The proven aids for preparing for lessons, presentations, exams, and the Abitur are now presented with new content and in a new form – more differentiated, comprehensive, and clearer! Precise summaries to introduce the text, clear analyses of characters, structure, language, and style, reliable interpretations with concise textual evidence, information about the author and historical context, didactically prepared infographics, illustrations, and tables, as well as current literature and media recommendations. Completely new elements include exam questions and control options, as well as key terms and definitions as a learning glossary. When Thiel the railway keeper marries for the second time, he has no idea what future awaits him alongside his new wife Lene: she domineers over him and mistreats little Tobias, Thiel's son from his first marriage. But how much can a person endure? What step is the one that goes too far? Gerhart Hauptmann's "novelistic study," one of the most significant works of German-language naturalism, depicts Thiel's psychopathological case with extraordinary linguistic intensity.