Fraulein Else is a character portrait that explains through lengthy considerations of perspective (for instance, the stream-of-consciousness narrative) what human life might be like to a person who is disenfranchised. The insight proves all the more valuable because Else's privilege with her aunt makes her unaware of the struggling and suffering that defines human experience, so that when she undertakes her mother's urgent request, she encounters the full weight of her society all at once.
This martyrdom claims her life in the end, but not before some insightful reflections from this would-be heroine. For instance, she realizes right away that her newly developed desire to have sex is at odds with the social narrative around her. She decides not to be a prostitute, but not because she has any issue with promiscuity; in fact, she is happy to give herself away, claiming that in all factuality, she kind of wants to be "slutty," but she doesn't want to benefit from the broken, hypocritical system of men rewarding women with money for sexual behavior that they claim to hate.
This complex response to social hypocrisy is also shown in the panic that she feels from her paranoia. The panic comes from judgment and expectation, both from her parents, whom she desperately wants to please (especially with so much on the line), and also from the silent judgments she perceives from people around her. She feels misunderstood and liable to be exploited, and when she leaves to meet the savior character, Herr Von Dorsday (who would be a kinsman-redeemer, archetypally speaking), she leaves naked, except for an overcoat. This is the central symbol of the novel, because she is accepting her naked, sexual self, but just under the surface of an exterior that she wears for the public.
