The children of the town have reached the general age range of thirteen to fifteen and begin to wonder about reproduction and sexuality. The adults of the town, under a Puritanistic view of sex, are dismayed by their children's curiosity and discourage their thoughts; however, they prove to be unsuccessful as Melchior Gabor sleeps with fourteen-year-old Wendla Bergmann, both fumbling through their first sensual experience during the fourth scene of Act Two.
The play has many dark characteristics and tones. Wendla becomes pregnant with Melchior's child and later dies from a botched abortion attempt arranged by her mother. One character, Moritz Stiefel, shoots himself under the belief that he has failed school. Because of these two occurrences, Melchior is sent to a reformatory, which was opposed by his mother on the grounds that it will "make a criminal of him." Melchior escapes from the reformatory to meet the ghost of his friend Moritz and a mysterious Masked Man near Moritz's grave. throughout this final scene, Moritz attempts to persuade Melchior to follow his footsteps and commit suicide, telling him how well the dead have things. the Masked Man, however, downplays this argument saying that he will forget about this trouble after he's had a warm meal. After much banter between the three men, Melchior exits the stage arm-in-arm with the Masked Man, leaving Moritz to a final monologue about the return to his stoic death.
The play is riddled with social commentary. The subtitle of the play is "A Children's Tragedy." Most of the adults in the play are conservative, sexually afraid, bumbling characters with very little depth or clarity. The fact that they use their authority to "Lord over" the children makes for a very frustrating atmosphere. The adults, under pretense of keeping the children's best interests at heart while being practical, preach Puritanistic views of sex and strict morality and always fail a certain number of students from secondary school for no other reason than that the high school only holds sixty. Wedekind used great irony and literary technique in writing "spring Awakening," and it shows as audiences are empathizing with and being mesmerized by the work today.
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