Group Members: Myra Khan, Chi Zhang, Diana Rodriguez
Many people see this ending as somehow unrealistic. Do you agree? Why or why not?
I think that the story becomes unrealistic midway so I sort of understand why the ending is like this. The reason I feel the story had already taken an unrealistic turn is because of what the father was saying to Georg. As Chi pointed out; Georg’s father was probably waiting for the right moment before he told his son his wrong doings over the years and accused him of those things. After his father started to tell Georg about his real self the father kept referring to the devil. As in Georg is the devil. The father starts with how Georg’s friend “crumbles up your letter with his left hand while he holds up my letters to read them with the right!” Religiously speaking it is said the devil is represented usually on the left side. Another reason the story becomes unrealistic and bends more towards religion is when the father calls Georg a “devilish human” and “Condemns him to death by drowning.” This leads Georg to run away because he felt like he was being ‘chased away’ after his father said those words. Ironically before Georg runs to his death the charwoman yelled “Jesus!” This is what lead Georg to do suicide, because of the prior events that occurred. So the ending is fairly realistic because it goes hand in hand with the events that had occurred before. It’s an unrealistic ending for an unrealistic story. So the ending makes a lot of sense to me.
-Myra K.
Who is responsible for Georg’s decision at the end of the story?
I believe Georg and his father are both responsible for his suicidal decision at the end of the story by means of self-realization and condemnation. It can be inferred that Georg knows the wrong things he has done yet he finds excuses for himself throughout the story; such as how he ponders whether or not to tell his friend to come back in the beginning of the story and when he considers moving his father into a brighter room. If he had really cared about the ways he treated his father, he would not have neglected him for so long especially when they lived in the same house. This can be seen from their routines, “they would sit together a while in their common living room, each reading his own newspaper, unless, and this happened quite often, Georg went out with his friends or visited his bride”. Certainly, he spends some time with his father each day yet from the fact that he did not know what his father was reading meant it was very seldom and even rare that he exchanged conversations with his father. As for his father, it is likely that he was waiting for the right moment for him to pour out all his thoughts and observations of his son’s wrong doings over the years and accuse him of those things and finally condemns Georg to drowning. At the end of the story as Myra have mentioned to be a bit unrealistic, although there wasn’t anything tangible to the human body pulling Georg, he still drowned. This could be the result of how his self-realization coming into play making him feel his guilty or it could be his father’s command that has overpowered him since childhood.
-Chi Z.
What is the significance of the very last line of the story: “At this moment, almost endless traffic rolled across the bridge”? I slightly agree with what Chi and Myra pointed out. Myra describes a battle between good and evil and Chi explains how Georg and his father are both equally at fault of the ending, resulting in Georg to committing suicide. I however, believe that there was something more, I felt that Georg and his father might be dealing with a lot of suppressed emotions that possibly caused trauma, maybe even a disturbed mind. I think that after their mother figure passed away they both felt lost. Georg began to write about “a friend” and his father began to live in darkness. I also agree with Chi, when she mentions how he began to pour all his thoughts about Georg’s wrong doings. This encounter that happened at the end where the father started to expose the true Georg, I think it was the last straw for both of them. I felt that Georg was going through a lot and his father was not in the right state of mind which caused him to wish death upon his son. Now, regarding the last line. It can signify, that no one noticed, and life still went on for others around, which is why the traffic continued endlessly. Also it was on a bridge, Georg might have died not only of drowning but of falling off a high bridge. And finally, the line that really struck me most, was when Georg says “But dear parents, I have always loved you”, this alone proved to my point that I think Georg went through a lot of pain, maybe even while his mother was alive as well, and that maybe he was never really appreciated the way he truly wished.
-Diana R.
I agree with Chi’s answer of blaming both Georg and his father being responsible for Georg’s decision. The root of their problem is their lack of communication. This has effected Georg more than he truly realizes. Chi says, “…he spends some time with his father each day yet from the fact that he did not know what his father was reading meant it was very seldom and even rare that he exchanged conversations with his father.” They live in the same household and take care of the same business, but they have no real communication or relationship. Both Georg and his father hide themselves from each other. Georg is bound to his father by blood, but they were truly strangers to each other.
I agree with Chi how he said, “he finds excuses for himself throughout the story”. Throughout the story he’s always talking about the insignificance things that happened in his life just like how he wrote in the letters to his ‘friend’. He tries to run away from the problem instead of solving it. It’s like he’s too scared of confrontation and would always just go along with what people are saying. In the story, after he realized how his father is, he pitied his father and vowed to take him along in his new life with his wife. So I do agree that his father and him are both responsible for his death because his father can see through him yet didn’t help.
I can see where Myra has come up with the idea that this is an unrealistic story with an unrealistic ending. The comparison of Georg’s father referring to him as the devil but “Ironically before Georg runs to his death the charwoman yelled “Jesus!”, is a great way to compare how the father may have been the true evil. Yet this rush of events of the way the father had suddenly poured out all of his emotions on Georg which led to Georg’s death does seem a little unrealistic as it is so much going on in such little time. It seems to be such a explosion of emotions that it would seem unrealistic.