© Copyright by Jennifer Lyn Van Hyning 2005 The Dissertation Committee for Jennife r Lyn Van Hyning Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Narrating the Self: Realism in the Works of Theodor Fontane and Marie von Ebner -Eschenbach Committee: Kirsten Belgum, Supervisor Katherine Arens Pascale R. Bos Susanne Hafner Carol MacKay Narrating the Self: Realism in the W orks of Theodor Fontane and Marie von Ebner -Eschenbach by Jennifer Lyn Van Hyning, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December, 2005 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my parents, Dyrck and Karen Van Hyning, for countless blessi ngs throughout my life. They were examples of how I should try to be a good, responsible person. They also funded my first several trips to Germany and Austria! Thanks to the rest of my family, especially Gramma Betty, Mandy, Jason, Mary, Randy, and Lore n. They have always loved and encouraged me. I wish Grampa Dick and Grandma Ruth could share my joy at reaching this goal. Thanks to my family in India for reminding me to think positively. Thanks to the Stelzers in Vienna for being like a second famil y. Numerous faculty, staff, colleagues, and friends at the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Texas have helped me along the way. In particular, I would like to thank Lara Ducate, my former housemate and constant friend; Tina Oestreich, whose telephone conversations I still value; Agnieszka Nance, who is full of optimistic feedback and camaraderie; and Vera Middelkamp, whose empathy and advice helped me to know my concerns were not unique. Thanks to my California girlfriends, Constance Kaltenbach, Evelyne Kaufmann, Jutta Winters, and Shelley Irvine for encouraging me to enjoy my life outside of my studies. Thanks to my friends at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto and the Neighborhood UU Church of Pasadena, particularly the bell choir, for lifting my spirits, and the El Camino YMCA Tri - Gals and the Crescenta -Canada YMCA Roadrunners for exhilarating seasons of iv workouts, races, and friendships. Thank you to Maria Pineda and Lisa Jaskolka of the Dept. of Germanic Studies for hel ping me through my graduate school career. Thanks also to the staff of the RLCP and D-Doc programs: Alex Marshall, Wendy Nesmith, and David Reed. I could never have had access to all the library materials I needed without them. I am indebted to my advis or, Kit Belgum, for encouraging me to believe in my abilities, for supplying straightforward, sound guidance that always hit its mark, and for her incredible generosity especially while on sabbatical. Katie Arens, my M.A. report advisor, also deserves spe cial thanks for nurturing my interest for things Austrian, and for going out of her way to advise and inspire. I thank Pascale Bos for keeping her door open to long conversations, both academic and personal. Thanks to Carol MacKay, who opened the door to British literature and the many connections I have found and will continue to find between it and German literature. I appreciate Susanne Hafner’s willingness to serve on my committee, even while on sabbatical, and for her review of an occasional C.V. draft. Finally, thanks are not enough for my dear and patient husband, Rajeev. He counseled me through hard days, made me laugh, and shared many happy times. I wish to dedicate this dissertation to him. v Narrating the Self: Realism in the Works of Theodo r Fontane and Marie von Ebner -Eschenbach Publication No._____________ Jennifer Lyn Van Hyning, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2005 Supervisor: Kirsten Belgum Comparisons of selected late realist prose works by Theodor Fontane and Marie von Ebner -Eschenbach reveal surprising thematic and narrative similarities regarding ways of looking at the self. Scholars have thus far largely overlooked these similarities, perhaps partially because Fontane has enjoyed more lasting recognition than Ebner - Eschenbach. Insights from close readings that make up the core of this dissertation, bolstered by a variety of interpretive methodologies, show a shared ambivalence towards the narrative possibilities and impossibilities of the individual’s relationship to the self that frequently culminates in the death of a female character. Each chapter addresses one theme relating to a stage of human life and associated issues of self. The methodologies are chosen to complement issues that emerge from the texts and ran ge from idealist aesthetic constructions to poststructuralist psychoanalytical theory. The authors’ autobiographic formulations of childhoods in the 1830s and 1840s that balance the conflicted aspects of self incorporate ideas from Schiller’s idealism. vi Sc hopenhauer’s idea of the will provides a fitting frame for the internal and external challenges of becoming an adult in Ebner -Eschenbach’s “Das Gemeindekind” (“Their Pavel”) and Fontane’s Effi Briest . A combination of three methodological aids centering on the pressures of unrelenting surveillance in Fontane’s Cécile and Ebner -Eschenbach’s “Margarete” show how society disturbs the maintenance of the autonomy of self. In the interpretations of Ebner -Eschenbach’s “Unsühnbar” (“Beyond Atonement”) and Fontane’s Unwiederbringlich ( Beyond Recall ) informed by Lacanian psychoanalytical theories, assets of impeccable feminine virtue that border on the sublime become deadly burdens. The wide range of theories moves the interpretations towards the conclusion that is valid for the late realist movement in general: the narratives are reflections of individuals’ attempts to build and maintain whole selves, in accordance with the principles of a realist worldview. The successes and failures of these attempts show realism straining to accommodate the changing perceptions of self, positioned at the threshold of Freud’s revolution of the unconscious. vii Table of Contents Introduction..............................................................................................................1 1. The Play of Realism: Representing the Happiness of Childhood Selves .........37 2. The Clay Pit and the Garden: Narrating the (Im)possibilities of Becoming.....87 3. Gazing into the Panopticon: Focalizing the Observation of Women ............132 4. The Sublime Virtue and Ironic Ambiguity of Female Death .........................185 The Conclusions of Realism ................................................................................241 Bibliography ........................................................................................................247 Vita.......................................................................................................................262 viii Introduction The late realist narratives of Theodor Fontane (1819-1898) and Marie von Ebner - Eschenbach (1830-1916) pose a common question: what is at stake when stories of self are narrated? The works interpreted and compared in this dissertation share a fundamental thematic and narrative commonality in that they focus on characters, particularly female ones, who withstand difficulties forming a nd preserving their sense of self. Characters’ experiences with the stages of their understanding of self that are depicted in the works I have selected range from the relatively few depictions of happiness and success to the comparatively frequent elemen ts of self -doubt and deadly failure. The comparisons show that the narratives convey possibilities of balancing the individual’s inner world and the increasingly complicated social world of the late nineteenth century. Realism as represented by these works does not downplay the significant flaws of a social system in decline, as it might at first appear to some twenty - first century readers, rather it critically engages with those flaws. Even if the works are unable to overcome the problems they identify, their engagement with issues of self is significantly different from the approach several short decades later when matters become complicated with ideas of the unconscious. I have chosen, in a rather unusual fashion, to begin with the discussion of a short quote that relates to one of the works interpreted later. Although it may seem early to do this, the quote and my interpret ive strategy introduce how I do close readings, something that is integral to this dissertation. It provides examples of specific usages of the terms 1 narrating and self that appear in the dissertation’s title. A discussion of the term realism and how it is used in this dissertation follows shortly after this section. “Hilfskonstruktionen”: An Interpretive Introduction In his 1930 essay “Das Unbehagen in der Kultur” (“Civilization and Its Discontents”), Freud quotes a line from Theodor Fontane’s novel Eff i Briest (1895): “Es geht nicht ohne Hilfskonstruktionen,” and notes that Fontane tells us how humans need what Freud calls “palliative measures” to deal with the “Schmerzen, Enttäuschngen, unlösbare Aufgaben” of life. 1 Freud goes on to name three of thes e measures : “mächtige Ablenkungen, die uns unser Elend gering schätzen lassen, Ersatzbefriedigungen, die es verringern, Rauschstoffe, die uns für dasselbe unempfindlich machen” (Freud 432). 2 All three of the measures Freud names can be taken by doing cer tain kinds of reading, for example, reading a work of realism. Reading can deflect our attention away from our