Spring Awakening: A Children’s Tragedy

Shame, and fear of it, figures prominently in Spring Awakening. The motif of the fear of shame helps illustrate the impact of a sexually repressive culture. Shame is used to suppress sexual curiosity and desire, thereby enforcing the repressive attitude toward sex the adults pass on to the teenagers. In late 19th-century provincial Germany, the teenagers of the play all learn to be ashamed of their sexuality. Shame isn’t confined to the teenage world; it is a major reason the parents—e.g., Mrs. Bergmann—avoid the topic of sex and the Gabors send Melchior to the reformatory. The motif of the fear of shame reveals the lengths to which characters will go to avoid revealing something they’ve done that they fear will bring shame onto them.

Moritz’s story of the Queen Without a Head is an allegory that conveys the idea that a person needs a lover to be complete, and specifically that a woman needs a man to complete her. The story is rich with symbolism and meaning.

The queen is fantastically beautiful—“as beautiful as the sun, more beautiful than all the maidens in the land” (31)—and yet without a head she cannot eat or laugh or kiss or talk.