Murderous Mothers: Feminist Violence in German Literature and Film (1970-2000)
This dissertation, which won the Women in German Dissertation Prize, analyzes literary and filmic representations of violent mothers from late 20th-century Germany. It employs feminist theories of language and theories of the voice and the body in film to enhance close readings of texts in which female protagonists defy gendered expectations by perpetrating acts of aggression. Through the interplay between thematic violence and the transgression of aesthetic conventions, these works generate an imaginary of feminist violence that advances feminist politics. Highlighting this dynamic reveals the female body as an important site for working through both past and contemporary violence in the German context. In addition, this work has broader theoretical significance as an intermediary between feminist theories of language and materialist feminist theories. Instead of strategies for emancipation, these texts generate female subjectivities that are engaged not in assertions of individuality, but in collective and collaborative storytelling practices.
Medea
The first chapter considers Dea Loher’s Manhattan Medea (1999) and Christa Wolf’s Medea.Stimmen (Medea.Voices, 1996). Even though both of these texts were written in the first decade after German Reunification, they take strikingly different approaches towards adapting Medea for a contemporary audience. While Loher’s play exaggerates Medea’s violence and self-reflexively addresses the repetitive and cyclical nature of aggression, Wolf negates Medea’s capacity for violence by turning her into a healer who was wrongly blamed for the death of her children. These different understandings of Medea as a character highlight the connection between power structures and historical storytelling, a particularly fraught topic at a period in which the historical legacy of the German Democratic Republic was beginning to take shape. Both of these texts use the story of Medea to come to terms with an historical context in which the voices of outsiders are excluded.
To counteract repetitive mythmaking, these texts push the formal boundaries of genre, advocating for heterogeneous storytelling in which more than one voice is expressed. In this way, they reinforce and amend Judith Butler’s conception of gender performativity. By presenting us with self-reflexive Medea figures who understand how the repetition of the violence in the Medea story has come to define them, these authors demonstrate that, under a different power structure, the story of Medea could be otherwise. If the myth is mutable, so too are other deeply rooted conventions, including gender norms.
To counteract repetitive mythmaking, these texts push the formal boundaries of genre, advocating for heterogeneous storytelling in which more than one voice is expressed. In this way, they reinforce and amend Judith Butler’s conception of gender performativity. By presenting us with self-reflexive Medea figures who understand how the repetition of the violence in the Medea story has come to define them, these authors demonstrate that, under a different power structure, the story of Medea could be otherwise. If the myth is mutable, so too are other deeply rooted conventions, including gender norms.
Jelinek, Melodrama, and Pornography
The second chapter analyzes Elfriede Jelinek’s Lust (1989) in terms of pornographic and melodramatic tropes. Paying particular attention to the final scene in which the protagonist murders her young son, I read this story as another adaptation of the Medea material. While this text has already been discussed extensively in terms of its relationship to pornography, this chapter argues that the protagonist’s melodramatic maternal relationship to her son is just as important to a reading of this novel as her pornographic relationships to the adult men in her life. By contrasting pornography, with its emphasis on voyeurism and fulfilled desire, and melodrama, with its emphasis on suffering and thwarted desire, Jelinek reveals the oppressive nature of both of these discourses and the ways in which they objectify women.
Jelinek also perpetrates a kind of linguistic violence against her readers, forcing them to confront the ways in which they too are implicated in acts of gendered violence. This is most striking when at various points throughout the novel, Jelinek shifts the referent of the pronouns that she uses, keeping the reader guessing as to their position in relationship to the actions being narrated. By shocking the reader both with the content and the form of her novel, Jelinek forces them to confront the inescapable violence in even the most intimate human relationships.
Jelinek also perpetrates a kind of linguistic violence against her readers, forcing them to confront the ways in which they too are implicated in acts of gendered violence. This is most striking when at various points throughout the novel, Jelinek shifts the referent of the pronouns that she uses, keeping the reader guessing as to their position in relationship to the actions being narrated. By shocking the reader both with the content and the form of her novel, Jelinek forces them to confront the inescapable violence in even the most intimate human relationships.
The RAF on Screen
The third chapter discusses Margarethe von Trotta’s film about the militant violence of the Red Army Faction (RAF), Die bleierne Zeit (Marianne and Juliane, 1981). This film centers around two sisters who are initially presented as opposites. Since Marianne takes violent action to fight for a progressive politics and Juliane protests peacefully on behalf of feminist causes, the sisters argue regularly and heatedly about the proper way to enact social change. However, rather than seeing the protagonists as conflicting political extremes, as most critics have done, I argue that von Trotta emphasizes the unity between the sisters. This film can take on both progressive and reactionary readings, making it a testament to the viability of both aggressive and peaceful politics.
In order to demonstrate the wider stakes of this debate, I highlight this film’s engagement with the mythological story of Antigone and her sister Ismene by using feminist theoretical interpretations of that story to enhance my close readings. For example, I point out how the tight shot framing of von Trotta’s film emphasizes the confining and oppressive conditions under which both of the sisters live. They, like Antigone and Ismene, face a power structure that seeks to keep them from establishing and retaining familial bonds. In order to unsettle this power structure, von Trotta uses a series of flashback sequences and montage techniques to counteract the state surveillance that seeks to keep the sisters divided. Ultimately, the film advances a feminist vision in which aggression is a unifying rather than a dividing force.
In order to demonstrate the wider stakes of this debate, I highlight this film’s engagement with the mythological story of Antigone and her sister Ismene by using feminist theoretical interpretations of that story to enhance my close readings. For example, I point out how the tight shot framing of von Trotta’s film emphasizes the confining and oppressive conditions under which both of the sisters live. They, like Antigone and Ismene, face a power structure that seeks to keep them from establishing and retaining familial bonds. In order to unsettle this power structure, von Trotta uses a series of flashback sequences and montage techniques to counteract the state surveillance that seeks to keep the sisters divided. Ultimately, the film advances a feminist vision in which aggression is a unifying rather than a dividing force.
Domestic Violence
The final chapter brings together R.W. Fassbinder’s Martha (1974) and Helma Sanders-Brahms’s Deutschland, bleiche Mutter (Germany, Pale Mother, 1980) to discuss domestic violence in New German Cinema. In both of these films melodramatic discourses are simultaneously replicated and critiqued in order to draw the viewer’s attention to the ways in which identifying with suffering and self-sacrificing maternal figures can be detrimental for women. The protagonists of both films are drawn into cycles of domestic violence in which they are both victims and perpetrators of physical and emotional abuse. These experiences leave them literally and figuratively paralyzed, making it imperative that they find outside help in order to communicate their abuse and have opportunities for self-reflection.
Paying particular attention to sound and voiceover techniques (as outlined in the work of Michel Chion) I conclude that when the unity between sound and image is challenged, the objectification of women is destabilized, creating spaces for multi-faceted female spectatorship. The viewer generated by these films is similar to Linda Williams’s formulation of the female spectator, but with a few significant complications. In addition to being asked to accept and come to terms with contradictions, the viewers of these films are also asked to confront the ways in which they too have uncritically accepted narratives about gender, history, and marriage as facts.
Paying particular attention to sound and voiceover techniques (as outlined in the work of Michel Chion) I conclude that when the unity between sound and image is challenged, the objectification of women is destabilized, creating spaces for multi-faceted female spectatorship. The viewer generated by these films is similar to Linda Williams’s formulation of the female spectator, but with a few significant complications. In addition to being asked to accept and come to terms with contradictions, the viewers of these films are also asked to confront the ways in which they too have uncritically accepted narratives about gender, history, and marriage as facts.
