Narrativization of trauma in contemporary German novel

Spreicer, Jelena. (2015). Narrativization of trauma in contemporary German novel. PhD Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of German Language and Literature.
(Poslijediplomski doktorski studij književnosti, izvedbenih umjetnosti, filma i kulture) [mentor Car Prijić, Milka].

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Abstract

This doctoral thesis focuses on different narratological strategies in representing the trauma of the Holocaust in contemporary German-language (post)memorial literature. The body of literary texts encompassed by this study includes four literary works: weiter leben: Eine Jugend (1992) by Ruth Klüger (translated into English by the author herself, published 2001 under the title Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered); Am Beispiel meines Bruders (2003) by Uwe Timm (translated into English by Anthea Bell, published 2005 under the title In My Brother's Shadow: A Life and Death in the SS); Engel des Vergessens (2011) by Maja Haderlap and Die englischen Jahre (1999) by Norbert Gstrein (translated into English by Anthea Bell, published 2002 under the title The English Years). With regard to these texts, I propose to address the question whether a perceptible change in the relationship of the narrator towards the trauma of the Holocaust exerts a considerable influence on the narrative structure of the literary text. Does a difference in the narrator‘s perspective on the Holocaust, which can be personal, familial or culturally mediated, imply the use of radically different narratological strategies in representing the Holocaust? Can differences in storytelling be considered symptomatic of the paradigmatic shift from memorial to postmemorial literature at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century? These are the questions central to this doctoral thesis.

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