When the wealthy father has an affair with a daughter in the poor family, her brother challenges the rich man to a duel, only to be laughed off.
It became an immediate success, launching Sudermann into literary stardom in Germany, and was widely performed during the Wilhelmine period.
[2] The American literary critic James Huneker wrote in his 1905 book Iconoclasts: Yet it is easy to admire Honour.
It contains, notably in the two acts of the "hinter haus," real strokes of observation and profound knowledge of human nature.
The motive of Honour is not alone the ironic contrast of real and conventional ideals of honour—it shoots a bolt toward Nietzsche's land where good and evil blend in one hazy due.