Tragedies of sex

by Frank Wedekind

"Tragedies of sex" by Frank Wedekind is a collection of plays written in the late 19th and early 20th century. Gathering Spring’s Awakening, Earth-Spirit, Pandora’s Box, and Damnation!, it confronts sexual desire, repression, and bourgeois hypocrisy with frank, unsettling drama. The pieces focus on volatile youth and predatory or compromised adults—most notably the schoolchildren Melchior, Wendla, and Moritz, and the magnetic Lulu—to expose how authority and morality deform private life. The opening of the volume frames the author as an avant-garde provocateur and precursor to Expressionism, then launches into the first stretch of Spring’s Awakening. We meet Wendla, chafing at being forced into adult decorum; schoolboys Melchior and Moritz, who debate sex and struggle under academic pressure; and girls who reveal domestic abuse, especially Martha. Moritz secretly checks the promotion lists and, provisionally passed, swings from relief to dread. In the woods, Melchior and Wendla spar over charity and morality before a disturbing moment in which she asks to be struck and he loses control. Subsequent scenes deepen the sexual awakening and confusion: Melchior’s candid discussions with Moritz (and his tolerant mother), Wendla’s mother’s evasions about where babies come from, Hansy’s furtive self-gratification, and a charged hayloft encounter between Melchior and Wendla. A letter shows Melchior’s mother refusing to fund Moritz’s escape, urging fortitude; Wendla drifts through the garden in dazed, secretive joy; and Moritz, by the river at dusk, edges toward despair.