Mrs. Wolf: "Well, I don't know…"
At the end of the Beaver Coat I felt like it just ended. There was some resolution but not as much as I was wanting. Most stories end nicely and resolve completely, so I wondered what the reasoning was behind leaving the ending open. For one thing, hanging endings generally make people feel uncomfortable and annoyed with what happened. If a movie ends abruptly many people are angry or confused as to what the whole point of the movie was without an ending. Doing a google search produced many movies that people thought had unsatisfactory endings which included Cloverfield, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, etc. Abrupt endings in stories leave people questioning why? What happened? One of the reasons I think The Beaver Coat ended so oddly was because it left us questioning "Will Von Wehrhahn ever catch Mrs. Wolff and Mr. Wulkow?" "Does Dr. Fleischer get brought before the court for what he believes and says?" Some of these questions can be answered with a bit of thought. First, Mrs. Wolff is a very crafty and industrious woman. She has hidden the money received from Wulkow for the coat, and no one can prove that the wood she has is anyone else's. So personally I think Wulkow and Mrs. Wolff are safe as long as they don't get caught for their poaching business. As to the matter of Dr. Fleischer, considering he is a good friend of Mrs. Wolff, and Mrs. Wolff is trusted by Von Wehrhahn, I think we can assume if Mrs. Wolff heard something negative she would discretely warn her friend. However, this is all speculation and I could be completely wrong. Maybe the reason for leaving the ending open was to provide a bit of suspense and curiosity for the audience. When performed in front of a live audience the ending would certainly cause the audience to discuss it even hours after seeing it. Perhaps Gerhart Hauptmann planned on making a sequel. Besides these ideas it does leave us very uncomfortable with many questions and only speculations for answers.
Are there any reasons you can think of that could contribute to the open ending? Write them in the space below.
I agree with you. Leaving the ending open like that was a good strategy by Hauptmann. It had me asking the same questions too and it had me wondering for a good amount of time after reading the play. But I can't think of any other reasons besides the ones you've stated as to why he would've left the ending like he did.
ReplyDeleteI think the open ending was intentional to shift the focus more to the actual story--the path everyone followed while trying to find the end. In real life, it just goes on. I think maybe the author was more focused on the people in the story and how they acted, rather than on where they landed at the end. Life is messy. Many stories have endings all packaged up with a bow on top. I think the messiness of this story makes it popular through the ages.
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