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Scene 13
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Woyzeck, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Human Nature
Secrecy, Paranoia, and Betrayal
Poverty and Suffering
Character vs. Circumstance
Summary
Analysis
It’s night, and Andres and Woyzeck are in the same bed. Suddenly Woyzeck shakes Andres, urging him to wake up. He tells Andres he can’t sleep: every time he closes his eyes, he hears music and sees Marie and the drum major dancing. And then a voice tells him to “stab.” Andres grumbles that Woyzeck shouldn’t worry about it and should let him sleep.
When Andres dismisses Woyzeck’s attempts to talk about his aural and visual hallucinations, he minimizes Woyzeck’s ongoing turmoil. His failure to take Woyzeck’s claims seriously suggests that Andres has cynically accepted that anguish and suffering are an unavoidable fact of life for poor, lowly soldiers like themselves.
Themes
