Review of the Novel "Beware of Pity."

What would it happen if your true love, the meaning of your life, turns out to be based on a sophisticated lie? In the novel, Beware of Pity, Edith, the daughter of a landowner, faced this dilemma, became emotionally devastated as a result, and chose to take her own life. Given the social context of that age, one in which the women were much more confined within a patriarchal society than they are today, and where they possessed no real chance to shape their own destiny—whether being of sound body or physically challenged—her decision seems to be the only rational one to an intolerable situation. Yet, it was the only choice that she could make while in such great despair. 

However, I wonder whether her fate would have changed even if she had not found out the heart-breaking truth? I don’t think so. Just imagine this: Hofmiller kept his secret until the day he met another woman, one whom he genuinely loved, what would he do then? Leave Edith and live with the guilt of causing her death or stay and continue to live behind the lie? Even if Hofmiller chose to stay, could Edith endure the pressure of such knowledge or, as a result, not give in to romantic competitions herself? In other words, the real tragedy was not that Edith was physically damaged, but that she was emotionally doomed beyond return once Hofmiller took pity on her.

Putting ourselves into Hofmiller’s shoes, we can also ask another question: how would it feel if someone centered their life on, and became a burden to, ours? How could we then ever leave them while knowing that this would possibly cause them to take their own life? In Louis Cha's well-known kung-fu novel, The Return of the Condor Heroes, the same question arises. There, when the female protagonist, Xiaolongnü, wanted to leave her committed partner, Yang Kang, who would not live without her, she left a message to keep him waiting in hope that, someday, he would probably just forget her and go on with his life. However, Cha tactfully avoided directly confronting this issue by bringing Xiaolongnü back to her partner.

This play also poses another underlying, if not deeper, philosophical question: exactly how much harm, if any, can good deeds contain? All too often, our rationalizations for lying (or withholding the truth) come more out our own cowardice than sincere compassion for others. All the things Hofmiller did for Edith were truly out of pity: a trait which is often considered virtuous. On the other hand, ironically, it was that very same pity that brought Edith’s life to an end.

Hi Kyle. Good job! Whatever changes I have made to your post were merely to make it sound more natural to my native ears. However, please know that your original was of a rather high level (although its structure and logic were a bit awkward in my opinion…and not having read the book, I had to guess! Apologies if I misinterpreted!). Absent extreme extenuating circumstances, suicide is an irrational choice 99.99% of the time (a permanent solution to a temporary situation…). Being Stefan Zweig’s sole novel, as well as given his death (by suicide, no less!) during WWII, it is not surprising that I’ve never heard of it before, so thanks for bringing it to my attention. It sounds like a very good “read” so I will try to find a copy. Thanks again for such an interesting post and for raising such thought-provoking questions! I hope that this helps you. J.