The novelty of the modernist prose by Alfred Döblin on the example of the story 'Die Ermordung einer Butterblume' (The Murder of a Buttercup)

Abstract

Alfred Döblin’s short story Die Ermordung einer Butterblume (The Murder of a Buttercup), from the collection Die Ermordung einer Butterblume und andere Erzählungen (1910–1911), is considered a key prose text of early German expressionism. It describes the deconstruction of an individual by nature, the superiority of which must be recognised by a man living in a big city, alienated and “uprooted” from nature. Any attempt to return to the original place of life is bound to fail. Employing a dual (real and surreal) image of the world, Döblin creates an innovative portrayal of the protagonist – Michael Fischer, presenting the reader with the world of his internal and external experience and treating his case as a study of psychosis.