There is a constant tug of war enacted in Hoffmann’s “Councillor Krespel,” between the rational self and the passionate self. In many ways, Krespel manages to successfully operate a harmonious marriage of the rational and the artistic. Krespel spends his time attempting to balance the fiery uncontrollable passionate self that is represented by both his wife and his daughter, with control and distance.
At times we see the wisdom in these actions, as Krespel attempts to hold on to remnants of that passion in his controlled life, so as not to totally eliminate that which gives us the reason to live. He does so while still maintaining enough distance from the flame to not burn out in a short, but glorious way. However, ultimately we are shown that we are simply the instruments played by our uncontrollable, and unknowable passions.
At the start of the story we have a slightly obsessive Krespel hiring a small army of workers to build a house for himself, “As Krespel had often said he never could meet with a house quite to his mind, this prince, as recompense for his services, undertook to pay for the building of one, to be planned by Krespel according to the dictates of his fancy” (Hoffmann). The house he is building can be seen as representation of Krespel’s own body and mind. It is the home to his self.
He puts in the effort to make the home a reflection of his peculiar self, insistent that the house be made in his particular way, “The house was all finished in the same fashion, everything being done according to Krespel’s directions as given on the spot.” Even in this exhibition of his total need for control, there is a wild and unplanned nature to it.
He builds the house, and himself, up as he moves along, deciding when and where to have the walls smashed in to create doors and windows as it is being constructed. This is particularly apparent upon its completion, “in a short time there was a completely finished house, its outside, indeed, presenting a most extraordinary appearance, no two windows… being alike, but on the other hand the interior arrangements suggested a peculiar feeling of comfort.
All who entered the house bore witness to the truth of this; and I too experienced it myself when I was taken in by Krespel” (Hoffmann). The reason that Krespel could not find a home that fit his liking was because homes are traditionally built with symmetry in mind. But Krespel does not have a symmetrical mind. Even though the outside looks insane, the inside represents his inner self, where he is truly comfortable. This is a testament to how Krespel is seen by others on the surface, but not how he is in his entirety.
The narrator frames his first interactions with Krespel as reflective of the ups and downs of a violin. Krespel is obsessed with violins. He dismantles priceless pieces to find their souls; that sound which can alter a person’s mood or even induce them to sing. Krespel’s movements and his voice are described by the narrator as:
“His movements were awkward, abrupt, constrained, so that you expected him to bump against the furniture and knock things over’ or do some mischief or other every moment… Sometimes the tone of his voice was harsh and strident, at other times it would be soft and melodious; but it was always completely inappropriate to what he happened to be talking about.”
The way Krespel’s movements and his voice are described in this passage reflect the building crescendo of a piece, a flirting with danger, the bringing of a note to its cusp before letting it fall, like a tumultuous tease. It was however at constant odds with his reality. His actions are inappropriate and his voice never finds harmony. It does not seem like he consciously has made these choices. The music within him expresses itself through his voice and train of thought.
Much like when the bow makes contact with the strings of his violin, the attempt is to channel and bend the uncontrollable notes into harmony. Krespel no longer controls the sound; it controls him.
Krespel was in an abusive and contradictory relationship with his wife. His voice reflects the odds that Angela puts him in. She plays his emotions and desires with disharmony. Krespel begins to teter under the oppression. Her lack of emotional stability brings about a lack of control in Krespel that ultimately leads him to toss Angela out of the window, “Blazing up like a fury, she screamed out, ‘Bestia tedesca,’ snatched the violin out of his hand, and dashed it to pieces on a marble table.
Krespel stood before her for a moment, a statue of amazement, and then, as if awaking from a dream, he grasped the Signora with his giant’s strength, pitched her out of the window of her own palazzo.” In seeing his passions take hold of him and have potentially destructive results, Krespel leaves in fear of himself. He distances himself from the passions that Angela has which, in turn, exposes his own. Fearful of how his uncontrolled passion might have destroyed him, Krespel runs off regardless of the temptation that his growing daughter, Antonia, brings.
He is made anxious of what actions he might be capable of. ‘‘Why, there’s not a shadow of doubt,’ he murmured to himself, ‘that as soon as Angela sets eyes upon me again the evil spirit will recover his power and once more take possession of her. And since I have already thrown her out of the window, what could I do if a similar case were to occur again? What would there be left for me to do?’’ (Hoffmann). Krespel remains steadfast in his avoidance until Angela is dead. Thus the fear of losing himself is removed, and he feels, for the first time, in a long time, that he is free.
Of course it wouldn’t be a Hoffmann story if the anxiety in Krespel’s life were to end there. After a brief and momentary relief at meeting his angelic daughter, and hearing her beautiful voice, Krespel is faced with a fork in the road decision over Antonia’s life, “Krespel’s heart was lacerated as if by the stabs of hundreds of stinging knives. It was as though his life had been for the first time overshadowed by a beautiful tree full of the most magnificent blossoms, and now it was to be sawn to pieces at the roots, so that it could not grow green and blossom any more” (Hoffmann).
Interestingly, he does not make the decision for her. He gives her the choice of either living a very short life, but singing to her heart’s content with her betrothed, or no longer singing and living a controlled, but longer life with her father, “She threw herself sobbing into his arms, and he, knowing the heartrending trial that was before her, did not press for a more explicit declaration” (Hoffmann). Just as it seems like he has a new beginning, all his hope is taken from him and replaced by the same feelings of love bound with dread that he had for his wife.
Krespel is once again living in fear, this time for Antonia. The return of Antonia to him was significant in Krespel’s life,“The second evening after his return, his windows were lighted up in an unusual way—and that was enough to attract the neighbors’ attention.” Krespel’s soul lit up in a different way upon uniting with Antonia. He was happy, and he wanted everyone to see it. But this dreadful news meant that Krespel would need to exert control over passion once again to prevent the destruction of his daughter.
For Antonia, the instrument is her voice, and her passion is to pour herself into her music. While her voice draws a crowd in awe, her father fears that this passion will end in her demise. Krespal discourages her singing and attempts to guide her to other, more distant, endeavors. Together, they invest their time in the handling of violins. This, to Krespel, is a good compromise. By allowing her to be close to the vessels of music, and creating them, he thinks Antonia can be satisfied.
For a time, it was enough to mollify his daughter. However, Krespel fails to realize that his daughter’s musical instrument is her voice and that she is only refusing to sing out of love and duty to her father. When she finally succumbs to her temptations and sings she dies happily for it. “He hastened into Antonia’s room.
She was lying on the couch, with her eyes closed, and a heavenly smile on her face, as if she were dreaming of the most exquisite happiness and bliss. But she was dead!” Ultimately Antonia preferred to live briefly with that which gave her a reason to live, than to die in its shadow. The narrator describes the look on her face as ultimate bliss.
After Antonia’s death, Krespal vows to never touch a violin again and he keeps his word. Even the shadow of passion instills fear in him. Prior to Antonia’s death, Krespal was mildly obsessed with the instrument. He would take them apart, inspecting it’s inner workings, “I am quite convinced there is something most peculiar about its interior construction, and that, if I were to take it to pieces, I should discover a certain secret which I have long been in search of.”
But of course the violin never played the glorious music, the player did. The violin was the body and and the musician that played it was the soul. It is just, “that lifeless thing, which I myself inspire with life and language, often speaks to me, out of itself, in an extraordinary manner; and when I first played upon it, I felt as if I were merely the magnetiser—the mesmerist—who acts upon his subject in such sort that she relates in words what she is seeing with her inward vision.” He could search for truth in the violin but it is simply a vessel for what the artist pours into it.
The narrator often uses words such as “fiery” and “fury” to convey the intensity with which passion is felt in the characters of Hoffman’s story. The use of these words are telling because they are wild and destructive if found out of the bounds of careful control. It is this intensity that, unchecked, creates a spiral of irrational actions, leading to the destruction of our characters.
Krespel lives in fear of the unchecked passion that drove him to toss his wife out of a window. When that fear subsided, he lived in fear of the unchecked passion that led to the death of his daughter. He is the only character that saw the destructive power of such an intense passion and tried to control it with rationality. However, as Hoffmann shows us with this story, ultimately, we are simply vessels, instrumen
