FUNCTION AND DYSFUNCTION: The depiction of family occasions in selected works of German Action from Gotthelf to Grass PhD Thesis Barbara Irmgard Annemarie Lester University College London 2001 ProQuest Number: U644299 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest U644299 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 In memoriam Susanne imd Wilhelm Stauf Fur sie wurde diese Arbeit begonnen ABSTRACT FUNCTION AND DYSFUNCTION: The depiction of family occasions in selected works of German fiction from Gotthelf to Grass. This thesis offers close textual analysis of a number of scenes from selected works of German narrative literature, scenes which depict family occasions- engagements, weddings, baptisms, funerals, for example. At such moments the family is concerned to make public declaration of certain articles of dynastic and religious faith. The familial will to self-symbolisation is echoed by the powerful metaphorical charge that informs the narrative expression of such moments in the text. The chapters of specific textual analysis are arranged chronologically: the period covered extends from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. The authors discussed are Gotthelf, Stifter, Storm, Reuter, Broch, Mann, Fallada, Boll, Wolf and Grass. The early chapters explore sacramental occasions in which the characters’ behaviour and attitudes are underwritten by a substantial religious faith and by a rhetoric of narrative assent. Gradually, however, it becomes clear that the metaphysical validation fades from the more modem texts. As we move through the twentieth century we encounter more and more scenes of ritual behaviour in which the characters are simply going through the motions. And frequently we find that the symbolic mode of literary articulation gives place to a more sceptical (at best allegorical) statement as the narrative uncovers a dissonant subtext behind the ritualized foreground. The thesis is intended primarily as a contribution to literary history; but the sequence chronicled does, of course, have significant sociocultural implications. The changing face of family ritual, as chronicled by a number of German prose writers, tells us a good deal about the broader tendencies at work in the society of the German speaking lands over the past one hundred and fifty years. FOREWORD It is perhaps appropriate to begin by stressing what this thesis is not. It is not, nor is it intended to be, a systematic and exhaustive overview of scenes of family ritual in German prose from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Any such attempt would have gone beyond my energies and capabilities - and would, I suspect, have gone beyond what a Ph.D. thesis can appropriately seek to accomplish. In place of a general survey I have elected to concentrate on a number of texts for detailed analysis. Of course, one could have chosen others, and there are many omissions that I regret (Fontane being one, Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks being another). In any event, I hope that my selection will appear neither arbitrary nor hackneyed. Having conceded the unsystematic nature of my list of texts, I would also, however, wish to claim that more is at stake than simply personal preference. The texts in question are not simply a random list of works I happen to like reading; rather, I do claim that they bear witness to important shifts in German culture over the 150 years that separate Gotthelf from Grass. Other texts could just as well have borne witness to this change; but the change itself would be unaffected in its essentials. Put simply and crudely: Gotthelf shows us a world in which the rituals of family life are truly sustained by theological signification; the humble doings of the Swiss christening have a kind of sacramental force. Whereas, by the time we get to Grass, there is precious little sacramentalism left, merely a desperate attempt to dignify a questionable union. All my texts tell a story; to read them in sequence, as this thesis does, is also to register a larger story, an historical sequence, one whose implications are more than narrowly literary. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is with enormous gratitude that I wish to pay tribute to Professor Martin Swales who, by his unwavering conviction of the rightness of this thesis, by his faith in its - and my - potential, by his inspirational and generously given support and advice, enabled me to bring this project to fruition. No ‘Doctor-Daddy’ could be more deserving of my expression of deep indebtedness. My gratitude further extends to William Abbey, of the Institute of Germanic Studies, and his staff, for the extent of their willing and friendly help with the research needed for my thesis. My inclination is also to include in my thanks the authors whose works I set out to analyse, for the great pleasure their creative spirit has afforded me. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1 : Tradition and ritual in the Rahmen of Gotthelf*s Die schwarze Spinne 14 CHAPTER 2 : The celebration of Christmas in Stifter’s Bergkristall 31 CHAPTER 3 : Family and faith - Celebrations in Stifter’s late workDer fromme Spruch 47 CHAPTER 4 : Hanseatic baptism and reconciliation in Storm’s Die Sohne des Senators 70 CHAPTER 5 : A confirmation service forhohere a Tochter in Reuter’s Aus guter Familie 92 CHAPTER 6 : A Junker funeral in Broch’sDie Schlafwandler I: 1888: Pas enow oder die Romantik 107 CHAPTER 7 : Dynastic baptism - the infant public persona in Mann’s Konigliche Hoheit 132 CHAPTER 8 : Potatoes and politics - a proletarian engagement in Fallada’s Kleiner Mann~was nun? 162 CHAPTER 9 xWeihnachts-Wirtschafts-Wunder-hoYLovi 2wiTiQ\<ts in Boll’sNicht nur zur Weihnachtszeit 181 CHAPTER 10 : Garden idyll and ideology - a family afternoon in Wolf’sJuninachmittag 216 CHAPTER 11 : The wedding and the Wende in Grass’s Ein weites Feld 245 CONCLUSION 271 BIBLIOGRAPHY 273 INTRODUCTION At one level the aim of this dissertation is unashamedly thematic - it is to survey the depiction of family rituals, scenes in narrative texts where two levels of representation are involved; characters seek to represent the operative values of their lives in a moment of ritual statement (christening, engagement, wedding, funeral); and the literary text represents their act of self-representation. A set of enacted symbols are housed, then, in the symbolic statement of the literary text. To the issue of aesthetic representation I want to return at the end of this dissertation. Its starting point is, however, thematic. That theme, in its sociocultural implications, has been well expressed by a number of studies. Perhaps, to begin very much from first principles, it is important to reflect on the human need for Feste, for ritual, for symbolic statements of belief and value. Odo Marquard makes the point that the human species is unique in its scrupulous and circumstantial predilection for moments that, as it were, seek to transfigure the everyday world. ...der Mensch ist unter den Lebewesen der Exzentriker. Alle anderen Lebewesen leben ihr Leben; der Mensch lebt sein Leben nicht nur, sondem verhalt sich auch noch zu ihm, und das kann er nur, weil er auf Distanz geht zu seinem Leben. [...] Sein Leben leben: das ist beim Menschen sein Alltag. Auf Distanz gehen zu seinem Leben: das ist beim Menschen das Fest. [...] So gehort das Pest zur Lebensexzentrizitat des Menschen: als eine Art Aussetzung, Unterbrechung des Alltags...^ Marquard’s argument is existential in its import; he draws attention to the primary need for ritual which, in his view, is deeply rooted in the human capacity for self-awareness. Norbert Elias’s magisterial work. The Civilizing Process, bears witness to the many different forms of convention, ritualization, and sublimation by which men and women in European cultures seek to elevate the various forms of their social proximity by making 8 them ever more decorous. Elias uncovers what one might call an anthropological constant, a recurrent feature of human behaviour. Yet what his study also highlights are the specific forms that, at any given juncture of a society’s evolution, characterize and define a stage in an historical development. That is to say: even the existential needs of men and women have their inalienable dimension of historicity; their character changes through time and different cultures find different expression for perennial human needs. Precisely that sense of historicity is at the forefront of a very fine article, written to greet the new millennium, by Nicci Gerrard.^ She argues that, in an increasingly Godless world. Western man, a modem and rational being, is, on the one hand, unwilling and unable to surrender his gradually acquired individuality to a higher power, the belief in which had inspired traditional ritual. Such ritual carries within it a kind of conservatism which is at odds with the perception of ourselves as modem and liberated selves. But, on the other hand, we experience a yeaming for the old rituals, myths, and the continuity with our past. Rituals - rites of passage - take us from one state to another.^ They are vital in a community; they offer coherence; they give us meaning and a chance to look at ourselves."^ We tend to think of rituals as good and ennobling, lifting us temporarily outside ourselves. (They can, of course, also be repressive or even bmtal, and farcical too, perversely tying us to a past from which we want to escape).