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Scene 7
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
In Marie’s room later, Woyzeck stares at Marie and raves about how she looks “beautiful as sin” and how the room smells of sin, too. Marie calls him delusional. Woyzeck asks if “he” stood right were Woyzeck himself now stands. He claims he saw the man and calls Marie a whore. Marie orders him not to touch her: she’d rather be stabbed than feel his hands on her. Woyzeck looks at Marie, suspicious. “Everyone is an abyss,” he notes, convinced that Marie must be keeping something from him. Then he leaves.
Although the previous scene cleverly does not show with certainty that Marie and the drum major actually consummated their affair, Woyzeck suspects that they did. Woyzeck, of course, has been suffering delusions since the start of the play, so it’s impossible to know for certain whether his suspicions are founded or are a side effect of his already fragile grip on reality. His remark that “Everyone is an abyss” points to the fundamental unknowability of others. Ultimately, everyone has their own inner life, and others can only guess at its secrets.
Themes
