In the scene where the baby is taken to the midwife, Meta gives the woman some money.
Is this money being paid for the midwife to kill the baby or to take care of her? The close-up of the name plate seemed a bit ominous, and the looks exchanged between Meta and the midwife seemed to be "saying something" as well.
Was this a common practice back then? A midwife would not only deliver babies but "get rid" of them too?
I think the money was to care for the child. The implication was that the midwife was also a wetnurse or arranged for wetnursing. It seemed weird to get the midwife involved after the birth, in any case.
shareI had always wondered about the midwife business too, contacting her after the birth. It makes sense that a midwife would know someone who had recently gave birth and would be able to be a wetnurse a baby.
As to the suggestion that the midwife would deliberately kill the child, I have to agree that that wasn't intended. However, the midwife's callous attitude when she told Louise that the baby was dead indicates that the children might have died of neglect. The death of socially unwanted infants may have been a social problem that Pabst wanted to highlight.
Is it simply a confusing coincidence that the girl Thymian befriends in the reformatory happens to have the same name as her lost infant? Or is the whole thing engineered for the sake of that one title after she discovers the baby's death, so that she can say that she wants to be taken to "Erika" and the audience can see it as having two different meanings?
~~Igenlode, who did like "Diary of a Lost Girl" better than "Pandora's Box"
Gather round, lads and lasses, gather round...
I had that exact same thought!
The look the woman gives her as she's going back down the stairs after being told her baby was dead....that told me that she was lying. It could have been another baby, after all she was a mid-wife!
Perhaps the money given to her by Meta was to lie to Thymiane if she ever did make it to the house to inquire about the child.
Meta was out to make her life a living hell all for the sake of control over Thymiane's father (and his money). I hate people who enjoy the destruction of others so much.
Yes, the sign on the door say "Ww. so-and so, Hebamme" (The Widow so-and-so, Midwife.) I suspect in Weimar Republic Germany, with its terrible economy and when it cost thousands of marks to buy a loaf of bread, that midwives were paid to 'take care' of all kinds of problems. But it also seems that Thymian has been in the reform school for while when she escapes and goes back. Maybe someone has read the novel from which the film was taken, and can explain more.
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I also was not sure, but I didn't think the baby was deliberately killed. As you point out, the timing alone doesn't make that theory cohere (unless the midwife was lying, and the coffin being carried down the stairs was just the latest victim, not Erika).
I assumed that the midwife was someone who takes cash to be a dumping ground for illegitimate and abandoned children (and as her profession is that of a midwife, it would be less conspicuous if there were infants around). However, as the midwife just wants the cash and assumedly might have several infants around at any given time, she is a neglectful caretaker, and we are to assume that baby Erika died of neglectful care/malnourishment. I assumed it really was Thymian's baby being carried past her on the stairway, and the midwife's callous response at the door showed how little she cared about which babies made it and which didn't.
Having said all of that, I am only going by my instincts, and I am not sure of all the particulars.
I don't think the baby died. I just think she sold the baby and told her that so she would not go look. That is what I think she did to the baby's that people gave her, she sold them. It is a good shut her up story. How convenient the baby dies right when she came there. Sounded like she made up the story while she was standing there, because she was shocked to see her come back for the baby. I was waiting for the baby to show up later on in the movie. I swear if time had progressed more she would of ran into her child at the reform school. She was a black market baby seller, how callous can a person be. It would of been way too much for that women to have a house full of babies. She sold them. That coffin was probably one babies or mother or both who just died in childbirth under her care.
shareIn Sweden where I live there used to be an informal institution "taking care" of unwanted babies. The babies were given away to women called "Änglamakerskor" i e "Angelmakers" which gives a hint as to the fate of the baby. The reason for giving babies away, with the understandig that they would disappear, was the usual - social stigma, no work and no money. The Angelmaker would be payed, ostensibly to nurse the baby but implicitly to make it disappear. Presumably also for giving the donor a semblance of a clear conscience. A number of Angelmakers went to trial for murder when the mother returned and did not find her baby. This practice ended around the end of 1800, when overall social and economic conditions had improved.
shareIn England around 1900, there were a few women who were executed as "baby farmers" who would take money to take care of an unwanted baby and then killed the child. From Wikipedia:
"Particularly in the case of lump-sum adoptions, it was more profitable for the baby farmer if the infant or child she adopted died, since the small payment could not cover the care of the child for long. Some baby farmers adopted numerous children and then neglected them or murdered them outright (see infanticide). Several were tried for murder, manslaughter, or criminal neglect and were hanged. Margaret Waters (executed 1870) and Amelia Dyer (executed 1896) were two infamous British baby farmers, as were Amelia Sach and Annie Walters (executed 1903). The last baby farmer to be executed in Britain was Rhoda Willis, who was hanged in Wales in 1907. The only woman to be executed in New Zealand, Minnie Dean, was a baby farmer. In Germany and Scandinavia there was an euphemism for this activity: "Engelmacherin" (German), "änglamakerska" (Swedish) and "englemagerske" (Danish), all literally meaning a female "angel maker"."
I wondered too if the mid-wife lied about the baby, that it was sold to someone else. What does the novel say? Since the baby never came up again, I guess it died.
For reasons unknown....I resume....
Unfortunately, the DVD I was watching was faulty and stopped near the end of the film. However I did see the heart wrenching scene of the baby's casket being taken down the stairs. I think the midwife lied as well. I ordered another copy from the library. The film was pretty good.
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