Theodor Storm

Theodor Storm was born in Husum in 1817 and laid to rest in the family vault at Husum cemetery in 1888. He followed his father professionally, who had been a lawyer, and became a legal scholar himself. Beyond that, Theodor Storm was an important writer of novellas and poetry. Several of his works have been translated into many languages, set to music and adapted for the stage. Especially well known is the novella “Der Schimmelreiter” (“The Rider on the White Horse”), which I will summarise below and present with a few approaches to analysis and interpretation. Other well‑known literary works include “Der kleine Häwelmann”, “Pole Poppenspäler” and “Aquis submersus”. Already during his school years, Storm wrote his first poems, which he published in the local newspaper. About his home town he wrote the city poem “Die Stadt”, in which Husum is often referred to as “die graue Stadt am Meer”, “the grey town by the sea”.

“Der Schimmelreiter” was completed only a few months before Storm’s death in 1888. The novella has inspired numerous adaptations, including a crime novel, two graphic novels, three film versions and several stage productions. In terms of literary history, it can be assigned to the period of Realism, which roughly spans the years from 1848 to 1890. In general, however, one should keep in mind that placing a work within a certain literary epoch should not be based solely on the dates of its composition or publication. Especially at the end of an epoch or the beginning of a new one, there are overlaps that need to be taken into account.

What is the novella about?

“Der Schimmelreiter” tells the story of the protagonist Hauke Haien, whose ambition drives him to rise from a lowly farmhand to the office of dike reeve. The basis for this is his engagement to Elke, the daughter of the previous dike reeve, through whose marriage he inherits her family’s land. As dike reeve, the central figure changes the way the dike is built. On the one hand, the new design offers better protection against storm tides, and on the other it makes it possible to reclaim more land by enclosing a new polder. Yet the villagers do not agree with these changes, and he meets with resistance. In the end, Hauke Haien fails to protect the village. When one of the old dikes threatens to break, he rides with his wife and child into the floods. Ever since, he is said to appear as a ghostly rider, warning of approaching disaster.

How is “Der Schimmelreiter” structured?

The narrative is framed by a double frame story that encloses an inner story. A frame narrative is a particular narrative technique that is often found in novellas.

The outer frame begins with the report of a first‑person narrator. He recounts how he once read a creepy ghost story in a magazine at his great‑grandmother’s house. This brief narrative almost reads like a preface by the author himself, since this frame is never taken up again, but instead functions as an introduction.

The inner frame is told from the perspective of a traveller who is riding along a dike in a storm. He believes he has seen a rider on a white horse. When he later describes his uncanny experience in an inn in the nearest village, a schoolmaster speaks up. This frame of the traveller ends when, at the close of the novella, he takes his leave of the schoolmaster.

The inner story is told by the schoolmaster. He relates, from his own perspective, the life of Hauke Haien and thus provides the greater part of the novella’s content. The main conflict of the story is the struggle against the forces of nature, while a secondary conflict is the ongoing dispute with the village community. The climax and catastrophe coincide in the death of the protagonist’s family in the storm tides.

In terms of time, the outer frame can be situated around the year 1888, since the narrator recalls that he read a story in a newspaper “a little over a century ago”. Accordingly, the inner frame takes place around 1820. The inner story itself spans the years from about 1732 to 1756.

What are the linguistic features of the novella?

“Der Schimmelreiter” is marked by many North German names and a distinctly North German vocabulary. The text also makes use of Low German expressions. Among themselves, the dike workers use technical terms typical of dike building at the time.

Another linguistically interesting feature, particularly from a literary point of view, is that alongside the numerous dialogues there are also several monologues, moments in which figures in the novella speak with themselves. In addition, Storm makes use of a range of rhetorical devices, such as alliteration and anaphora.

What symbols appear in the novella?

The most prominent symbols in the novella are the dikes and the sea. The dikes can be read as an expression of human skill or as a symbol of the struggle against nature. They are a central motif in “Der Schimmelreiter”, accompanying the protagonist throughout his life, and in the end it is the breaking of the dike that brings his life to an end. In this way, the dikes can also be understood as an analogy to Hauke’s life itself. When he succeeds in realising his dream of the “new” dike, his career reaches its peak. Yet as the conflicts in his life grow more severe, the stability of the dike also begins to falter. Ultimately, Hauke has to recognise that it was his own decisions that placed the village in danger, and he plunges into the sea with a plea that it take him and spare the others.

The sea, by contrast, can be understood as a force of nature that is held back from flooding the land and threatening human life only by the dikes. In this sense, sea and dikes together function as guiding symbols of the novella.

Other symbols are found in the animals. The white animals – the eponymous white horse and the white cat that the protagonist strangles in a fit of rage – stand for misfortune. One superstition holds that whoever shoots a white stag will soon die. The cat can be read in this light. The horse, which comes into the protagonist’s possession emaciated and weak, reminds the villagers of the skeletal horse many had seen in the storm, which disappeared once the white horse appeared in the village. The animal will submit only to Hauke and fills the villagers with fear and dread. Hauke makes use of this, exploiting the dike workers’ fear in order to make them obey his commands. In the end, he plunges with the horse into the floods, and ever since he is said to ride as the “Schimmelreiter” along the dikes whenever a storm tide approaches.

Another important theme is superstition, which is central to the novella. In the frame narratives, superstition appears in the sightings of the ghostly rider. In the inner story, the protagonist uses superstition to bolster his own authority in the eyes of the villagers, while the villagers themselves increasingly come to believe that Hauke is in league with the devil. Although he generally appears as a rational thinker and thus seems to stand against superstition, it is an irony of the text that, after his death, he himself becomes the Rider on the White Horse and thus turns into a figure of superstitious legend.