INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, begiiming at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 9211205 Redeeming history in the story: Narrative strategies in the novels of Anna Seghers and Nadine Gordimer Prigan, Carol Ludtke, Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1991 Copyright ©1991 Iqr Prigan, Carol Ludtke. All rights reserved. UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Aibor, MI 48106 REDEEMING HISTORY IN THE STORY: NARRATIVE STRATEGIES IN THE NOVELS OF ANNA SEGHERS AND NADINE GORDIMER DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Carol Ludtke Prigan, B.A., M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 1991 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Helen Fehervary Dagmar Lorenz Advisor Michael Jones Department of German Copyright by Carol Ludtke Prigan 1991 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to Professor Helen Fehervary for her assistance and encour­ agement throughout this project. Thanks go also to the other members of my committee, Professors Dagmar Lorenz and Michael Jones. Part of the research and writing of this dissertation was made possible by a Fulbright Grant to Ber­ lin, formerly the German Democratic Republic. I would like to express my thanks to the staff at the Anna-Seghers-Archiv in Berlin for all their help as well. Sincere thanks to my husband, Scott, for enduring the transformation of ideas into a written form with me and for all your encouragement and support. XI VITA June 25, 1959 Born - Mt. Clemens, Michigan 1981 B.A., Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, Michigan 1985 M.A., University of Wiscon­ sin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1982-83, 1984-85 Graduate Teaching Assistant Department of German University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1985-89, 1990-91 Graduate Associate, Depart­ ment of German, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio PUBLICATION Translation of Burkhardt Lindner. "The Passaaen-Werk and the Berliner Kindheit; The Archaeology of the Recent Past." Second Special Issue on Walter Benjamin, New German Criticrue 39 (1986) ; 21-46. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: German Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century German Literature Literary Theory and Criticism Narrative Literature Contemporary South African Literature 111 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..................................... ii VITA ................................................. iii CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION................................. 1 II. THE ANTI-FASCIST NARRATIVE IN THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE ................................. 19 Anna Seghers................................. 20 Nadine Gordimer ............................. 42 III. ANNA SEGHERS' EXILE NOVELS DAS SIEBTE KREUZ AND TRANSIT: NARRATIVE STRATEGIES FOR THE FUTURE 67 Das siebte K r e u z ............................. 69 T r a n s i t ..................................... 97 IV. HISTORY IN THE MAKING: NADINE GORDIMER'S NOVELS BURGER'S DAUGHTER AND A SPORT OF NATURE . 130 Burger's Daughter ........................... 133 A Sport of N a t u r e ........................... 161 CONCLUSION................................... .. .„. 194 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................... 197 IV CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Although Anna Seghers and Nadine Gordimer, to my knowl­ edge, never met personally, nor read each other's novels and stories, there exists an uncanny affinity between these two authors' works that also extends into their individual biographies. Partly due to their family situations and partly due to the historical situations which influenced their lives and their writing, Seghers and Gordimer share a view of the world that is decidedly anti-fascist, and born of a European middle-class, Jewish background. This they share with an important literary critic of the twentieth century, Walter Benjamin, whose thoughts on the creative process and storytelling inform my reading of Seghers' and Gordimer's novels. In order to place Seghers' and Gor­ dimer 's novels in a storytelling context later on, it is first necessary to explore how these authors' lives and their respective places in literary history have affected their writing. If their experiences found their way into the works, as I contend, then biography becomes an integral part of understanding their novels. Beyond that is the question of how Seghers and Gordimer responded to the events of their day and how their theoretical positions found 1 2 expression in the novels. How then these two authors have brought their view of the world around them into the literary work is of central importance. The concrete method will be discussed in subsequent chapters, but the theoretical paradigm of storytelling as Benjamin expressed it in the 1930s is important here. Storytelling in the context of fascism in Europe or South Africa has a common thread running through it: the redemption of the past in the act of remembrance toward hope for the future. Storytelling is the means by which Seghers and Gordimer remember the past in a concept of the future as either an escape from the chaos of the present or in order to present an alternative to the present. The messianic element in Benjamin's essay "Der Erzahler” as well in his other works can be seen here also. Benjamin's combination of Jewish messianism with historical materialism provides the link between two authors whose experiences were dif­ ferent, yet whose narratives express a similar world view. Stories are the medium through which Seghers and Gordimer tell of their times and the history which informs them. Walter Benjamin, a contemporary of Seghers', brought the ideas of Jewish messianism into his understanding of storytelling in his 1936 essay "Der Erzahler." In this essay, he examined the decline of the ability to relate stories in post-World War I contemporary industrial society. Benjamin gives us a view of the storyteller and what charac­ 3 terizes him/her in his essay. Benjamin viewed the storytel­ ler as an essential member of society who creates stories for an audience, not a lonely figure who writes books in a room separated from the world as the novelist does. Ben­ jamin's storyteller is imbued with the ideas of Jewish mes­ sianism upon which he drew throughout his life in his writ­ ings. Exiled from Nazi Germany like Seghers, Benjamin turned to the power of memory and remembrance to disrupt the continuum of the present with a brief vision of the future. The storyteller takes on this function in his/her stories. Storytelling in the traditional sense depends on the spoken word as its medium, not the written work, to convey ideas and experience. The role of memory is all-important, for it is memory that the storyteller employs: Die Erinnerung stiftet die Kette der Tradition, welche das Geschehene von Geschlecht zu Geschlecht weiter- leitet. Sie ist das Musische der Epik im weiteren Sinne. Sie umgreift die musischen Sonderarten des Epischen. Unter diesen ist an erster Stelle diejenige, welche der Erzahler verkorpert.1 Stories are passed from generation to generation because someone remembers the event(s) or experienced them him- /herself. Thus, the storyteller creates from experience fErfahrung) as well: "Der Erzahler nimmt, was er erzàhlt. ^Walter Benjamin, "Der Erzahler," Gesammelte Schriften. vol. II, ed. Tiedemann & Schweppenhàuser (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1977), 453. 4 aus der Erfahmng, aus der elgenen oder berichteten. ”2 Ben­ jamin sets up a dichotomy here between the storyteller and the novelist, or romancier as Benjamin prefers to call the novelist. The romancier does not create from experience as Erfahruna as the storyteller does, but from experience as Erlebnis. Benjamin differentiates between these two terms by characterizing Erfahruna as experience which is part of tradition or history whereas Erlebnis is a short-term expe­ rience of the present. Benjamin explains this in another essay of this period, "über einige Motive bei Baudelaire": In der Tat ist die Erfahrung eine Sache der Tradition, im kollektiven wie im privaten Leben. Sie bildet sich weniger aus einzelnen in der Erinnerung streng fixierten Gegebenheiten denn aus gehàuften, oft nicht bewufiten