What's that one phrase mean? "Black and white to the tip of her nose" Is he saying she's very rigid in her ideology? Like that she only sees things in black and white. Or is it some kind of phrase meaning she's got an upper class affect?
The flag of Prussia is black and white and Marx might do a slight pun on it, that she is very National and Prussian (which makes sense for Bismarck's niece), but the understanding was also that Prussia was rigid and black and white, so it does work on two levels (flag and associations with Prussia in addition to rigid black and white thinking). To the tip of the nose is likely a translation of a specific phrase which is "very much". There are a couple of bad children's stories about something like that, however the phrase is more common in military context.
It wasn't uncommon and remains common in 1930 and even sometimes today to use the colours of flags to describe people's actions. In the last decades though it is rarely found in the wild and mostly confined to some circles. My grandmother though, for her it was a common colloquium, i.e. call someone black red white would label them monarchist or reactionary, those people would label republicans with black red mustard (black red yellow/gold being the republican flag version).
One example of Prussian rigidity (though only one aspect of it, not so much the morality) is the Hauptmann of Köpenick/the Captain of Köpenick a person creates a uniform for themselves commands a group of soldiers and orders the soldiers to squat a post office/bank and give him the money of the bank. All people including the boss of the squatted building complies.
i believe ur correct. she sees the status quo as unquestionably good and any threat to it as an absolute wrong. this is demonstrated later when she is “astonished to learn that she had fallen into ‘red’ hands”
This is a modernist interpretation and not a dive back into the historical period to figure out context, but I'd agree with each possibility you chose as an "all-the-above" answer.
What's that one phrase mean? "Black and white to the tip of her nose" Is he saying she's very rigid in her ideology? Like that she only sees things in black and white. Or is it some kind of phrase meaning she's got an upper class affect?
Well, yes but!
The flag of Prussia is black and white and Marx might do a slight pun on it, that she is very National and Prussian (which makes sense for Bismarck's niece), but the understanding was also that Prussia was rigid and black and white, so it does work on two levels (flag and associations with Prussia in addition to rigid black and white thinking). To the tip of the nose is likely a translation of a specific phrase which is "very much". There are a couple of bad children's stories about something like that, however the phrase is more common in military context.
It wasn't uncommon and remains common in 1930 and even sometimes today to use the colours of flags to describe people's actions. In the last decades though it is rarely found in the wild and mostly confined to some circles. My grandmother though, for her it was a common colloquium, i.e. call someone black red white would label them monarchist or reactionary, those people would label republicans with black red mustard (black red yellow/gold being the republican flag version).
One example of Prussian rigidity (though only one aspect of it, not so much the morality) is the Hauptmann of Köpenick/the Captain of Köpenick a person creates a uniform for themselves commands a group of soldiers and orders the soldiers to squat a post office/bank and give him the money of the bank. All people including the boss of the squatted building complies.
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i believe ur correct. she sees the status quo as unquestionably good and any threat to it as an absolute wrong. this is demonstrated later when she is “astonished to learn that she had fallen into ‘red’ hands”
This is a modernist interpretation and not a dive back into the historical period to figure out context, but I'd agree with each possibility you chose as an "all-the-above" answer.