The Artificial Silk Girl

“True education has nothing to do with commas!”

Education affects an individual’s socioeconomic position within Weimar society and plays a significant role in the novel. Doris’s discontent with her socioeconomic status is a result of having no more than just a basic education, reflected in her inability to do the job of stenographer. Doris later realizes the intellectual differences between herself and Ernst and how, because of those differences, she stands to lose him and the lifestyle he makes possible.

“And I’ve been asking my mother why she as a high-class woman settled for this loser, and instead of slapping me she just said: ‘You have to belong somewhere after a while.’” 

Doris’s perspective on and relationships with men are fraught with prejudice and sexism. She blames men for a woman’s role in society and views men as puppets to be manipulated by feminine sexuality, so women can achieve a higher social status. Doris believes her mother is special and could have done better than her father, who is an unemployed, blue-collar worker. By the novel’s end, her mother’s solution foreshadows Doris’s own dilemma.

“Times are horrible. Nobody has any money and there’s an immoral spirit in the air—just as you’re getting ready to hit on someone for some cash, they’re already hitting on you!” 

Doris captures the desperation of the Weimar years in Germany. The Weimar Republic, faced with (among many other issues) the daunting task of paying reparations to the Allied Powers and with the consequences of losing a very costly war, was a time of staggering unemployment. The Weimar years, as was also seen in other countries around the world, was a time of transition for gendered norms, views about sexuality, and relationships between men and women. 

“At first they pay you all sorts of compliments and are drooling all over you—and the you tell them: I’m chestnut!—and their chin drops: oh, you’re a chestnut—yuk, I had no idea. And you are exactly the way you were before, but just one word has supposedly changed you.” 

By 1931, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi) was ubiquitous and gaining power in Germany; with the rise of the Nazi party, anti-Semitism increased. Doris’s naïveté regarding the political situation provides a simple counterpoint to the racial debate. By using the word “chestnut” instead of brunette, Doris nullifies the potency of language, and thus, the idea that a Jew is different from a German.

“The coat wants me and I want it. We have each other.” 

The ermine coat symbolizes Doris’s wish for Glanz and a more luxurious life. Instead of fighting for social mobility through education or hard work, Doris tries to manipulate men into showering her with gifts. She doesn’t earn the coat; she steals it because she feels entitled to it. 

“I want it, I want it so badly—and only if you’re unhappy do you get ahead. That’s why I’m glad that I’m unhappy.” 

Everything Doris does is in pursuit of her definition of happiness, which means being a star and living luxuriously. Doris disdains those like Karl who are content with their station in life and feels that unhappiness fuels ambition. Later, Doris will change her perspective on happiness and stardom, when she grows tired of unhappiness and disappointment and more desirous of security and love.

“If a young woman from money marries an old man because of money and nothing else and makes love to him for hours and has this pious look on her face, she’s called a German mother and a decent woman. If a young woman without money sleeps with a man with no money because he has smooth skin and she likes him, she’s a whore and a bitch.” 

The emergence of feminism and the New Woman in the later decades of the 19th century gained momentum in the 20th century. Doris has progressive views on sexuality, and though she isn’t what one might call a feminist, she comments on society’s hypocrisy regarding sexuality between men and women throughout the novel.

“And the girls from the high school across the street would look at me and say: ‘Look at that one with the funny dress!’ And they would laugh at me. The dress was sticking out around me and it was dark green with a pattern of animas with long tongues on it—and all the kids were laughing at me.” 

Doris’s obsession with fashion and social status was influenced by a traumatic childhood experience, when neighborhood kids bullied her because her mother fashioned clothes for her from old curtains.

“Tilli says: ‘Men are nothing but sensual and they only want one thing.’ But I say: ‘Tilli, sometimes women too are sensual and they only want one thing.’ And there’s no difference.”

Admitting that women enjoy sex and sometimes only want sex is a progressive, scandalous thing for a young woman to do openly during that time period. Doris equates male and female sexuality as equal to one another. Furthermore, she illuminates the idea that if a man can sleep with a woman simply for sex, then there’s no reason a woman can’t do the same thing.

“‘The city isn’t good and the city isn’t happy and the city is sick,’ he says, ‘but you are good and I thank you for that.’” 

Before Herr Brenner goes into an assisted-living home, he and Doris go out for a night on the town. Doris wants to show Brenner all the wonderful lights, colors, and excitement of Berlin. Until this point, Doris was convinced of the beauty and excitement of Berlin, so enthralled with the possibilities that Berlin has to offer that she was blinded to the abject poverty and sullen people around her. Even though she wanted to show Berlin to Brenner, it was the blind Brenner who showed her a part of Berlin she had failed to see. 

“I want to kill that feeling inside of me. You have to be drunk to sleep with men, to have a lot of money—that’s what you have to want and never think of anything else. How else are you going to stand it—What’s wrong with this world?”

Brenner has turned the world upside down on Doris, so that she is confused and doesn’t know what to think. She feels cynical and has amorous feelings for Brenner, which confuses and frustrates her. Her world view is very black and white still; she feels that love is dangerous and that sex should be used to advance a woman’s social position, and perhaps for no other reason. Her rigid way of thinking makes her question the ambiguity and hypocrisy of the world around her. 

“I don’t know where to go with all that beauty—for whom am I beautiful? For whom?”

Although Doris has finally “made it” by becoming the mistress to the wealthy “industrialist,” Alexander, she quickly becomes jaded by the situation of being, in essence, a high-class prostitute: She sleeps with a man she does not find attractive in exchange for access to his wealth. She is finally dressed in all of the luxury she has desired, and then admires her beauty—and wonders to what end she has made herself beautiful. She can’t use it to attract a male partner she likes. If she were to cheat on Alexander, she would risk losing the expensive wares that are making her feel so beautiful.

“‘What do you mean, ambition? That’s nonsense,’ he says rolling his voice. ‘You think I’m still ambitious? Food, drink, sleep, a nice girl, a good mood—that’s my ambition. And if I can get that through honest work and honest effort, I’m fine. And if I can’t, I steal, I get something for myself to eat and I have only a guilty conscience, if I’m stupid enough to get caught.’” 

Karl is a simple man living on the outskirts of Berlin, subsisting by growing a few vegetables and selling trinkets he has fashioned himself. The antithesis to ambition, Karl is unemployed, which has forced him to be content with what he has. Doris cannot adopt this contentment for herself: She both admires and detests Karl’s way of being, but Karl’s perspective will resonate with Doris more as the novel progresses.

“Women like to run away, don’t they? Women just can’t stand it anymore, can they?”

Doris poses these rhetorical questions to Ernst, referring to the situation for women during the Weimar era. Many women feel uneasy and restless, and they want change. 

“‘And there’s a young poor gigolo, a beautiful gigolo, which he hadn’t always been. He came. Used to be an actor. Before that an engineer. And she’s artistic too. And very ambitious. And he treats her badly.’ ‘That’s it,’ I say, ‘this soft way of not wanting to, and to treat her well on top of that. That’s too much for a woman.’” 

Doris inadvertently points out the ambiguous nature of what a woman like Ernst’s wife desires, both from men and from life. Ernst offers stability, security, and good social standing, but a wife in such a situation has nothing to define her as an individual. Many women want passion and adventure, rather than comfort and stability, even if it means the man doesn’t treat her as respectfully as Ernst would. 

“Everything is being torn up and destroyed and if you want to be honest, you have to admit that you can’t figure things out anymore. And particularly an educated man can’t build anything for himself anymore, and everything is uncertain. The whole world is uncertain and life and the future and what we used to believe in and what we believe in now, and work isn’t fun anymore, because you always have a bad conscience because there are so many people who don’t have any.” 

Doris summarizes many of the emotions of the post-war generation. The old world has been destroyed by the war, but nothing has emerged to replace the old kaiserliche Zeit (imperial time). The Weimar Republic, by 1931, was straining under the tension of political and social unrest, widespread poverty, and unemployment. In 1933, two years after the novel was published, Hitler become chancellor of Germany. In 1934, he became der Führer, and the Weimar Republic was no more. 

“Forget it! As if someone like me. who has no education and no foreign language skill except for olala and has no high school diploma and nothing could get anywhere through work.” 

Doris despises the constant stress that a worker must endure when there is little to no job security. It echoes her old fear of being let go of from her stenographer job in her hometown because of the punctuation mistakes she consistently made. For the uneducated or poorly educated in Germany, the opportunity to obtain a better education was extremely difficult, if not impossible. Almost all white-collar jobs were unattainable, as was the inability to rise in society.

“And you’re getting old early, at a time when a star in her ermine coat hasn’t aged at all yet—you have your Doris who experiences great things until she too has become a Therese. That’s the way it goes with Therese and with so many others, now I know. I won’t play along with that, you can fuck yourselves—Compared to that, a whore’s life is more interesting. At least she’s got her own business.” 

Doris recognizes that beauty fades with time and age, and she will not be able to use her looks forever to extract what she wants with men. She needs to obtain a more permanent solution, like marrying a wealthy man or becoming a film/theater star. If she cannot find a wealthy man to support her, Doris fears ending up alone, working a miserable job and, like Therese, bound as a mistress to a married man who barely visits or supports her. Doris sees prostitution as a preferable alternative, so long as the woman isn’t bound to a pimp as Hulla was.

“No way, you could get fired, you have to brownnose her and that’s why you have to hate her—you have to hate anyone who can dismiss you, even if they’re good to you, because you work for them and not with them.” 

Doris thoroughly dislikes Ernst’s idea that she should get a job. Employees have to deal with office politics and bury their feelings when they’re unhappy, and their employer has no loyalty to them. Doris thinks that even if an employer is good to you, the relationship is by nature adversarial. Her dissatisfaction with the labor market and her options within it reflects how many people in Weimar Germany felt, and these growing populist sentiments paved the way for Hitler’s rise.

“You love somebody—it’s nothing you can understand. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a man or a woman or God.”

Doris muses on the nature of love after slowly falling in love with Ernst. Ernst offers higher social status than Doris currently has, but he does not offer Glanz. Earlier, she believed that love and stardom were not compatible; it was too much to hope for a wealthy husband and one whom she loved and who loved her. When she fell in love with men who could not provide her with what she desired, she felt frustrated that her emotions and her goals were not aligned.

“No good night at all. You’re all right, snoring away in your grief, while I’m lying awake with my happiness.” 

The opposite of what’s expected—Ernst snores while not having what he wants while Doris is wide awake after finding the answers—illustrates how Doris has fallen in love with Ernst and the lifestyle he offers. She has found a compromise with her earlier ambitions: Being a star is no longer paramount; she’ll take advancement, which Ernst provides. Ernst, however, will not accept compromise. He wants the woman he loves, not a woman for whom he must settle. Although Doris is ready to settle for Ernst, she knows she could lose him because he doesn’t love her, and this fear keeps her up at night.

“Father, perform a miracle and give me an education—I can do the rest with makeup.” 

Doris figures there is only one thing that makes her inferior to Ernst’s wife, Hanne, and that is education. Doris believes that if she can obtain erudition on par with Hanne, then her beauty and fashion sense will make her irresistible to Ernst, which would secure her status and lead to a life with him.

“I’ll never get used to one without education which is where I would belong—and one with education is not going to get used to me.” 

Lack of education, once again, stands in the way of Doris’s quest for a better life. The uneducated cannot obtain an education, but they also cannot have a better life without an education.