Debit and Credit (German: Soll und Haben, 1855) is a novel in six volumes by Gustav Freytag. It was one of the most popular and widely read German novels of the 19th century.
Contents
The novel, a Zeitroman or "social novel", deals with interactions among broad segments of German society during the 19th century. The classes represented are the mercantile or bourgeois class, the nobility, and the Jews:
In 1977, the novel came close to being filmed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, but after a debate about its alleged anti-semitic content this project was abandoned.
Plot
After the death of his father, young Anton Wohlfart begins an apprenticeship in the office of the merchant T. O. Schröter in Breslau. Anton quickly succeeds through honest and diligent work, achieving a proper bourgeois existence. He has a variety of experiences with the Schröter family and also with the noble family of the Rothsattels. He later becomes involved with the liquidation of the estate of the Rothsattel family, an obvious symbol of the decline of the nobility and of its clash with emergent capitalist forces.
Anton has repeated interactions with two other young men, the Jew Veitel Itzig, whom he had known already in his home town, Ostrau, and a young nobleman, Herr von Fink, who is a co-worker in the Schröter firm.
Interpretation
Anton Wohlfart is the emerging hero. As a result of his manifold experiences, he develops a sober and virtuous outlook (Weltanschauung).