The Relationship Between Effi And Crampas In The Awakening

The harsh reality of loneliness often experienced by married women in the Nineteenth Century ultimately leads Effi to seek pleasure outside of her relationship with Innstetten. She falls to Major Crampas, a known womanizer, in a lustful affair that ultimately results in Effi’s downfall. Though Fontane leaves it up to the reader to decide what is happening between Effi and Crampas. Although there is a clear turning point where Effi seems to understand the gravity of the sin she is committing. This moment can be compared to William Hunt’s The Awakening Conscience, which depicts an unfaithful woman at the moment she realizes her wrongdoing. For example, simply hearing of the village named Crampas causes Effi a sudden tremor of disbelief leading
This illustrates that Prussian marital practices and understandings of sexuality were more related to those in Great Britain rather than the neighboring France. For example, Effi is not granted the freedom of the French woman described in Dr. Michele Plott’s article The Rules of the Game: Respectability, Sexuality, and the Femme Mondaine in Late-Nineteenth-Century Paris. Unlike upper-class French women who were allowed to pursue sex outside of their marriages if they followed the proper social procedure, Effi is not granted the same liberty. Instead, like her British counterparts, she is expected to live a near sexless life and be more concerned with social climbing and child raising than emotional and sexual fulfillment. The concept of the purity of women corresponds closely to William Acton’s belief that women experience little to no sexual desire (Phillips). It appears Fontane is depicting the guilt that arises from breaking the mores that govern female sexuality and allows the reader to understand the Prussian view of