Amok is a novella by the Austrian author Stefan Zweig. First printed in the newspaper Neue Freie Presse in 1922, it appeared shortly afterwards in the collection of novellas Amok: Novellas of a Passion. The original German title is Der Amokläufer.
Background
Zweig, who was fascinated and influenced by the work of Sigmund Freud, incorporated clear psychoanalytic elements into the story. The title derives from the Indonesian-origin term "amok" (referring to "running amok"), which was relatively uncommon in German-speaking Europe at the time. The German title Der Amokläufer is a neologism combining the Indonesian root with a High German suffix, literally meaning "the amok-runner."
Plot
The story is framed as a first-person narrative. An unnamed narrator travels from India to Europe aboard the ocean liner Oceania in 1912. One night on deck, he encounters a disturbed and reclusive man who eventually confides his story.
The man is a physician from Leipzig who moved to a remote village in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) seven years earlier. Isolated and depressed, he describes himself as "like a spider in its web, motionless for months." One day, a white Englishwoman—the wife of a Dutch merchant—visits him seeking a discreet abortion. The doctor, struck by sudden passion, refuses to simply perform the procedure for money and instead demands that she ask him personally outside of office hours. She refuses and leaves.
The doctor becomes obsessively fixated on the woman, following her to her home and frightening her. Desperate to keep her pregnancy secret, the woman eventually turns to an indigenous healer. The procedure fails, and she dies in agony. On her deathbed, she makes the doctor promise to ensure that neither her husband nor anyone else learns the true cause of her death.
The doctor falsifies a death certificate. When the woman's husband arranges to have her body transported to Europe aboard the cruiser Oceania, the doctor abandons his career and pension to follow on the same ship, determined to prevent any further investigation. He hides from other passengers, emerging only at night. After the narrator offers help, the doctor refuses and disappears.
Upon arrival in Naples, the narrator learns of a "mysterious accident": as the lead coffin containing the woman's remains was being unloaded, the doctor threw himself onto it, dragging both himself and the coffin into the sea. Neither the doctor nor the coffin could be recovered.
Themes
The novella deals with extreme obsession, the destructive power of repressed passion, and the psychological descent of its protagonist, who sacrifices his professional and private life and ultimately commits suicide. It also explores themes of colonial isolation, class and racial dynamics, and the tension between European and indigenous cultures.
Adaptations
The novella has been adapted for film five times:
- Amok (1927 film)
- Amok (1934 film)
- Amok (1944 film)
- Amok (1977 film)
- Amok (1993 film)
