Ten Notes: 6, God the Father, Father the God through 10, The Question of Style Summary

Bentley says that during the 1890s, when Wedekind wrote his play, people were questioning the father's authority, and Wedekind also had conflicts with his own father, culminating in Wedekind leaving home. Bentley relates the portrayal of Mr. and Mrs. Gabor to Wedekind's own parents. The masked man at the end of the play is a father figure, and Bentley suggests that the ambiguous figure may be Life, or Goethe, who he quotes, or the author, or God, or Melchior's father after all. Bentley's culminating suggestion is that the masked man is the voice of a father from within Melchior himself.

The female characters in the play are secondary, and the play is disliked by feminists. Bentley identifies the relationship...