acquaintance this terrible story, an extraordinary incident occurred in Naples. A coffin with the body of a noble lady was lowered from the side. They did it at night, so as not to disturb the passengers with a sad sight. At that moment, something heavy fell from the upper deck and dragged the coffin, the widower, and several sailors into the sea. The Englishman, like the sailors, was saved. The coffin went to the bottom. A few days later, a note appeared in the newspapers that the body of an unknown man had washed ashore.

Zweig's short story "Amok": reviews

Rarely there are negative reviews of the work of an Austrian writer. His style is concise and simple. At the same time, in each of his short stories there is an unexpected denouement. The story "Amok" is no exception.

Yet among the reviews are not only enthusiastic. Some readers believe that the author failed to fully convey the inner world of the hero. At the firstmeeting, the doctor tries in every possible way to humiliate the woman, but after a few hours he falls in love with her to the point of losing his mind. However, this is the only detail that may seem implausible.