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Webs of Entanglement: Complicity and Memorialization in Elfriede Jelinek's Die Kinder der Toten
Ist Teil von
The Germanic review, 2014-10, Vol.89 (4), p.399-418
Ort / Verlag
Washington: Routledge
Erscheinungsjahr
2014
Link zum Volltext
Quelle
Taylor & Francis
Beschreibungen/Notizen
This article examines the ways in which Elfriede Jelinek's 1995 horror novel, Die Kinder der Toten, confronts Austria's complicity in the Holocaust and challenges contemporary efforts to memorialize its victims. It concentrates on one figure in particular: an animated, monstrous web of hair [Haargespinst]. The Haargespinst serves as a metonym for the victims and becomes the vehicle by means of which the dead avenge themselves on the living. The Haargespinst furthermore enacts a critique of memorial spaces, particularly the museum at Auschwitz. In addition to discussing its function within the text, the article argues that the Haargespinst illuminates the poetics of the novel as a whole, helping make sense of its complicated narratorial positions, its use of generic tropes and clichés, and its critique of memory discourses around the Holocaust. Taking the Haargespinst as a point of departure, the article argues that Jelinek's social criticism and self-conscious narration make Die Kinder der Toten a work of literature in the tradition of the postwar counter-monument. Instead of eliciting an emotional response, the novel provokes and unsettles, demanding a critical examination of memorial practices as well as conventional notions of guilt and innocence. Finally, the article reflects on the more problematic aspects of the novel's use of tropes.