Zusammenfassung: "When the serial publication of Effi Briest concluded in 1895, many readers were indignant at the novel’s outcome. Fontane addressed this reader response in his letters, casting the empathy for Effi as virtually unanimous, with some readers rejecting Innstetten as repulsive. At first glance, this looks like a typical three-person scene of empathy, but the present article aims to complicate the understanding of side-taking and moral judgment in the reception of Effi Briest. Though there are certainly moments of conflict in Fontane’s novels that accord with a three-person scene of empathy, I argue that Effi Briest is different, that Fontane’s final and most famous adultery novel adds further involutions to questions of moral judgment. Effi Briest does not just situate the reader as a third-party observer to marital conflict. It builds the dilemma of side-taking into the story itself, positioning the reader as a fourth party who observes an intradiegetic moment of side-taking when Innstetten must choose on which side he will fall. The reader response is thus predicated on the reaction to an intradiegetic conflict between empathy and spite. Readers want to see Innstetten punished for the malicious and excessive punishment that he inflicts on others."
Empfohlene Zitierweise: Wolfgang Rasch: Theodor Fontane Bibliographie online. Auf der Grundlage der »Theodor Fontane Bibliographie. Werk und Forschung« (3 Bde., Berlin: de Gruyter 2006) hg. v. Theodor-Fontane-Archiv. Potsdam 2019ff. URL: https://www.fontanearchiv.de/bibliographie/b0018557/. Letzte Bearbeitung: 02.10.2023.
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