Pandora’s box

Pandora’s Box, Expressionistic drama in three acts by Frank Wedekind, published and performed in German in 1904 as Die Büchse der Pandora. Originally written as the second part of a work similarly titled, the play was censored when it was first published for its explicit scenes of destructive sexuality. The first part of the longer original work had been published in 1895 as Der Erdgeist (Earth spirit). It tells the story of , an Lulu amoral woman who disregards bourgeois values; her amorality and her insistence on sexual freedom are dangerous to all who come in contact with her. Pandora’s Box tells the sordid story of Lulu after her escape from jail for the murder of her third husband. She becomes a prostitute and is eventually murdered by Jack the Ripper in London. Wedekind makes a compelling statement about the power and primitiveness of human nature and the shallowness and ineffectuality of the rules that are intended to control this nature.