i'm bringing this back because i so badly want to talk about this but i have one quote as evidence. pleasseee just walk with me.
in act i scene 1, wendla says this:
she proposes she shall not be at all when she's older, a line which both foreshadows her death and, imo, could be a nod to suicidal ideation. again i'm going to need you to walk with me...
i specifically want to parallel it to this line from moritz in act ii scene 1:
which touches upon established thematic topics of school, religion, and 'willing death'/suicidal tendencies all in one go--the main three forces which eventually drive him to take his own life. again, foreshadowing his death, but much heavier given that it's a male character speaking.
i'm seeing a relationship between the two:
they're foreshadowing their deaths by coded means
both appear at the very start of an act--which is especially important in moritz's case, as he dies in the very same one
lines are treated as off-handed despite their implications (which deepen once you learn of the characters' fates)--wendla as a jab at her mother, moritz as a complaint to melchior
wendla's is a vague suggestion of death, while moritz's is far more direct 1) due to their in-text attitudes and 2) due to wedekind's 19th century sensibilities about writing women compared to writing men
i have to bring up these parallels to make the concept of wendla with suicidal ideation make sense, because it's only made outright in moritz's case. when there are so many similarities between the two of them and these two lines in specific, i don't think it's unreasonable to argue for this theory. i thought i'd post about it because it's a fascinating idea that really broadens the content of wendla's character, even if i'm so frustrated by the lack of textual content there is to base this upon. the opposite could just as well be argued 🤧 bahhh!!!!