Ten Notes: 1, Footprints in the Sands of Time through 5, Blood Brotherhood Summary

Wedekind's play is a coming-of-age story of adolescent turmoil. Melchior, a young man wrestling with philosophical questions of morality, rapes his neighbor, Wendla, in a moment of passion, impregnating her. Meanwhile, Melchior's best friend, Moritz, shoots himself because he is going to be held back at school. Melchior is held responsible for Moritz's suicide, expelled from school, and sent to a reformatory. Wendla dies after Wendla's mother gives her abortion pills. Melchior escapes from the reformatory, and finding Wendla dead, he considers suicide. A mysterious masked man appears, though, to lead Melchior on into life.

In Eric Bentley's introduction to the play, he gives a timeline of the play's publications and performances. The play was not produced in America until 1917, over 25 years after...