Robert Walser's “Berlin Stories” is a collection of vignettes that follow his observation during his walks around the city. Walter Benjamin's “Berlin Childhood Around 1900” is Benjamin's attempt to recall his urban childhood as an adult in exile. Both write about Berlin at the turn of the century, but are able to produce images of the city that are at once captivating in their portrayal of a city in constant motion and honest in their relationship to the realities of modern life. Presenting Berlin as both a voluptuous giantess and a protective mother, the authors show that modernity can be both sensual and nurturing. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In "Good Morning, Giantess!" by Walser. the title figure is the city of Berlin: “The chest expands, the giantess Metropolis has just, with the most voluptuous tranquility, put on her sun-shimmering shirt. A giantess like this does not dress so quickly, but each of her beautiful, enormous movements is fragrant and emits steam, beats and resonates." (Walser 5) Comparing Berlin to a giantess, Walser blends images of power and sexuality. The city smokes , pulses and resonates,” but also expands her chest with a “voluptuous looseness.” Significantly, the giantess's power is a mechanical power. Each of her movements “steams, pulses and resonates,” evoking images of the modern factory, harking back to the mind the eponymous city of Berlin: the European Fabrikstadt. Furthermore, Walser points out that "a giantess like this does not dress so quickly. The giantess Metropolis is slow and leisurely, and the language Walser uses here even slows the reader down: “sunshine shirt.” This language also extends to passages in which Walser describes the urban haste of Berlin: “what fascinating and seductive haste can be seen in all this apparent concentration and sobriety” (11). Using sensual language and thoughtful pacing, Walser also makes the rush and crowding of Berlin part of the city's charm. However, Berlin, like a giantess, is scary, even disgusting. Before day breaks, “before the electric trams even come into operation,” Berlin is not a giantess, but a monster (3). Placing the reader in the cold morning streets of Berlin, Walser writes: "you trot along, rubbing your hands, and watch the people coming out of the gates and doors of their buildings, as if some impatient monster vomited hot, flaming saliva" (3 ). This disgusting image of a drooling monster is a stark departure from the image of a luxurious giantess slowly putting on her shirt. This is because Walser shows the reader the "dark side" of Berlin: the class division. The people who “come out of the gates and doors of their buildings” are lower-class workers or, as Walser puts it, “meaningless people” (4). Walser contrasts these people with the Berlin upper class, i.e. the "refined people who have the habit of getting up late" and the "children of rich and handsome parents" who are still asleep while the hoi polloi make their morning commute. “Berlin Childhood Around 1900” the city of Berlin acts as a surrogate mother. Benjamin calls the lodges he grew up in while living in Berlin “the cradle in which the city laid its new citizen” (Benjamin 38). Combining images of Berlin with images of motherhood, Benjamin presents the city as nurturer and protector. By transferring images of motherhood to an urban city like Berlin, Benjamin shows how memories of his Berlin childhood.