This dissertation examines literary texts published in the 1980s which confront the loss of individuality and self-identity in GDR society: Der fremde Freund (1982) and Der Tangospieler (1989) by Christoph Hein, and Flugasche (1981) and Die Uberlauferin (1986) by Monika Maron. The dissertation shows that whereas Hein's texts don't construct a fundamental antagonism between individual and society, Maron's novels increasingly reveal the attack on individuality in socialist society. Chapters one and two consider the background of the texts of the eighties: the socialist ideology of the "self" and the GDR 'counter tradition' of non-conformist characters. Chapter three, an analysis of Der fremde Freund, reads Christoph Hein's main character as an "ohnmachtiges Ich," unable to cure her almost silenced self. Both the damaged self and the society's "unaufgearbeitete" fascist past become destructive if they are neglected and denied, and it is necessary to acknowledge the social and psychosocial past in order to cure the individual and his/her society. Chapter four is an analysis of Der Tangospieler. The tango player is a historian unable to think historically, a lack the text considers (self)destructive. Hein's historian functions as metaphor for a socialist society that has forgotten its own historical mission. Chapter five, an analysis of Flugasche, shows a "rebellisches Ich" who succeeds in resisting her own tendency to become fully conformist. The origin of a "crisis of the self" can be located in the actions of the individual who is simultaneously victim and his/her own enemy. Chapter six, an analysis of Die Uberlauferin, shows that Maron's depiction of a destroyed self in her second novel becomes the starting point for her vision of a healed self. But here Maron disengages from the Marxist-Leninist ideology of the "socialist individual." The dissertation concludes that Maron's rejection of socialist realist narrative techniques and conventions can be read as an indication of the author's conviction that socialist ideology and/or its practice destroys individuality. Hein, in contrast, continues (in 1989) to believe in the capability of GDR society to be reformed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-6272 |
| Date | 01 January 1992 |
| Creators | Kloetzer, Sylvia |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | German |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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