Representations of fear and anxiety as an element of cultural criticism in Thomas Hettche’s novel "Pfaueninsel" (2014)
Abstract
This article deals with Thomas Hettche’s novel Pfaueninsel, which can be categorised as historiographic metafiction, i.e. a new manifestation of the historical novel. The fictional biography of Marie Strakon, a dwarf in the service of the King of Prussia in the 19th century, is intertwined in the novel with the biography of a place: Peacock Island near Berlin, which is being transformed into an English landscape park, a Garden of Eden and a surrogate colony embodying Prussia’s superpower ambitions. In the article, Hettche’s novel is interpreted in terms of the motifs of fear and anxiety in the sense of Karl Jaspers (adopted from Søren Kierkegaard) and their function in the text. The source of these emotions for the characters is both human beings who deviate from the aesthetic and biological norm, as well as the space of Peacock Island itself. For people of the Enlightenment, this place at the dawn of the modernisation era becomes a Freudian uncanny. It arouses anxiety of the return of the repressed: of the archaic, pre-rational image of the world, the relics of which have been preserved on the island in spite of all modernising efforts. In turn, the “foreign” elements of nature and landscape (palm trees, oriental buildings) cause the characters to anxiety the coming era of modernity, historical and civilisational breakthroughs. Hettche shows the strategies for escaping this anxiety and the modernisation paradox still relevant today: all attempts to alleviate existential anxiety – rationalisation measures, advances in science and technology, the subjugation of nature to humans – only lead to new sources of anxiety.
Keywords:
Thomas Hettche, historiographic metafiction, historical novel, anxiety, fearReferences
References
Alewyn, Richard. „Die Literarische Angst.“ In Aspekte der Angst, edited by Hoimar von Ditfurth, 24–36. Stuttgart: Thieme, 1965. Google Scholar
Arnold, Sonja. „Zwei utopische Inseln der Weltliteratur. João Ubaldo Ribeiros „Das Wunder der Pfaueninsel“ und Thomas Hettches Pfaueninsel im transnationalen Vergleich.“ Zeitschrift für interkulturelle Germanistik 7, no. 1 (2016): 81–96. Google Scholar
Brzóstowicz-Klajn, Monika. „Historia i fantastyka.” In O historyczności, edited by Katarzyna Meller, and Krzysztof Trybuś, 419–427. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne, 2006. Google Scholar
Catani, Stephanie. „„Aber das Geschriebene ist ja kein wahres Dokument”. Zum historisch-fiktionalen Erzählen in der deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur.“ In Neues historisches Erzählen, edited by Monika Wolting, 15–37. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019. Google Scholar
de Bruyn, Günter. „Königin Luise.“ In Deutsche Erinnerungsorte, edited by Etienne François, and Hagen Schulze, 286–298. München: Beck, 2009. Google Scholar
Eibl, Karl. „Von der biologischen Furcht zur literarischen Angst. Ein Vertikalschnitt.“ KulturPoetik 12, no. 2 (2012): 155–186. Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund. „Das Unheimliche.“ In Freud, Sigmund. Gesammelte Werke, vol. 12, 229–268. London: Imago Publishing Co.–Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1955. Google Scholar
Friedrich, Hans-Edwin. „Die Wiederkehr des historischen Romans seit den 1980er Jahren.“ In Der historische Roman: Erkundung einer populären Gattung, edited by Hans-Edwin Friedrich, 1–13. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2013. Google Scholar
Führ, Antonia. Thomas Hettches „Pfaueninsel“. Erinnerung als Verknüpfung von Zeiten und Räumen. Marburg: Tectum, 2015. Google Scholar
Hammelehle, Sebastian. „Preußische Ausschweifungen: Die Sexzwergin des Königs.“ Der Spiegel, 18.09.2014. https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/literatur/deutscher-buchpreis-2014-pfaueninsel-von-thomas-hettche-a-992046.html. Google Scholar
Hettche, Thomas. Pfaueninsel. Roman. Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2014. Google Scholar
Hutcheon, Linda. „Historiographic Metafiction. Parody and the Intertextuality of History.” In Intertextuality and Contemporary American Fiction, edited by Patrick O᾿Donnell, and Richard Con Davis, 3–32. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press 1989. Google Scholar
Jaspers, Karl. Allgemeine Psychopathologie. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 1946. Google Scholar
Kilb, Andreas. „Liebesexplosionen vor preußischer Kulisse.“ Frankfurter Allgemeine 09.09.2014. https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/buecher/rezensionen/belletristik/liebesexplosionen-auf-hettches-pfaueninsel-13106455-p2.html. Google Scholar
Leskovec, Andrea. „Blickerfahrungen in Thomas Hettches Roman Pfaueninsel.“ Revista de Filologia Alemana 25 (2017): 157–179. Google Scholar
Pokrywka, Rafał. „Demityzacja XIX wieku we współczesnej powieści niemieckojęzycznej.” Wiek XIX. Rocznik Towarzystwa Literackiego im. A. Mickiewicza 9 (2016): 549–565. Google Scholar
Pokrywka, Rafał. Współczesna powieść niemieckojęzyczna. Kraków: Universitas, 2018. Google Scholar
Schelling, Erik. Der historische Roman seit der Postmoderne. Umberto Eco und die deutsche Literatur. Heidelberg: Winter, 2012. Google Scholar
Scholz, Gerhard. „Inselhopping durch die Jahrhunderte.“ In Gegenwart schreiben. Zur deutschsprachigen Literatur 2000–2015, edited by Corina Caduff, and Ulrike Vedder, 151–161. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 2016. Google Scholar
Thomas Hettche interview by Britta Heidemann. „Thomas Hettche über die Schönheit auf der Pfaueninsel.“ Westfälische Rundschau, 5.11.2014. https://www.wr.de/kultur/l5.11.2014iteratur/thomas-hettche-ueber-die-schoenheit-auf-der-pfaueninsel-id10005551.html. Google Scholar
Winkels, Hubert. „Im Paradies die Monster.“ Zeit online, 13.09.2014. https://www.zeit.de/2014/36/pfaueninsel-thomas-hettche-roman?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2F. Google Scholar
Statistics
Abstract views: 0PDF downloads: 0
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Transfer. Reception Studies
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Most read articles by the same author(s)
- Katarzyna LUKAS, Border Crossings in Intersemiotic Translation: the Graphic Novel Heimsuchung und andere Erzählungen von Bruno Schulz by Dieter Jüdt , Transfer. Reception Studies: Vol. 3 (2018)
Similar Articles
- Joanna Drynda, On Fear and Anxiety in Friederike Gösweiner’s Novels , Transfer. Reception Studies: Vol. 8 (2023): Anxiety and fear in contemporary German-language, Polish and Irish literature
- Magda Jaglewicz, Facets of anxiety in Hans-Ulrich Treichel‘s novella "Der Verlorene" , Transfer. Reception Studies: Vol. 8 (2023): Anxiety and fear in contemporary German-language, Polish and Irish literature
- Jolanta Pacyniak, Narrative structures of threat in "1000 Coils of Fear" ("1000 Serpentinen Angst") by Olivia Wenzel , Transfer. Reception Studies: Vol. 8 (2023): Anxiety and fear in contemporary German-language, Polish and Irish literature
- Piotr Majcher, "The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick" by Peter Handke – behaviour analysis of the protagonist , Transfer. Reception Studies: Vol. 8 (2023): Anxiety and fear in contemporary German-language, Polish and Irish literature
- Aneta Garlikowska, Strategies for coping with the anxiety of death in the novel "What You Can See from Here" by Mariana Lekys , Transfer. Reception Studies: Vol. 8 (2023): Anxiety and fear in contemporary German-language, Polish and Irish literature
- Günther A. Hoefler, Angustia socialis. On the literary physiology of anxiety in the works of Stefan Zweig, Marlene Streeruwitz and Clemens Setz , Transfer. Reception Studies: Vol. 8 (2023): Anxiety and fear in contemporary German-language, Polish and Irish literature
- Małgorzata TEMPEL, The Image of Germany in Thomas Mann's Lecture, "Germany and the Germans," and in its Translations , Transfer. Reception Studies: Vol. 2 (2017)
- Magdalena Bak, Romantic anxiety or anxiety of Romanticism? On "Dziady" by Paweł Goźliński , Transfer. Reception Studies: Vol. 8 (2023): Anxiety and fear in contemporary German-language, Polish and Irish literature
- Ewa Górska, Dorota Sośnicka, ‘Refugees’ nightmares’: Motives of escape and anxiety in Gertrud Leutenegger’s novel "Späte Gäste" (2020) , Transfer. Reception Studies: Vol. 8 (2023): Anxiety and fear in contemporary German-language, Polish and Irish literature
- Marta Wimmer, The anxiety of being erased. On the invisibilisation of non-binary gender identities in Kim de l'Horizon's "Blutbuch" , Transfer. Reception Studies: Vol. 8 (2023): Anxiety and fear in contemporary German-language, Polish and Irish literature
You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.
