Author(s): Ingeborg Bachmann

Fiction

Each play deals with a certain aspect of our human condition, embedded in the framework of the world around us. In "The Good God of Manhattan," for example Jan, a man "from the Old World" encounters Jennifer, a woman "from the new world" in Manhattan, where they fall prey to the perils of love and share the fate of lovers throughout time and place. "The Cicadas" is the tale of the "marooned" where the isolation of the island as an escape from the real world is symbolised in the Cicada's song. Though the setting is never stated explicitly in "A Deal with Dreams," we assume it is Vienna, the "City of Dreams." Here, dreams are for sale in a shady "deal" offered in the dim light of a pawnshop on a city street. In the end, we learn that the price of dreams is high.