SOURCE: Gustafson, Susan E. “‘Don't See, Don't Tell’: Gender Transgression and Repetition Compulsion in Goethe's Die natürliche Tochter.” Monatshefte 89, no. 2 (summer 1997): 148-67.

In the following essay, Gustafson views Die natürliche Tochter as a play about gender transgression and the protection of the status quo.

Goethe's Die natürliche Tochter depicts the emblematic eradication of a gender-bending daughter.¹ Throughout the play Eugenie is subjected to multiple symbolic deaths. She is surmised, described, and reported dead, only to be revived to die again. More than a drama about the French Revolution, Die natürliche Tochter cannot be reduced to its overt political content. The main characters of the play are, indeed, a father and his daughter. Familial instability is intricately conjoined in Die natürliche Tochter to the fear of societal collapse. The domestic tensions of the play reveal, above all, a paternal struggle to protect the prevailing...