Synopsis:
Woyzeck is the all-purpose servant of a German Captain. The Captain
considers him amoral and stupid, largely because Woyzeck is poor.
Woyzeck also makes money by allowing the Doctor to experiment on
him. He has eaten nothing but peas in order to prove some unstated
scientific premise.
Woyzeck discovers his girlfriend, Marie, with whom he has had a
son, having an affair with the drum major. He brings Marie to the
side of a pond and slits her throat. After getting drunk, Woyzeck
realizes that people are looking at him suspiciously and he returns
to the pond and presumably drowns himself.
About
the Writer:
Georg
Büchner - (ga´ôrk
bükh´ner) , 1813-37, German dramatist. He was a
student of medicine and a political agitator. He died at the
age of 24, leaving a powerful drama, Danton's Death (1835,
tr. 1928), a pessimistic view of the French Revolution and
revolutionary politics; a fragmentary tragedy, Woyzeck (1837,
tr. 1928), a psychological study of an alienated character
that Alban Berg adapted for his opera Wozzeck ; and a comedy,
Leonce and Lena (1850, tr. 1928). Büchner greatly admired
the poet J. M. R. Lenz , whom he made the hero of a novella,
Lenz (1838, tr. 1955), which he never completed. His plays,
unorthodox in subject and style, were not staged until many
decades after his death.
Georg
Büchner - (ga´ôrk
bükh´ner) , 1813-37, German dramatist. He was a
student of medicine and a political agitator. He died at the
age of 24, leaving a powerful drama, Danton's Death (1835,
tr. 1928), a pessimistic view of the French Revolution and
revolutionary politics; a fragmentary tragedy, Woyzeck (1837,
tr. 1928), a psychological study of an alienated character
that Alban Berg adapted for his opera Wozzeck ; and a comedy,
Leonce and Lena (1850, tr. 1928). Büchner greatly admired
the poet J. M. R. Lenz , whom he made the hero of a novella,
Lenz (1838, tr. 1955), which he never completed. His plays,
unorthodox in subject and style, were not staged until many
decades after his death. 
