Some kind of friend

From the outset of the play, Büchner surrounds Woyzeck with uncaring characters. Even Woyzeck’s only friend Andres seems unconcerned with his comrade’s ailments. Despite Woyzeck’s pleas for silence as the two men cut branches, Andres fails to consider his friend’s paranoid feelings and sings in the open field, unabashedly. In bed one night, after seeing visions of severed heads rolling around on the ground during the day, a sign of blatant psychological instability, Woyzeck alerts his friend to his abnormal and startling thoughts:

WOYZECK. (Shakes him.) Andres! Andres! I can’t sleep. When I close my eyes,
everything starts turning, and I hear the fiddles, on and on, on and on, and
then there’s a voice from the wall. Don’t you hear anything?

ANDRES. Oh, yeah. Let them dance! God bless us, amen. (Falls asleep again.)

WOYZECK. It keeps saying: stab, stab! And it floats between my eyes like a knife.

ANDRES. Drink some brandy with a painkiller in it. That’ll cut your fever. (538).

Although his friend is unwell, Andres remains unmoved. As readers understand from Büchner’s stage directions, Andres blankly answers questions and absent mindedly comments on the chaotic conditions of Woyzeck’s existence, causing the tortured man to feel alone and unimportant. Although Andres appears detached and unconcerned for the well-being of Woyzeck, he finally expresses miniscule concern, stating, “Franz, you better go to the hospital. You poor guy” (539). Highlighted by the ironic friendship between Woyzeck and a blasé Andres, Büchner chooses to envelop his protagonist in an group of indifferent characters, furthering the tragedy of Woyzeck’s innermost thoughts.

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