SOURCE: "Through the Camera's Eye: An Analysis of Dürrenmatt's Der Auftrag …," in International Fiction Review, Vol. 15, No. 2, Summer, 1988, pp. 141-147.

In the following, Michaels examines Dürrenmatt's use of observation in Der Auftrag. Typical of his work, Dürrenmatt's characters are in a dichotomy—this time of not wanting to be observed, yet wanting to observe.

In his recent work, Der Auftrag oder Vom Beobachten des Beobachters der Beobachter: Novelle in vierundzwanzig Sätzen (1986), as in his earlier works, Friedrich Dürrenmatt is sharply critical of many trends in modern technological society. The tone of the work is suggested by the introductory quotation from Kierkegaard's Either/Or to which Dürrenmatt refers on two further occasions in the novella: "What portends? What will the future bring? I do not know, I have no presentiment. When a spider hurls itself down from some fixed point consistently with its...