Unified Berlin Seen Through the Eyes of Brigitte Burmeister' s and kina Liebmann' s Female Fliineurs JOCELYN DIANA HADLEY KINNEAR A thesis submitted to the Department of German Language and Literature in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Queen's University Kingston, Ontario, Canada September, 1999 copyright Q Jocelyn Diana Hadley Kinnear, 1999 National Library Biblioth&que nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographic Sewices services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. nie Wellington Ottawa ON KIAON4 OltawaON K1AW Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant a la National Library of Canada to Bibliotheque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distri'bute or sell reproduire, preter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette these sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format eectronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriete du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protege cette these. thesis nor substantial extracts fkom it Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otheMrise de celle-ci ne doivent Stre imprimes reproduced without the author's ou autrernent reproduits sans son petmission. autorisation, Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supe~sor,Dr. Petra Fachinger, for her guidance and support over the past year. I am deeply indebted to her for her phenomenal patience and for her generosity with her time and advice. I am also very grateful to DE Pugh for his helpll suggestions and attention to detail, and to Dr. Scheck for comments and guidance, particularly in the early stages of my work. Thanks also go to Dr. Reeve, for his support and encouragement throughout the course of my degree. I would also like to express my gratitude to the Camp Outlook staff, particularly Lenny Wang, whose generosity and dedication lessened my workload considerably this summer, and who helped me maintain my sanity and focus throughout Thanks also to Nasser Hussain and Russ Fleming for shelter for the month of September, and to Nasser and Servane Mason, for their encouraging late-night visits to Kingston Hall. Special thanks go to my parents and my sisters, and to Matthew Struthers, for their inestimable emotional support and encouragement throughout the course of this thesis. Finally, I would like to thank Alison Clegg without whose creativity and friendship I would never have undertaken to learn German. Abstract In the decade that has passed since the fall of the Wall, Berlin has become a dynamic, confusing, and somewhat alienating place for Berliners to live- The adjustment that unification entails has been the subject of much literature, and Berlin novels, a genre popular in the Weimar years, abod Many authors have adopted the figure of the fliineur through whose eyes they explore unified Berlia. The flhem has been a literary institution since his popularisation by Charles Baudelaire in the nineteenth century7and by Walter Benjamin in the 1920s. Writers use this narrative figure to provide insight into social, cultural and political conditions through its observations of people and places in the city. In their novels Unter dem Narnen Norma (1994) and In Berlin (1994), Brigitte Burmeister and kina Liebmann use the flheur to narrate divided and unified Berlin, endowing the figure with a uniquely feminine and East German perspective. Their fliineur-narrators' observations of the physical city reflect the disorientation GDR society has experienced in the wake of They engage in a desperate search for identity, representative of many "GDR" writers' attempt to re-establish themselves in the New Germany. Both narrators focus their observations of the city in hhro indoor milieus: their apartment and a Me. Their comfort with indoor spaces, and particularly their emphasis on the domestic sphere, represent a divergence fiom the habits of the traditional flheur. This divergence can be attributed to the feminine perspective these authors lend the figure. Beyond these two sites, the narrators' observations dwell on more public spaces in the city, including their neighbourhoods, the city sidewalks, and the S-Bahn. Despite some differences, however, Burmeister's and Liebmam's narrators have much in common with the traditional flineur with regard to the alienation they experience and their portrayal of the city in metaphorical terms. By appropriating the traditional Weur and adjusting the figure to suit the unique situation of unified Berlin, these two authors provide a distinct new incarnation of the £hem,and thus test@ to the remarkable adaptability that Walter Benjamin ascribed to the figure. *-- Ill Table of Contents Abstract I, Introduction LI. A Brief History of the Flineur A The Traditional Fl3neur 1, Charles Baudelaire's Flheur 2. Walter Benjamin's Fliineur B. An Adaptable Flheur? 1. The Demise of the Flbeur in the Twentieth-Century City 2. The Resurgence of Berlin Novels and the Emergence of the Female Fheur ILL Changes after Unification A. The New Reality for the "'GDR" Writer B. Overcoming Socialist Realism IV. Brigitte Burmeister's and Irina Liebmaan's Berlin-Romane A. The Portrayal of Physical Space in Unter dem Namen Norma and In Berlin 1. Indoor Spaces in the City: the Apartment and the Cde a- Marianne' s Apartment b. "Die Liebmsnn's" Apartment c- "Die Liebmann's" "buntesCafi CL Marianne's Cde 2. Outdoor Spaces in the City a Ma-anne's "Outer" City b. Marianne's CCInner"City c- The Sidewalk in In Berlin d The S-Bahn in In Berlin B. The Role of Burmeistef s and Liebmann's Fl&eurs 1- Alienation and the City as Metaphor 2. The SelfXonscious Fliineur V. Conclusion Works Cited Vita I. Introduction The fall of the Berlin Wall marked the end of the Cold War and the beginning of an era of a global community and a c'un.ified"Germany. I place the term ^unified'' in quotation marks because unification is a process that occurs on both political and social levels and is achieved more immediately on the former than on the latter. The changes required to secure political are the most obvious and tangible, and it has been this facet of unification with which Germany has had the most success, through lengthy processes of negotiation and legislation- However, Germany has not yet attained the same sort of resolution with regard to the upheaval that political unification has wrought in social and emotional arenas. The social inequalities and the divergence in standard of living that existed between the two Gennanies continue in the two halves of the united Gemany. The East is attempting to approach the level of the West's consumer culture and availability of goods and services while at the same time striving to maintain the accessibility of social programmes. Both sides must also come to terms with differing personal and collective attitudes and habits. Social adjustment of the populace requires far more time and effort than legislation can provide: each individual must adjust to these changes. The social and emotional changes manifest themselves in a more direct fashion for some than for others. For example, effects have been more immediate for East Germans themselves, for West Germans who live in places in which a large number of East Germans have arciwd, and for those with relatives on the other side of the border. The pressure to adapt to these changes is also more urgent for the inhabitants of Berlin, where East and West Germans live at close quarters and constantly encounter one another in public spaces7making the - experience of unification most intense- One way of coming to terms with these and psychological issues on a grassroots level is through writing. Authors looking to reconcile themselves and their peers to the sudden disorientation to which the unification of Germany has subjected them have attempted to aaalyse and descrik the new world sunourrding them. This has incited a wave of Wende-Rolll~llle,novels that in some way endeavour to work through the difficult process of unification and issues surrounding it The Berlin-Romone that have appeared since the f111 of the Wall are a fascinating subset of Wende-Ronton- Characteristic of these novels is the central role of the city of Berlin - the most intense locus of the havoc of physical and emotional rebuilding after unification - and the attempt to come to terms with the changes in political climate through the narrator's observations of people and spaces in the city A plethora of Berlin-Romune has been surfacing in bookstores as the 1990s progress. Novels reflecting on the nature of unified Berlin since the fall of the Wall include Die andere Zeit by Peter von Becker, Unter dem Namen Norma by Brigitte Burmeister, Nox by Thomas Hettche, In Berlin by Irina Liebmann, Stille Zeile Sechs and Animal Triste by Monika Maros Der we* Wannsee, Gen'elte Blicke and Liebeserkliirmr! an eine Wliche Stadt by Bodo MorsMuser, Ausdeutschen by Andreas Neumeister, Eduards Heimkehr by Peter Schneider, Terrordrom by Tim Staffel, Riickmiel by Ulrich Woellc, and Der dicke Dichter by Matthias Zschokke- Without any doubt the fall ofthe Berlin Wall has incited a sudden surge of interest in writing about Berlin. Such a marked literary interest in Berlin has been absent since the Weirnar era, at which time the city was adjusting to a new role as fast-paced cosmopolitan metropolis. The fascination with the booming modem city in the i920s stimulated an increase in city writing, as technology pushed the pace of the inddalised city to an all-time high after the First World War. Writers spent their time wandering the streets of the city, observing the behaviour of passers-by, and contemplating the changes of the time and how they manifested themselves in the city streets.