The Artificial Silk Girl

Doris is an 18-year-old woman from a mid-sized city in Germany’s Ruhr Valley; her last name is never given. She has a black and white Weltanschauung, or world view, regarding socioeconomics and gender roles. She lacks education, though she possesses an innate cleverness and an ability to learn, as shown in the ways she manipulates men and uses her sexuality to get what she wants. She can also transform her perspective when new information contradicts her previously held beliefs.

Doris feels restless, wanting to break out of the social confines of her working-class life and enter into the showy, idealized world of film, glitz, and glam. She considers herself better than her social position; this desire, coupled with her Weltanschauung of gender roles, causes her to rely on her sexuality to get what she wants rather than working and becoming independent. Doris divides men into two categories: those with money and those with whom she can have a good time. She struggles to believe that “true love” can actually exist in the world, especially in the chaos of the Weimar era.

Job loss (and the theft of an