Parishodh Journal ISSN NO:2347-6648

SUBJUGATION OF GENDERLESS OBJECTS IN HERTA MULLER’S THE HUNGER ANGEL

ANITA.P Ph.d. Scholar P.G. & Research Department of English St.Joseph’s College (A), Affiliated to Bharathidasan University Tiruchirappalli

&

Dr. S. Papu Benjamin Elango

Research Supervisor & Guide Formerly Associate Professor & Head

P.G. & Research Department of English

St. Joseph’s College (A),

Affiliated to Bharathidasan University

Tiruchirappalli.

ABSTRACT:

This paper sets out to explore the sufferings and struggles of men and women who were deported to the forced labor camp in Ukraine. After World War

II, the Soviet Union forced the ethnic Germans in to work in their to reconstruct their devastated country. Herta Muller’s The Hunger

Angelpicturizes the image of the labor camp where workers were treated as Genderless Objects without any concern. Herta Muller depicted how hunger

haunted every individual in the camp even after the internees’ deportation. The oppression, threat, and homelessness played a vital role throughout their

Volume IX, Issue III, March/2020 Page No:2296 Parishodh Journal ISSN NO:2347-6648

lives. Instead of being an external force that tortures Leo Auberg, the Hunger Angel is a creature coming from within. Atemschaukel is packed with

occasional flashbacks and opens with Aubergs’ summon and packing for the Soviet forced labor camp. The novel then travels through Aubergs’

experiences in the camp and ends with return and a few episodes from his present-day life.

Keywords: Genderless Objects, struggles, sufferings, labor camp, deportation, Hunger Angel

Herta Muller was a Romanian born German author. She was born on 17th August 1953. Muller depicts the life of the ethnic German minority

and the brutalities they experience under the repressive Nicoloae Ceausescu’s regime. Some of her notable contributions to the world of fiction are The

Passport, , The Hunger Angel, Travelling on one Leg, and . She was awarded the Nobel prize in literature by

the Swedish Academy on 8th October 2009, describing her as woman, “who with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose depicts the

landscape of the dispossessed.”

The Hunger Angel is derived from the compound word Hungerengel to describe the omnipresence of the hunger that suppressed the prisoners in the

Gulag. The name Atemschaukel in German is known as Breathswing or Breathswinging. This novel was nominated for the German Book Prize in 2009,

and the English translation by Philip Boehm was nominated for the Best Translated Book Award in 2013 and won the

Oxford Weinfeld Translation Prize in 2013.

Volume IX, Issue III, March/2020 Page No:2297 Parishodh Journal ISSN NO:2347-6648

The Hunger Angel follows the life of a young boy who is deported to a forced-labor at the age of 17. Herta Muller, in all her works, depicts the

experiences of her own life, whereas The Hunger Angel is an exceptional novel. It narrates the sufferings and trauma experienced by the previous

generation. Thousands of the internees of the forced labor camp died. One among them was Muller’s mother’s friend, after whom she was named Herta

Muller. Muller had conversations with the farmers of her village and with the poet Oskar Leo Pastior to draw their experiences in the camp.

Reminiscences of and other internees were published as Atemschaukel in 2009.

Chronologically these deportations of ethnic Germans from Romania to the Soviet Union took place from 10 Feb 1945. Able-bodied men aged

from 17 to 45 and women aged 18 to 35 were deported to the camp. After the Second World War, the Stalin regime summoned the German laborers for

the reconstruction of the areas of the Soviet Union destroyed by the War. Herta Muller depicts the atrocities and struggles of the ‘Genderless Objects’ in

the camp. Muller conveyed the incidents in an exquisite perfection that creates a steadfast effect on the readers. Muller merely screams the sufferings

and struggles of internees. Muller’s ‘Genderless Objects’ refers to the men and women who were forced to work in the camp. Muller’s ‘Genderless

Objects’ refers to the men and women who were forced to work in the camp. The novel ends with Leo’s return to home and few episodes from his

present life.

Oskar Leo Pastior was born in 1927 in the German speaking Romania. He was subjected to humiliations of the forced labor camp. So Muller

planned to write the novel in collaboration with Pastior extracting his experiences.

Volume IX, Issue III, March/2020 Page No:2298 Parishodh Journal ISSN NO:2347-6648

The action of the novel centers on the life of Leo Auberg the Protagonist. The novel opens with the Leo’s arrest and deportation to the camp.

The novel is divided into sixty four chapters. It is narrated in first person. The plot of the novel is set in Ukraine. Mostly all the novels of Muller are

based on the impact of the totalitarian regime on people. The psychological trauma in The Hunger Angel played a dominant role throughout the novel.

Muller’s narration gives a vivid description of the camp.

The protagonist is unveiled as a homo sexual personality which was considered a punishable crime in Romania and in the camps. Leo

considered the deportation as an escape from his own home town where every stone had eyes to watch him. Everlasting fear is reflected through his

utterances.

. “Before, during and after my time in the camp for 25 years I lived in fear”.

Leo Auberg receives a letter from his parents when TurPrikulitsch summoned Leo to receive his letter, Leo found a picture of Stalin pasted on

the door watching all his activities. The letter conveys news about the new born baby which Leo considered to replace him in his house. He felt

alienated when he noticed that not even a single line was written to inquire about him. He managed his homesickness to fit in his existence.

My parents had a baby because they’ve give upon me.(HA 200)

As far as I am concerned you can die where you, are we’ll have more room at home. (HA 200)

Volume IX, Issue III, March/2020 Page No:2299 Parishodh Journal ISSN NO:2347-6648

These words of his mother alienated him from his own family.

Throughout the novel Muller describes the pain of the internees in the frozen camp. She depicts the worst weather condition where the people freeze to statue.

The soldier’s rifle was shaking but he stayed frozen, I thought the man is made of wood and rifle of flesh. (HA 216)

Many of the internees were picked up to forced labor. They deployed men and women who were with German names were deployed. Leo

worked from before sunrise to after sunset shoveling coal, hauling concrete and brick. The Russian Camp Commandant issues commands to work a lot

but they were underfed.

” I wanted to eat slowly because I wanted to have more of the soup longer. But my hunger sat like a dog in front if the plate and ate.” They also

took brutal actions of arresting people below the age limits and even the lunatic people just because someone who registered is not suitable for work.

One such character is Kati Sentry who did not understand about rationed food, or a command or a punishment. ...you can put any human being to the drill… …but you can’t bend a feeble mind to your will.(HA93)

In the camp even the husbands, steals the wife’s food and starves her to death. Paul Gaust steals HiedrunGast soup to quench his hungry and

leads her to death. Each and every action of daily life of the internees is instructed to them only by orders. Stealing and begging became part and parcel

of their daily lives. The hunger angel attacks the prisoners and grows insatiably to tame them. The hunger angel tortures all the organs of the body and

Volume IX, Issue III, March/2020 Page No:2300 Parishodh Journal ISSN NO:2347-6648

causes pain in the brain. People who is killing themselves and sees other people dying and yet who does not give up hope of living will get out of the

Ukraine hell. Even after the deportation the prisoners starve to eat. “For Sixty years ever since I come back from the camp I have been eating against

starvation.(18).Surviving on bread and cabbage soup the internees are maddened bystarvation. Leo says there are no adequate words for the suffering

caused by hunger. Labour Camp is a place where the hunger angel makes skin and bones

The omnipresence of the lice like the hunger angel tortures them a lot. After all these humiliations, it’s really a mystery that their bodies survive

in this world. Herta Muller completes her novel with Leo Aubergs’ life in his own home town after his return from the camp. Thus Herta Muller departs

from narrating her own experiences, depicts the cruelty and violence on the deportees. Acceptably she gave an authentic description of how human

beings were treated as “Genderless Objects” irrespective of their inabilities.

Works Cited

.The Hunger Angel. Trans. Philip Boehm. New York: Metropolitan Books,2012.

People's Pain: Narratives of Trauma and the Question of Ethics. New York, NY: Bannasch, Bettina. "Zero-A Gaping Mouth: The

Discourse of the Camps in HertaMüller'sAtemschaukelBetween Literary Theory and Political Philosophy."Other Peter Lang, 2011.

115-144.

Volume IX, Issue III, March/2020 Page No:2301 Parishodh Journal ISSN NO:2347-6648

Haines, Brigid. "HertaMüller: Outline Biography."HertaMüller. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1998. 11-13.

Volume IX, Issue III, March/2020 Page No:2302 Parishodh Journal ISSN NO:2347-6648

Volume IX, Issue III, March/2020 Page No:2303 Parishodh Journal ISSN NO:2347-6648

Volume IX, Issue III, March/2020 Page No:2304 Parishodh Journal ISSN NO:2347-6648

Volume IX, Issue III, March/2020 Page No:2305