SOURCE: Blair, Rhonda L. “Homo Faber, Homo Ludens, and the Demeter-Kore Motif.” Germanic Review 56, no. 4 (fall 1981): 140-50.

In the following essay, Blair underscores the importance of the Demeter-Kore motif in Homo faber by examining the mythological and archetypal imagery in the novel.

Since the publication of Max Frisch's novel Homo faber: Ein Bericht in 1957, no detailed study of Frisch's use of Greek mythology and related archetypal imagery has appeared. Indeed, discussions of Frisch's use of mythology have narrowly focused on the Oedipus myth, while little has been written at all concerning archetypes in Frisch's work generally.¹ Walter Schmitz, in fact, has recently written, “Es gibt nur wenige Textbelege für ein Interesse am Mythischen (als Reich der Kunst) im Homo faber Einige Anspielungen auf den Ödipusmythos und die Erinnyen … denn Fabers Reisen enden ja in Griechenland, der klassischen Heimat des Mythos.”² Consequently, the highly important thematic and structural...