Spring Awakening: A Children’s Tragedy

The school’s professors—Schmalz, Blodgett, Starver, Brockenbohn, Fitztongue, Killaflye, and headmaster Hart-Payne—meet to manage the fallout of Moritz’s suicide. It is the latest in an epidemic affecting their school and others. The professors are concerned about protecting the name of the school and shielding themselves from blame. Hart-Payne is indignant, believing that students have broken their duty to their education by killing themselves. He proposes expelling Melchior—whose explanation of sex was found in Moritz’s things—and blaming Moritz’s suicide on Melchior’s corruptive influence.

Hart-Payne summons Melchior. He explains to Melchior how his document, entitled “Copulation,” was analyzed to identify his handwriting. Whenever Melchior tries to speak, Hart-Payne barks at him to remain silent as he excoriates him for the document.

Melchior confirms that he wrote the document but challenges the headmaster to identify a single obscenity in it. Melchior argues that the document merely contains facts about sex that the professors also know. Hart-Payne reprimands Melchior for his disrespect and indecency: “You have as little respect for the dignity of your assembled teachers as you have a sense of decency regarding the deeply rooted human feeling for the discretion of the modesty of a moral order!” (58). He orders Melchior to be taken away.