Wagner s The Ring of the Nibelung focuses on several types of love relationships, including father-daughter, spousal, incestuous and star-crossed. Despite the type of relationship focused upon, Wagner seems to weigh his focus on those relationships that involve a man and a woman only. Given the many types of love relationships available and possible to focus upon in such relationships, to include gender-based, we should consider the following question: why might Wagner focus solely on a gender-based, man/woman relationship? Wagner, as we all do, has many love-relational choices and options to focus upon. Why limit himself to simply the love relationship between a man and a woman? Wagner, writing to his friend August Röckel, describes the full reality of love [as] possible only between the sexes: only as man and woman can we human beings really love, whereas all other forms of love are mere derivatives of it, originating in it, related to it, or an unnatural imitation of it ( Letters. 303). We can infer from Wagner here that Wagner s thought regarding true love relationships define, fundamentally, an engagement between a man and a woman only. All other love relationships, the implication provides to us, stem from this fundamental belief. This constrictive and narrowed view and belief, Wagner s exclusive treatment with such engagement, may also explain why Fricka and Wotan do not really love each other and why Wotan and Brünnhilde, perhaps, do, per Wagner s view and definition, fundamentally love each other.
Fricka, cannot love, in the way Wagner understands and pronounces it because she is not human. Man or women presupposes and assumes humanity, that is, not godlike, simply homo sapien. As a goddess, her individual egoism prevents her from partaking in true, human-based love. Wotan, though a god, has human qualities; we see such quality and embodiment when he breaks down to Brünnhilde, wanting nothing but the ending / that ending! (Ring. 111), meaning, we infer, his own demise for killing his own son through his own greediness. Brünnhilde alone / alone knew all my innermost secrets; / Brünnhilde alone / saw to the depths of my spirit! (Ring 140). Brünnhilde is Wotan s dearest companion and he confides in her more than he confides in and with his wife, as she can and does understand his human emotions, while Fricka, not understanding nor even caring to understand such things, simply rejects his emotions. From this, we might see Wagner s belief and view that in order to love a child or friend, a man must learn about human relationships and, ultimately, human love, from a human woman. Brünnhilde, born of Erda ( Mother Earth ) and Wotan, is a love child. Though Erda and Wotan are both gods, they possess and exhibit the strongest connection to humans and, as such, may be viewed as semi-human. Their daughter, Brünnhilde, expresses a certain humanity in Wotan, exposes it, revolting in and for the sake of love, forcing him to make Brünnhilde herself fully human. Once human, she meets Siegfried and falls in love. Brünnhilde is blinded by her love as we see when she asks her sister, Waltraute, if she was brought here by my love? (Ring 272). Waltraute then implies Brünnhilde is crazy. Waltraute instead comes to tell her to give the ring back to the Rhinemaidens. Brünnhilde refuses to give up the ring, as it remains her strength (Letters 312) it is
her love, and her love makes her uniquely divine ( Letters 309). In a sense, we see that she would rather destroy both the gods and Walhall than relinquish her love. Ironic, here, as the ring s power belongs to the one who rejects love. In the end, Brünnhilde comes to understand that she can t love Siegfried with or without the ring, let alone, perhaps, simply while being alive. Wagner says that man s desire to descend from the most intellectual heights to the depths of love, the longing to be understood instinctively, is a longing which modern reality cannot yet satisfy (Letters 306). We find that Brünnhilde knew everything until she fell in love with Siegfried, finding more that, then, all she knew was that she loved Siegfried and that was all that mattered to her. Brünnhilde and Siegfried possess and express and Wagnerian true love relationship, a relationship that Wagner believes all people should wish to possess and express but don t because they are so fearful of love and of falling in love; so instead they reject it. Love, for Wagner, requires removing our ego and connecting with another person. For Wagner, we fear losing that connection and so choose to eliminate the connection all together. Siegfried is Wagner s Futurist human, on who is fearless one who never ceases to love (Letters 307). Wagner s belief that modern reality cannot yet satisfy our desire for love can be seen in Brünnhilde and Siegfried s relationship and in Sieglinde and Siegmund. Brünnhilde and Siegfried s love can only exist in death. Other people s egos, the need for power and fear of love, prevent Brünnhilde and Siegfried from their love, and it is only in death that they can satisfy their desire to love. Sieglinde and Siegmund are brother and sister. Fricka, who represents the modern reality, deemed their true love from the outset, useless, unwarranted, unworkable. Wagner suggests that because we fear the taking of
that dive of love, we create and define our modern reality, preventing us from having the truest, most real life (Letter 304). In Wagner s depiction of Sieglinde s relationship to Hunding, he suggests ideas regarding our notion of modern reality. Wagner insists that there is no love between them. Sieglinde was forced to marry Hunding, who used her body to make her his slave. In many ways, Wagner suggests that we make ourselves slaves by conforming to the norm: our norm dictates that we get married, have kids and forever live in bliss. However, Wagner gives us pause, suggesting that people rush into relationships and many times make false connections just to be considered normal. Wagner writes at a time when arranged marriages were the norm; people had little or no choice in whom they married. They were not free to fall in love. Wagner s depiction and consequences of this modern reality or norm of an inability to satisfy our desire for love may have been inspired by the expressions of Schopenhauer. Arthur Schopenhauer, a German philosopher, anti-hegelian, as radical in his beliefs as Wagner, thought that our reality was comprised of the human will, more specifically, an animalistic instinct to live. It may be argued that the term survival could be used for such an instinct. Our wills, Schopenhauer insists, consume our lives. For Schopenhauer, our lives remain full in the attempt to feed our wills and desires. Such attempts, per Schopenhauer, are often, mostly, unsuccessful. The more unsuccessful we are, the more we want and desire, and, proportionately, distress over such wants. If we can and do satisfy our desires, Schopenhauer then suggests that we become bored, and, in turn, seek ever-newer desires and newer miseries. It becomes, for Schopenhauer, an never-ending, vicious cycle of chasing and of lust, of never being able to satisfy.
Schopenhauer was pessimistic, believing love, egoism and progress, among other human endeavors and activities, were causes of our inabilities to obtain our desires and, thus, the basis of and for our suffering. Love is pleasurable, he insisted, because it creates a want for life in others, while satisfying one s own will to live. Our egoism, Schopenhauer suggests, compels us to inflict pain on others in the hope of lessening our own misery, when, in fact, it might simply heighten it. When we believe we are making progress, Schopenhauer suggests, it s a delusion, for we can never be satisfied, let alone, forever. Such delusion, we can infer from Schopenhauer, just causes more grief when we realize the reality of our life of desires. Schopenhauer views death as the mean and reason for life. He believes that living and suffering are equivalent, death is inevitable, and that life is just a constant cycle of dying. Yet Schopenhauer also maintains that death is the defiance of the will-to-live and our wills, in general, taken even with suicide, though not morally wrong, is philosophically a waste as it asserts the will-to-live. Schopenhauer s ideas can be seen throughout The Ring of the Nibelung. Alas, Wagner s notion of modern reality and Schopenhauer s notion of the reality of the will are really one in the same. Brünnhilde and Siegfried, just like Sieglinde and Siegmund, want to love each other but they can not because other people s egoism prevented them from doing so. When Brünnhilde and Siegfried thought they had or were making progress in their lives and relationship with one another, they were wrong; everything backfires, though not because they secured what they had sought and were then bored with it. The Rhinemaidens, perhaps the best example of progress, had the gold and all that they
desired, and then they egged on Alberich (perhaps to prove their beauty and fame) only to lose their gold. Though it would seem that they always had their gold and never worked for it and they also never really ever worked to get it back either. Wotan s strive for power ended in suicide when he realized he couldn t have it. In light of Schopenhauer s notion that suicide actually fulfills the will-to-live, Wagner depicts Wotan and Brünnhilde s as those who get what they want only through death and dying. Fafner kills Fasolt to get the gold. Alberich curses and enslaves creatures, gods and people to get the ring. Each character and their portrayal in The Ring of the Nibelung want something. They all have will. They all fear not getting what they want, except Siegfried. Schopenhauer believed that love served as a mask for a human s desire to reproduce and to pass on the will-to-live. Sex, in itself, makes the characters in The Ring of the Nibelung selfish-like. The male character s desire for sex has more to do with control and dominance than does it romance. Brünnhilde, on the other hand, uses sex as a display of romance and love. Sex consumes the characters, especially Brünnhilde, and changes them. They see nothing and no one. Brünnhilde only sees herself and her love for Siegfried. For Alberich, sex is nothing but evidence of his wealth and power; Hagen s mother was bought by [ Alberich s] gold (Ring 282). Siegfried, once securing the ring (the source that enslaves people to their will) also desires sex, as can be seen we when he hurriedly goes to get Brünnhilde to win Gutrune as his wife, and when he tells the Rhinemaidens were I not Gutrun s husband, I d try to capture one of those pretty maids make her mine (Ring 312)! Because sex and love exist to procreate, in a fundamental level, Wagner believed that love must exist between a man and woman before it could be dispersed to anyone
else. Being such, we can see how Wagner s view regarding relationships between males fail. Siegfried and Mime and Alberich and Hagen reflect examples of definite short comings of male-to-male relationships. There is no wife or mother in either relationship; father figures, Mime and Alberich, do not love their sons, instead they use them. Their relationships are based on greed, power and hate. The fathers try to manipulate their sons into winning the ring for them. Their selfish desires prevent them from attaining a true relationship, and keep them far from love. Wotan s want for power kept him from Siegmund as well. Siegfried, born fearless and without seeing or knowing a woman, meets Brünnhilde and learns both fear and love. Wagner shows through Siegfried how love induces fear. Siegfried, however, overcomes his fears, as Wagner believes we are unable to do because our modern reality prevents it. Wagner implies that our fear keeps us from what we want and denies us progress, believing that when we can overcome our fears, our egos and our greed we can truly get what we ultimately desire. That desire remains love. In order to reach what we desire, a man needs a woman, and a woman needs a man. Brünnhilde is thus, of course, Wagner s hero in the opera. Brünnhilde is both god and human. As a god, she can relate to human emotion, the same emotions Wotan felt. When Brünnhilde becomes human, she understands and feels human emotion love, happiness, pain, sorrow, anger and revenge. Brünnhilde had a connection between the old rule of the gods and the new rule of humans. She redeems both Wotan and Siegfried because of this connection. Wagner sought Brünnhilde to be the hero, as, without a female, the world wouldn t be worth having and couldn t be had. The desire to love and procreate cannot be satisfied without a woman.
Work cited
Wagner, Richard. The Ring of the Nibelung. Trans. Andrew Porter. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1977. Print. ---.Selected Letters of Richard Wagner. Trans. And ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington. New York: W.W. Norton, 1987. Print. Jacquette, Dale. "Schopenhauer on Death." The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer. Ed. Christopher Janaway. Cambridge University Press, 2000. Cambridge Collections Online. Cambridge University Press. 07 May 2009 Richard Wagner. Wikipedia. 25 Arp. 2009. Wkipedia Foundation. 26 Arp. 2009. Web. The Radical Academy. "The Philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer." The Radical Academy. 07 May 2009. Web. Raiciu, Udor. "Love, Just Another One of Nature's Tricks - Schopenhauer was Right.Latest news - Softpedia. 07 May 2009. Web.