Murke’s Collected Silences (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Heinrich Boll
- First Published: 1958
- Type of Plot: Satire
- Time of Work: 1955
- Setting: An unnamed city in West Germany
- Principal Characters: Dr. Murke, Bur-Malottke, Director of the Broadcasting House, Humkoke
- Genres: Short fiction, Satire
- Subjects: Culture, God, Radio or radio broadcasting, Germany or German people
- Locales: West Germany
The Story
Dr. Murke is introduced as a man who performs an existential exercise every morning on entering the radio station and riding the elevator to his office on the second floor. The elevator is the kind known as a paternoster—a continuous belt with open cages that remain upright like cars on a Ferris wheel as they pass the points where their direction of travel changes from up to down or vice versa. Normally, Murke feels the need to remain on the elevator and submit himself to his daily “anxiety breakfast” as it passes through the top housing with its greasy...
[The entire page is 1501 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
See Also
