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theses

My dissertation investigates the representation of silences surrounding and affecting various female protagonists in works written by male authors between the years 1894 and 1924. The three works discussed in this project, Fontane’s novel Effi Briest, Wedekind’s diptych Lulu, combining his two plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora, and Schnitzler’s novella Fräulein Else, all bear their female protagonist’s name in their respective titles, suggesting that the authors have given these female characters a voice in these texts that enables the audience to experience their story from a female perspective. My analysis of the three texts reevaluates this notion of “giving a voice to someone” by shedding light on the different ways in which expression is influenced, manipulated and hindered through the superimposed voices of the society, the parents and the men in these protagonists’ stories. Originality and authorship are two related aspects that inform my reading of the protagonists’ silence and their use of quotations and literary references when creating their own narratives. As my analysis shows, they struggle less to find a voice of their own than to piece together a story in the form of a collage composed of different quotations and voices. In doing so, a new realm of possibilities emerges, one that is located between passive repetition and quoting and active formulation of ideas, namely that of the middle voice. Reading these three texts in terms of their representation of (female) silence, silencing and body language, my project uncovers intricate connections between all three texts and all three protagonists, illuminating their respective involuntary as well as strategic uses of both verbal and non-verbal communication.

ETD_6101

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Veronika Jeltsch

doi:10.7282/T3183869

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.