W świecie powinności i obowiązków szlacheckich. Historyczno-antropologiczny kontekst literackiego obrazu kobiecych dążeń do spełnienia na podstawie powieści Effi Briest Theodora Fontanego (1895)

Researchers on Prussian nobility living in the 19th and 20th centuries first need to define their system of values. Only from this point of view is it possible to recognize their actions, looking for the motivation that directs their life. Theodore Fontane’s novel presents the life of Effi Briest, a young noble woman, who, suddenly and with no protest, became the wife of a much older influential man. The novel makes it possible for the reader to look for an answer whether for a Prussian gentry woman the fulfilment of rules and duties could be her main goal. The answer lies in the life stories of three women: Luise von Briest,, Effi von Briest and major von Crampas’s wife. An analysis of their situation taking into consideration historical and anthropological perspectives, leads to a conclusion that only a deep integration with nobles’ way of life can result in a success. However, faithfulness to the traditional hierarchy of values and duties was no longer the key to happiness for women in a quickly modernized world. Instead of gratification, it leads into personal dramas, showing that those values were a relic of the passing world of agrarian society.