So what's the source of this play?

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The source of the play, derived from an actual murder that took place during Büchner‘s childhood in Leipzig, Germany in 1821, whereby a soldier stabbed his girlfriend seven times, claiming he suffered from psychological instability, sparked the former medical researcher’s investigative interests, and he sought to deliver a plausible account of the cause of the historical figure’s actions. Büchner mixed actual events with his own creative energies to produce this rousing drama. The underlying issues in the play, nature versus nurture, power versus humiliation, and environment versus heredity, among others, resonate Büchner’s intention of presenting a tragedy of thought; that is, the author delivers a play in which the main character drives himself to madness by thinking too much. Writer John McCarthy insists that from the initial scene throughout the entire work, Büchner exposes a disturbed man who has lost hope for liberation from his lowly station in life, one from which he cannot escape (543).

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