Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Woyzeck, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Human Nature
Secrecy, Paranoia, and Betrayal
Poverty and Suffering
Character vs. Circumstance
Summary
Analysis
Woyzeck is at an inn. Around him, people dance and drink. Some journeymen are there, and one laments that he “ha[s] a shirt that isn’t [his].” Meanwhile, some other patrons sing a jaunty hunting song. Woyzeck gets up and stands by the window. He spots Marie dancing with the drum major, though they don’t see him. Woyzeck anguishes as he watches the drum major put his hands all over Marie, then he falls to the floor and passes out.
It’s most likely the case that Woyzeck really has seen Marie dancing with the drum major, but given his weakening grip on reality—remember that he has been experiencing hallucinations and hearing voices lately—one can’t trust Woyzeck’s perspective with complete certainty.
Themes
The first journeyman climbs onto the table and delivers a speech. Sometimes, the journeyman orates, humans ask why they exist. But to this, the journeyman asks his audience to consider how tailors would earn money if God had not given humans “shame.” And how would the soldier exist if God didn’t give him the urge to die? “Even money rots,” laments the first journeyman, noting that all material pleasures are “vanity.” He encourages his audience to “piss on the cross so a Jew will die.” The crowd cheers. This wakes Woyzeck, who then gets up and leaves the inn.
The journeyman’s mock sermon upends a conventional understanding of the relationship between morality and human nature. It’s typically understood that humans need to adhere to a given moral code, or else human nature would go unchecked and civilized society would collapse. Here, the journeyman underscores that human nature is the default state and that there is something illogical and harmful about suppressing what is natural and good (or at least natural) to uphold constructed, often destructive social norms or moral codes.
Themes
