Analysis Of Ulrich Plenzdorf's The News Suffering Of Young W

'I also didn 't have anything against Communism and all that [...] ' (p. 44). Does Plenzdorf 's text support or attack the GDR? The German Democratic Republic(GDR) was formed after World War II when the Soviet Union occupied the eastern half of Germany, while the United States, Britain and France occupied the western half. The GDR was under communist regime and heavily regulated by the Soviets. Films, books, newspapers, and other forms of media were censored and the authors were told what they could and could not write about. Suprisingly, Ulrich Plenzdorf’s book, “The News Sufferings of Young W”, was received well by the public due to its criticisms of the GDR. The criticism is quite subtle in the novel, but enough to illustrate how the general

While watching a certain film, Edgar points out how the younger brother in the film is the only character he likes. He claims that he likes that character because he refuses to conform to all the propaganda around him. “He wanted to be a clown in the circus and he wouldn’t let himself be talked out of it. They said he just wantd to fool around instead of getting a steady job. A steady job, people, I’d heard that line before!”(p. 22). This opinion of Edgar’s criticizes the propaganda that communism provides a steady job, so one must look towards doing the common job, rather than doing something he or she enjoys. That key characteristic separates democracy from communism. In a democracy, a citizen can do whatever job they want to, and no one can stop them from achieving that

Over the course of the book, Edgar and Charlie get closer, but he never fully trusts her with his feelings. In an excerpt on page 47, Edgar’s father and Charlie are talking about Edgar. Remember, that he is dead, but Plenzdorf has written the novel in a way where it seems as if Edgar is right there listening to the two. He says, “That’s right, Charlie. Don’t tell everything. There wouldn’t be any point to it, telling everything. I’ve never done it in my whole life. I didn’t even tell you everything, Charlie. You can’t tell everything. If you tell everything, maybe you’re not even human.”(p. 47). In this declaration, Edgar seems to be afraid. He has never told anyone the full truth realizing the consequences would be deadly. He has been raised in fear of the Stasi police, so any of his questionable actions and opinions are never the whole truth. One never knows who is a spy. Including this let’s the audience know that the protagonist hides a lot of important information in fear of the consequences. Including this text in the novel is important because it tells the level of intelligence the spies may have had when spying on the citizens, and it exposes the level of paranoia citizens had under