1. See Ingrid Schuster and Ingrid Bode, Alfred Döblin im Spiegel der zeitgenössischen Kritik (Bern: Francke Verlag, 1973), pp. 52-61.

2. Ibid., p. 61.

1. See Ingrid Schuster and Ingrid Bode, Alfred Döblin im Spiegel der zeitgenössischen Kritik (Bern: Francke Verlag, 1973), pp. 52-61.

2. Ibid., p. 61.

3. Bertolt Brecht, Tagebücher 1920-1922. Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen 1920-1954 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1975), p. 48.

4. Judith Ryan has addressed one such problem, that of the multiperspective narrative, in her article "From Futurism to 'Döblinism,'" German Quarterly 54 (1981), pp. 415-26.

5. See Werner Stauffacher, "'Komisches Grundgefühl' und 'scheinbare Tragik': Zu 'Wadzeks Kampf mit der Dampfturbine,'" in Werner Stauffacher, ed., Internationale Alfred Döblin-Kolloquien ( = Jahrbuch für Internationale Germanistik, ser. A, vol. 14) (Bern: Peter Lang, 1986), p. 170.

6. Matthias Prangel, Alfred Döblin (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1973), p. 33.

7. The final text of the novel does not clearly state why Gaby demands an introduction to Wadzek's daughter as the price of her aid in his stock maneuvers, but earlier manuscript versions show that Döblin conceived the relationship as a homoerotic one (see W 349, note to p. 39).

8. Brecht, Tagebücher 1920-1922 , p. 48.

9. Otto Keller, Döblins Montageroman als Epos der Moderne (Munich: Fink Verlag, 1980), p. 205.

10. Although it is not explicitly stated, Wadzek's outward reactions (which are all the narrator gives us) suggest clearly that the "critical point" is the realization of his machine's inferiority: "The paper fell from his hand, he half fainted" ( W 30).

11. Keller, pp. 72ff. and 143ff., has drawn attention to the anticipatory parables in Wang-lun and Berlin Alexanderplatz . The past history of Schneemann, although not explicitly parabolical, occupies a similar position at the beginning of the novel and serves a similar purpose.

12. See for example Müller-Salget, p. 88. break

13. See Theodore Ziolkowski, Fictional Transfigurations of Jesus (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), pp. 6-8.

14. See W 349-50, note to p. 40, on Döblin's frequent allusions to the Agamemnon story in his works.

15. He is thus interpreted by Hansjörg Elshorst, "Mensch und Umwelt im Werk Alfred Döblins," Diss., Munich, 1966, p. 27.

16. Kiesel, pp. 201-29, contains a thoroughly researched chapter on the meaning of psychopathology for Döblin's work. Kiesel writes of Döblin's "pathophilia" (p. 224) and asserts that his narrative style often imitates delusionary psychotic states in order to gain insight or "illumination."

17. Schuster and Bode, p. 61.

18. Klaus Schröter is undoubtedly right when he criticizes the novel for a surfeit of undigested symbolism in "Die Vorstufe zu Berlin Alexanderplatz . Alfred Döblins Roman Wadzeks Kampf mit der Dampfturbine, " Akzente 24 (1977), p. 571. This also means a field day for a Jungian critic like Huguet, whose interpretation of the novel depends on the possession of detailed information about Döblin's private life.

19. For Roland Links, the broken mirror shows the "doubtfulness" of Wadzek's existence as a "completely rootless, alienated petit bourgeois, crushed by capitalist competition"; "The unbroken mirror image is a lie. Only in the shards lies the truth"; Alfred Döblin: Leben und Werk (Berlin: Volk und Wissen, 1980), pp. 59 and 60. Hansjörg Elshorst calls the mirror scene the "central point" of the novel and interprets its symbolism as showing that Wadzek and Schneemann are "interchangeable": "There is in reality no unmistakable, concrete individuality" (Elshorst, p. 25). Louis Huguet writes that Wadzek breaks the mirror and wounds himself as self-punishment for incestuous and patricidal wishes (Huguet, p. 711) although there is no mention of Wadzek's parents in the novel. I agree with Ernst Ribbat, who writes that Wadzek identifies with Schneemann's defeat in Stettin and in breaking the mirror "destroys his previous self" (Ribbat, p. 177).

20. See Kimberly Sparks, "Drei schwarze Kaninchen: Zu einer Deutung der Zimmerherren in Kafkas 'Die Verwandlung,'" Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 84 (1965), Sonderheft Moderne deutsche Dichtung, p. 78.

21. See Stauffacher, p. 179.

22. See the excellent notes in Anthony Riley's new edition of the novel, W 359.

23. Judith Ryan, pp. 419-20, shows how another urban description from Wadzek is a "correlative for the emotional state of the central character." That does not seem to be the case in the passage under discussion.

24. Links, Alfred Döblin, p. 60.