Re: Burning questions about the Ring's symbolism and leitmotifs

The message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
from [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Charles Zigmund) contains these words:

{snip}

> Hunding was not in the right, since originally he and his band had
> forced Sieglinde to marry him against her will. Although this was a
> customary situation, Wagner makes it clear that it is repugnant.

> (Is it possible that the primitive barbarism of humans, of which this
> forced marriage is an example, is one of the things that will be swept
> away by the cleansing at the end of the cycle?)

Indeed yes, to both. Throughout the Ring, and indeed throughout the
whole of Wagner, the buying and selling of love is one of the greatest
crimes. That's why Fasolt, for example, is not the robust "honest
workman" that bad producers are forever making him; he's almost as nasty
a piece of work as Fafner. In that he is also closely linked to Hunding,
even by a brief dying echo of the Giants theme in Hunding's appearance.
Hunding is barbaric, in that he obeys the letter of convention and law
without the least consideration for the spirit of it -- as in going
through the motions of marriage when the bride isn't willing, as his
relatives do many years later with their own sister. He debases the
institution, yet self-righteously insists on the rights that go with it,
appealing to Fricka to protect them. For Hunding the show is
all-important, the meaning nothing. He even appears to enjoy the
conflict between the two, as when he taunts Siegmund while
congratulating himself on his own show of virtue. He will wait till
then, but he will then still happily murder an unarmed man -- which is
not, of course, what the sacred law of hospitality is all about. It's
this divine "law" that Siegmund has been brought up not to respect, and
why he finds himself in conflict with society. It's a creation of the
gods, and must inevitably be swept away with them -- to be replaced by
the instinctive kind of moral law which Siegfried  -- the "man of the
future" -- represents.


> >...Additionally, Hunding's death also underscores the fact that
> Sieglinde
> > is totally alone.  She has no one, yet must find a way to bring this
> > child into the world, which should increase our sorrow at her plight...>

Hunding, bully, coward and brute, is so hateful to her that evidently
she has only stayed with him because she could see no alternative. At
the end of Act II she makes clear that she prefers death to going back
to him.

> She is not totally alone, she has Mime to help her. Although his
> ultimate purpose is selfish and nefarious, Mime is a competent, even
> compassionate nursemaid. He takes Sieglinde to his cave and helps her
> give birth, and at that point he may not even know who or what she is.
> He then competently raises her son the hero to adolescence.

Oh yeah? In that, I'm afraid, you're taking Mime's account at face value
-- and that, Wagner makes very clear, is the one thing you should never
do. In every scene in which we see Mime he demonstrates that he is an
inveterate liar, that he has continually lied to Siegfried, revealing
the barest minimum of information even under the (not very serious)
threat of violence. Even if you don't believe -- as I'm inclined to --
that he murdered Sieglinde in order to obtain this Volsung child, he
undoubtedly did know who she was, and had only one intention in mind in
helping her. He could easily have discovered or suspected her identity
almost at once -- the mere name would mean something to him, as
Siegfried's does to Fafner. He unintentionally reveals to Siegfried that
"you and your line I've always hated to the depths of my heart -- you
millstone, I never raised you out of love". And it's clear from
Siegfried's bitter rebuff to Mime's ingratiating whines that the dwarf
has raised him not in the least bit competently, but as meanly, narrowly
and grudgingly as he can -- partly because he needs to keep Siegfried
ignorant to control him, but also because of his racist contempt.


> In all these cases, Hunding, Fricka, Wotan and and Mime, it seems to
> me that we have shadings of gray more than the black and white of
> right and wrong, and that this was part of Wagner's intention.

In Wotan, certainly, there are shadings of gray. Not, I think, in the
others, not even Fricka; because she's so adept at pinpointing Wotan's
failings doesn't mean she isn't ruled by her own. In act II Walkure she
reveals an attitude of regally distant contempt for "slave" humanity,
including even her votary Hunding, and her willingness to crush out any
of these little creatures who don't conform to her standards. "Siegmund
dies for my honour! Let that be the Valkyrie's work." She is the epitome
of the unfit and undeserving ruler. The gods as a whole seem to be
selfish and uncaring; only Wotan appears to have any idealism to justify
his power. Nor is there much grey elsewhere among the supernaturals. The
Rhinemaidens Wagner exempted from blame for driving Alberich to
desperation by saying that they were only obeying their nature; they're
innocents, with no real idea of moral ity. The Nibelungs are little
SOBs, what we see of them (even in Rheingold Mime shouldn't be
believed). As far as I can see Wagner depicted him as being as satanic
as Alberich, only meanly, without the grandeur. The giants are stupid
and thoroughly brutal (or at least their princes are -- what must the
rest be like?).

It's when we get into more wholly human territory that any possibility
of shadings appears, and I'm afraid I don't feel Hunding is a prime
example. The late William Mann, a knowledgeable but eccentric figure
whose perverse translation -- "Wanderer" as "Traveller"! -- afflicted a
number of Ring sets, also staunchly maintained that Hunding was a decent
figure. In a review of the WNO production, in which the producer
demonstrated both Hunding's empty piety and his gross brutality, having
him grovel at an altar and grab Sieglinde and slobber all over her
cleavage as a sexual taunt to Siegmund, Mann insisted that this was
showing the "much maligned" character as "a good and loving husband"! I
can't help thinking he was doing a Shaw there. I think Wagner unarguably
intended him to be the epitome of hollow villainy. Siegmund and
Sieglinde are more shaded characters, both fundamentally good, but not
without their darker side. Siegfried is sui generis; he has his faults,
but they tend to be aspects of his heroism and his instinctively moral
nature. Hagen is his dark mirror. Neither of them are really human.

It's mostly in Gunther and Gutrune, therefore, that the grey areas
exist. Gunther is a willing cheat, prepared to deceive Siegfried and
Brunnhilde, and to "buy" love with his sister's hand, and a stronger and
more ruthless figure than he's usually played as, an ambitious ruler who
only consents to Siegfried's death when the Ring is mentioned. But his
geniality and hospitality seem genuine enough, and his troublesome
conscience; he would probably be a good enough king under normal
circumstances. Gutrune likewise is self-centred and overly worldly,
assuming too readily that Siegfried has had plenty of lovers and is not
faithful to just one; but she is decent enough nonetheless, genuinely
and tragically loving. That's how I see it, anyhow.

Cheers,

Mike

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