Decline in European Societies

Decline and its effect on society is a theme repeatedly discussed in our class. In the short stories we read to the excerpts that we go over, the deterioration of the main characters and the world around them is seen many times over. There is the waning interest and appreciation of the written word in Schiller in Barnow by Karl Emil Franzos, the deterioration of marital and spiritual ties in The Two Volodyas by Anton Chekhov, and even the degeneration of one man's heritage in Seligmann Hirsch by Ferdinand von Saar. Each author uses his story to give an example of society's disregard for an aspect that it once viewed as a treasured ideal.

In Ariadne by Anton Chekhov the main character tells us a story about Ariadne, one of the most beautiful girls in his village. But with her beauty came a sort of shallowness, a characteristic that was an example of the way woman were portrayed, taught to be, and actually were during that time period.

"But she was incapable of true love as I was capable of it, since she was frigid and already pretty well corrupted. A demon was the main thing inside her, whispering day and night that she was enchanting, simply divine. And she had no idea why she had come into this world, why she had been created: she could only visualize herself in the future as rich and famous." (Chekhov, 90, 91)

Women were instructed by their mothers how to be manipulative and calculating in the way they interacted with their male counterparts so they could get what they wanted from the men in their lives. They were not educated when it came to scholarly pursuits, so to get ahead in life they had to latch on to the most compatible man to get where and what they wanted in society. Their position in the social order was directly related to that of the man that they happened to marry.

The story of Seligmann Hirsch showcased how a people will disregard their heritage to fit into the society in which they live in. It takes three generations to be considered assimilated into a society, and this story is the perfect example of that. The degradation of one family heritage is the focal point for this story. Seligmann Hirsch was the antiquated patriarch of a well to do Jewish family. He was not yet used to the delicacies of the refined society that his children grew up in; loud, boisterous, intruding, and everything that would embarrass a son trying to become part of the modern day royalty. The author uses these contrasts of character to show the difference from grandfather to granddaughter. When speaking of Seligmann Saar writes "There was something grotesque and also foreign about his whole appearance: the man looked like an Armenian or Bulgarian" (Saar 124). Of the granddaughter