Effi Briest - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

The young, immature and carefree Effi, still practically a child, but attracted by notions of social honour, consents to live in the small Baltic town of Kessin, where she ends up in the throes of an emotional crisis. Her husband is away for weeks at a time and leaves her to her own devices in their home. Alienated from the local aristocracy and therefore miserably unhappy, Effi finds but one companion in the whole town.

She suspects that their house may be haunted. Innstetten reassures her, but, perhaps on purpose, does not completely lay her fears to rest. When she voices her disquiet about the possible presence of a ghost, her husband angrily responds that her fears are insignificant when compared with the importance of his political career. His reply shows his worry that people may learn about Effi’s discomfort and subsequently censure them publicly.

The mercurial and debonair Major Crampas finally announces his arrival in Kessin, and although he is married and notorious for his overt womanising, Effi cannot help but rejoice in the attention he shows to her. As the reader is only delicately told, a full extramarital relationship is consummated. Despite this, later in the novel Effi is relieved to move to Berlin, away from Crampas, and expresses shame at her adultery, although she also expresses shame at not feeling guilty enough. Innstetten, however, inwardly scorns Crampas and perceives him as a lecherous womanizer with a cavalier attitude to the laws, whereas Crampas is persuaded that Innstetten has a habit of educating and "edifying" his fellows in a slightly patronising way.

Years later, Effi’s young daughter Annie is growing up and the family has relocated to Berlin as Innstetten has ascended the political hierarchy. All things appear to have turned out well for Effi. However, Instetten discovers her old correspondence with Crampas, and learns that his wife had become enamored of Crampas while they were living in Kessin. Innstetten challenges Crampas to a duel. Crampas agrees to the plan and is killed by Innstetten. Innstetten resolves to divorce Effi immediately. He is given custody of their daughter, in whom he successfully develops a feeling of disdain for her mother. Indeed, when Effi and Annie arrange a brief encounter a couple of years later, the tense atmosphere which dominates the reunion shows that they have grown further apart. In the aftermath of this meeting, Effi ceases to make any more endeavors to strike up an untroubled relationship with her daughter.

Forlorn and disowned by her fellows, Effi adjusts to a reclusive life and suffers from ostracism for years, during which she plumbs the depths of despair. Since public opprobrium has been heaped upon her, her parents refuse to take her back, believing that it is not right for them to accept her in the midst of their family. (According to the prevailing values of the late nineteenth century, one's reputation would be besmirched by the acquaintance of someone whose marriage was annulled because of their own adultery.)

In the meantime, Innstetten has second thoughts about his action. He finally has to acknowledge that the brighter days of his marriage are long past: he does not even delight in his gradual ascent within the country’s political hierarchy.

Effi is eventually taken in by her parents, and temporarily seems to recover from the nervous disorder she has come down with. Her recovery is nonetheless temporary, as feelings of sorrow and repentance are deeply embedded in her soul. Shortly before she passes away, she summons her mother and pleads with her to inform Innstetten about her regrets about her actions, with which she has been bedevilled over the course of her declining years. The novel closes with Effi dying serenely at the parental estate of Hohen-Cremmen, in a very symmetrical ending that matches the beginning of the novel. In the novel’s final scene, her parents vaguely realise their responsibility for her intractable hardships, but ultimately they do not dare question the social constructs which caused the tragedy.