We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
The Functionalization of the Figure of the Refugee and the Role of the Bildungsbürgertum in Jenny Erpenbeck's Gehen, Ging, Gegangen (2015) and Bodo Kirchhoff's Widerfahrnis (2016).
- Authors
ROTH, DANIELA
- Abstract
This article shows how in the novel Gehen, Ging, Gegangen by Jenny Erpenbeck, and in Bodo Kirchhoff's novella Widerfahrnis, the depicted fugitives are functionalized for the personal development of the protagonists. Although both texts deal with the the so-called refugee crisis and the suffering of the refugees, they are still focused on established and white characters from the educated middle-class elite, who are in a personal crisis. In Erpenbeck's novel, Richard, a retired professor, tries to find his role in society and to redefine himself. Kirchhoff also shows two intellectual protagonists, Reither and Leonie, who, having experienced personal losses, are looking for meaning in their lives. Through their interactions with fugitives, the characters strive to regain authority over their identity construction and self-perception. Especially for Reither and Leonie, this path to self-knowledge is part of a "coming-of-age" process, as Anne Haemig calls it in her review of the novella in the Spiegel. In Gehen, Ging, Gegangen, the African fugitives also help the protagonist Richard face his personal crisis in a phase of uncertainty. This results in a hierarchization of precarity, which puts the crisis of the protagonists in the foreground and marginalizes the suffering of the refugees. This contribution argues, however, that both texts in their reference to traditional genres such as the Bildungsroman and the novella, and by emphasizing tropes and clichés, ironically reflect upon the role of the Bildungsbürgertum in the current discourse on the refugee crisis.
- Subjects
GEHEN, ging, gegangen (Book); ERPENBECK, Jenny; WIDERFAHRNIS (Book); KIRCHHOFF, Bodo; REFUGEES
- Publication
Zeitschrift für Interkulturelle Germanistik, 2020, Vol 11, Issue 1, p101
- ISSN
1869-3660
- Publication type
Literary Criticism
- DOI
10.14361/zig-2020-110108