Thea von Harbou

Name: Metropolis
Author: Thea von Harbou

Metropolis (1927)

Summary

"Metropolis," written by Thea von Harbou, is a 1925 novel that examines the conflict between industrial advancement and human feeling through the perspective of a dystopian city. Set in a mechanized urban center, the story follows Freder, a young man caught between his father’s autocratic control and his affection for Maria, a worker in the subterranean city.

Themes of machinery, social division, and the importance of human bonds run throughout the text, as illustrated in striking descriptions of the "New Tower of Babel" and the "Pater-noster machine." The work blends allegory with drama to critique the dehumanizing aspects of modern life, reaching a climax in which love, sacrifice, and the dangerous merging of technology and the human body intertwine.

Quotes from Metropolis (Thea von Harbou)

Thea von Harbou, Metropolis (1927)

“ If I were to be paralysed—with paralysed feet, I should still find my way to Hell—' Freder is your son. What do you think, Joh, he would answer me were I to say to him: give up the girl you love...?"
Joh Fredersen was silent.
"Take care, Joh," said the old mother. "I know what it means when your eyes grow cold, as now, and when you grow as pale as one of the stones of the wall. You have forgotten that lovers are sacred. Even if they are mistaken, Joh, their mistake itself is sacred. Even if they are fools, Joh, their folly itself is sacred. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Thea von Harbou, Metropolis (1927)

“ Art thou the same in heaven as thou art on earth?... Our Father, which art in heaven, when thou callest us into heaven, shall we keep the machines in thy world—the great wheels which break the limbs of thy creatures—the great merry-go-round called the earth?... Thy will be done, Pater-noster!... Give us this day our daily bread.... Grind, machine, grind flour for our bread. The bread is baked from the flour of our bones... And forgive us our trespasses ... what trespasses, Pater-noster? The trespass of having a brain and a heart, that thou hast not, machine? ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Thea von Harbou, Metropolis (1927)

“ There is nothing on earth more incompassionate than a woman who only loves one single being.... You cool murderesses in the name of Love.... You goddesses of Death, with your smile!... The hands of your Beloved are cold. You ask: 'Shall I warm your hands for you, Beloved?' You do not wait for his 'Yes.' You set fire to a city. You burn down a kingdom, so that you can warm the hands of your Beloved at its blaze.... You rise up and pluck from the heaven of the world its most radiant stars, without caring that you destroy the Universe and put the dance of the Eternal out of balance. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Thea von Harbou, Metropolis (1927)

“ His eyes which seemed to be lidless, clung to the roof of the cathedral.
Maria had reached the white bundle, which lay, crumpled up in the corner, between the spire and the roof. She slid along to it on her knees, stretching her hands out towards it, blinded with misery:
"Freder.... Freder...."
With a savage snarl, like the snarl of a beast of pray, Rotwang clutched at her. She struggled amid screams. He held her lips closed. With an expression of despairing incomprehension he stared into the girl's tear-wet face.
"Hel ... my Hel ... why do you struggle against me?" ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Thea von Harbou, Metropolis (1927)

“ Freder ran, but not to the heights of the Tower. He ran to the depths, driven by horror and curiosity—down into the hell—guided by luminous pillars—to the abode of the Pater-noster machine, which was like Ganesha, the god with the elephant's head.
The luminous pillars by which he ran did not shine as usual with their white, icy light. They blinked, they flashed lightning, they flickered. They burnt with an evil, green light. The stones, over which he ran, swayed like water. The nearer he came to the machine-room, the more bellowing did the voice of the tower become. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Thea von Harbou, Metropolis (1927)

“ The guard of the Heart-machine drew in a great draught of air.
"Who is speaking there—?" he asked. "What lousy swine is speaking there—?"
"Open the door, Grot...."
"The devil I will—!"
"... and give up the machine!"
"The machine—?" said Grot, "the—my machine?"
"Yes," said the quiet voice.
The guard of the Heart-machine began to shake. His was a quite blue face, in which the eyes stood like whitish balls. The mob, which was throwing itself, as a buffer, against the ringing door yelled, hoarse with yelling:
"The machines must die—to Hell with them! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Thea von Harbou, Metropolis (1927)

“ He felt—and saw, too—how, from out the swathes of vapour, the long soft elephant's trunk of the god Ganesha loosened itself from the head, sunken on the chest, and gently, with unerring finger, felt for his, Freder's forehead. He felt the touch of this sucker, almost cool, not in the least painful, but horrible. Just in the centre, over the bridge of the nose, the ghostly trunk sucked itself fast; it was hardly a pain, yet it bored a fine, dead-sure gimlet, towards the centre of the brain. As though fastened to the clock of an infernal machine the heart began to thump. Pater-noster.... ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Thea von Harbou, Metropolis (1927)

“ What does a girl know of love? Her unstormed fortresses—her unopened Paradises—her sealed-up books, whom no one knows but the god who wrote them—what do you know of love? Women know nothing of love either. What does light know of light? Flame of burning? What do the stars know of the laws by which they wander? You must ask chaos—coldness, darkness, the eternal unredeemed which wrestles for the redemption of itself. You must ask the man what love is. The hymn of Heaven is only composed in Hell.... I do not implore your love, Maria. But your pity, you motherly one, with the virgin face.... ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Thea von Harbou, Metropolis (1927)

“ His hand flew to his throat which felt like a glowing cork, like smouldering charcoal.
September fell silent, shrugging his shoulders. Words seethed up from the depths like lava.
"I am the Three-in-one—Lucifer—Belial—Satan—! I am the everlasting Death! I am the everlasting Noway! Come unto me—! In my hell there are many mansions! I shall assign them to you! I am the great king of all the damned—! I am a machine! I am the tower above you all! I am a hammer, a fly-wheel, a fiery oven! I am a murderer and of what I murder I make no use. I want victims and victims do not appease me! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Thea von Harbou, Metropolis (1927)

“ You are ten thousand! You are a hundred thousand! Why do you not throw yourselves—a hundred thousand murdering fists—upon the machines and strike them dead—? You are the masters of the machines—you! Not the others who walk in their white silk—! Turn the world about—! Stand the world on its head—! Murder the living and the dead—! Take the inheritance from living and dead—! You have waited long enough—! The hour has come!"
A voice shouted from among the multitude:
"Lead us on, Maria—!"
A mighty wave—all the heads broke forward. The blood-red mouth of the girl laughed and flamed. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Thea von Harbou, Metropolis (1927)

“ I am a creature that has no feet, no hands and hardly a head. And this head is only there eternally to think that I wanted to kill my own father. Do you believe that I shall ever get free from this hell—? Never, Josaphat. Never—never in all eternity. I lay during the night hearing my father walking up and down in the next room. I lay in the depths of a black pit; but my thoughts ran along behind my father's steps, as though chained to his soles. What horror has come upon the world that this could happen? Is there a comet in the heavens which drives mankind to madness? ”

Thea von Harbou

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Quotes from Metropolis (Thea von Harbou)

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