This anti-romantic and starkly realistic tragedy is about a common soldier, Woyzeck, who attempts to make sense out of life in the face of the intolerance of those about him who think him stupid. Driven mad by external forces — inhuman military discipline, environment, class and religion — he slaughters his wife and then drowns himself. Buchner's portrayal is ironic and compassionate: the play was a remarkable nineteenth-century call for the need for social reform.