Who knows what? – The Robbers
About this app
Schiller’s “The Robbers” as a stage with castle, tower and forest: twelve stations from Act 1 to Act 5 show who believes what. Thought bubbles reveal who has been deceived by Franz’s lies, arrows show lies and truths, and a curve counts the false beliefs from the letter to the catastrophe.
With explain mode: an AI tutor walks you through the app, points out what matters in the scene and answers your questions.
The intrigue in “The Robbers”
In Friedrich Schiller’s play “The Robbers” (1781) the catastrophe grows out of false knowledge. Franz Moor, the younger son, forges a letter: his brother Karl has run up debts in Leipzig and killed a man in a duel. He answers Karl in the name of their father, who supposedly disowns him. Karl believes it and becomes a robber captain. Later Franz has Hermann report that Karl has fallen in battle. The father collapses, and Franz secretly locks him in a tower. Only in the third and fourth acts does the truth come out bit by bit, when it is already too late.
What the app shows
A stage with Moor Castle, the tower and the robbers’ forest. Six characters move through twelve stations from the first to the fifth act: old Moor, Franz, Amalia, Daniel, Hermann and Karl. For a chosen statement, such as “Karl is dead”, each character shows in a thought bubble what they believe. Bright bubbles mean deceived, calm ones mean knows the truth. Dashed arrows are lies, solid arrows bring the truth. A second card counts for each station how often characters believe something false. The peak comes with the false news of death in Act two.
What you can try
Use Next and Back to walk through the stations and watch who is deceived when. At first the statement follows the station. Then choose one yourself, such as “the father never wants to see Karl again”, and follow when Karl learns the truth. Tap a character to see everything they believe right now. The magnifier explains every character and setting for children, laypeople and experts. Useful for revising characters, plot and structure of the play before a test.
Frequently asked questions
- What is Schiller’s “The Robbers” about?
- Two very different brothers fight over love, inheritance and justice, and both fail. Franz slanders his brother Karl to their father and becomes master of the castle himself. Out of disappointment Karl becomes captain of a robber band. In the end Franz, the father and Amalia die, and Karl gives himself up to justice.
- Why does Karl Moor become a robber?
- Karl receives a letter saying his father disowns him. Franz wrote it in the name of the father, who actually wanted to forgive Karl. Out of anger and disappointment Karl lets his friends choose him as their captain. So he acts on a lie without checking it.
- What is the intrigue in “The Robbers”?
- Franz forges a letter about Karl, answers Karl in the father’s name and has Hermann deliver false news of Karl’s death. In this way he makes the father cast Karl out and becomes master himself. Because the characters do not talk to each other, the intrigue is only exposed in the fourth act.
- What does the curve in the app show?
- For each station it counts how often one of the six characters believes something false about six statements. The number rises with the letter and peaks with the false news of death in Act two. From the third act on it falls, because Hermann, Daniel and the father pass on the truth.
Subject: Literature
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