In this grim story by Gerhart Hauptmann, a flagman operating an isolated signal box in a bleak German pine forest remarries after the death of his first wife in childbirth. His first wife was delicate and spiritual; the second is stout, domineering and quarrelsome… but brutally passionate. Because of this latter quality, he overlooks her ill-treatment of his much-loved son by his first wife. However, when her inattentiveness leads to the boy’s death, he explodes into a frenzy of violence that sees him institutionalized for life. Themes include industrialization vs. nature, spirituality, sexuality, child abuse, passion, violence, crime, insanity.
