SOURCE: "The End Is the Beginning," in Ernst Barlach, Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1967, pp. 30-50.

In the following essay, Chick analyzes the ways in which Der arme Vetter is the pivotal play in Barlach's oeuvre, dealing as it does with failure and disappointment.

Der arme Vetter appeared in 1918, and like almost all of Barlach's plays, it is transitional and treats the themes of phase and change. Yet it merits special attention because it also marks a transition in Barlach's style. It signals the end of the old and the beginning of the new. Consequently it offers even more problems of interpretation than his other dramas. No single explanation can be tailored to fit the whole. We have the impression that one element discounts the next and feel the ground drop away from under our feet. There is only one certainty: metamorphosis. All three main characters are radically transformed, two...