MURDEROUS MOTHERS: FEMINIST VIOLENCE IN GERMAN LITERATURE AND FILM (1970-2000) Claire E. Scott A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Carolina-Duke Graduate Program in German Studies. Chapel Hill 2017 Approved by: Kata Gellen Stefani Engelstein Richard Langston Priscilla Layne Inga Pollmann ©2017 Claire E. Scott ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Claire E. Scott: Murderous Mothers: Feminist Violence in German Literature and Film (1970-2000) (Under the direction of Kata Gellen) This dissertation analyzes literary and filmic representations of violent mothers from late 20th-century Germany. It employs feminist theories of language and theories of the voice and the body in film to enhance close readings of texts in which female protagonists defy gendered expectations by perpetrating acts of aggression. Through an interplay between thematic violence and the transgression of aesthetic conventions, these works generate an imaginary of feminist violence that advances feminist politics. Highlighting this dynamic reveals female bodies and voices as important sites for working through both past and contemporary violence in the German context. In addition, this work has broader theoretical significance as an intermediary between feminist theories of language and materialist feminist theories. Instead of strategies for emancipation, these texts generate female subjectivities that are engaged, not in assertions of individuality, but in collective and collaborative storytelling practices. The first chapter considers Dea Loher’s Manhattan Medea (1999) and Christa Wolf’s Medea. Stimmen (1996). Both of these texts use the story of Medea to come to terms with a historical context in which the voices of outsiders are excluded. To counteract repetitive mythmaking, these texts push the formal boundaries of genre, advocating for heterogeneous storytelling in which more than one voice is expressed. iii The second chapter analyzes Elfriede Jelinek’s Lust (1989) in terms of pornographic and melodramatic tropes. By contrasting pornography (with its emphasis on fulfilled desire) and melodrama (with its emphasis on thwarted desire), Jelinek confronts the inescapable violence in even the most intimate human relationships. The third chapter discusses Margarethe von Trotta’s film about the militant violence of the Red Army Faction, Die bleierne Zeit (1981). By highlighting this film’s engagement with the mythological story of Antigone, this chapter demonstrates how the sisters in the film engage in collaborative mothering and memory work. The final chapter brings together R.W. Fassbinder’s Martha (1974) and Helma Sanders- Brahms’s Deutschland, bleiche Mutter (1980). The protagonists of both films are drawn into cycles of domestic violence that leave them paralyzed and prone to acts of self harm, thereby alerting viewers to the ways in which they have uncritically accepted narratives about gender, history, and marriage. iv To all of the women I have known who are not afraid to be angry. To all of the women who practice “Elegant Violence.” v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am exceptionally fortunate to have many extraordinary mentors. I want to start by thanking Herr Schellhas for teaching me German all those years ago. I am grateful to Irene whose example continues to teach me how to be a more caring, kind, and generous scholar. Thank you to all of my committee members: To Stefani for believing in this work and seeing what was there, even before I could; To Dick for always being honest and direct; To Priscilla for sharing my excitement and joy in the process; To Inga for always being calm, reassuring, and thoughtful. Of all of these extraordinary mentors I am most grateful in this moment for Kata, who gave me the freedom to be myself and forge my own way. You always pushed me to see things from a different angle and supported me through the times when I doubted myself. I am extremely proud of the work I have done under your guidance. I would like to thank the colleagues who read sections of this work in the Carolina-Duke Dissertation Colloquium and the Graduate Scholars Colloquium of the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke. On a more personal level, I need to thank the colleagues and friends who got me through these past five years. They are too numerous to name all of them here, but particular thanks goes to Steffen, who makes me want to be the kind of scholar that he thinks I am. I am grateful to have received generous financial support for this project in the form of a Duke Graduate School Summer Research Fellowship, a Robert K. Steel Family Graduate Fellowship, and a Duke Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies Dissertation Fellowship. Most of all, thanks to my family for their love and support. Thank you to my brothers for making me laugh and bringing me back to myself. Thank you to my dad for teaching me how to fight and to my mom for showing me how to bandage the wounds. I am who I am because of you. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................1 Violence .......................................................................................................................................3 Late 20th Century Germany: Violence and Division ....................................................................7 Early Postwar Feminist Literature .............................................................................................13 Feminist Theory: Language and Materialism ...........................................................................17 Female Bodies in Postwar German Film ...................................................................................25 Mythology and Melodrama .......................................................................................................27 Literature and Film ....................................................................................................................32 Chapter Descriptions .................................................................................................................34 CHAPTER 1: DE-MYTHOLOGIZING MEDEA POWER, GENDER, AND STORYTELLING IN CHRISTA WOLF AND DEA LOHER .........40 Medea Stimmen ..........................................................................................................................45 Maternal Inheritance ..............................................................................................................51 Paternal Inheritance ...............................................................................................................55 Total Victimhood and Authorial Agency ..............................................................................60 Manhattan Medea .......................................................................................................................70 Medea and Velazquez ............................................................................................................77 Medea and Jason ....................................................................................................................83 Medea and Deaf Dasiy ..........................................................................................................89 vii Conclusion ................................................................................................................................104 CHAPTER 2: A FORCIBLE RETURN TO THE WOMB PORNOGRAPHY AND MELODRAMA IN ELFRIEDE JELINEK’S LUST ..........................107 Plot ...........................................................................................................................................114 Character ..................................................................................................................................123 Language ..................................................................................................................................139 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................160 CHAPTER 3: ANTIGONE’S SON PERSONAL STRUGGLE AND HISTORICAL GRIEVING IN DIE BLEIERNE ZEIT ..........162 The Fascist Past ........................................................................................................................170 Incarceration .............................................................................................................................179 Flashbacks as Feminist Violence .............................................................................................191 Collaborative Motherhood and Memory Work ........................................................................199 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................210 CHAPTER 4: OF MOTHERS AND MELODRAMA IDENTIFYING WITH SELF-SACRIFICE IN MARTHA AND DEUTSCHLAND, BLEICHE MUTTER ......................................................215 Martha ......................................................................................................................................222 Martha’s Parents ...................................................................................................................224 Affective Displays