Personal histories: Autobiography and female identity in contemporary German literature and film

This study focuses on representations of female identity in German literature and film of the 1970s and 1980s. It explores the relationship between gender, language, sexuality, and history, as well as the problems inherent in constructing the past and the autobiographical self. The novels Kindheitsmuster by Christa Wolf and Der Mann auf der Kanzel by Ruth Rehmann, and the films Deutschland, bleiche Mutter by Helma Sanders-Brahms and Hungerjahre by Jutta Bruckner best illustrate issues prevalent in women's autobiographical works in both German states. The production of the female self in terms of a gendered identity and the coming to terms with the recent German past lie at the center of these personal investigations.;Chapter one establishes a theoretical framework and the historical context from which the plethora of recent autobiographical texts has emerged. Concepts of female identity, based on theories of the "other" are explored, as are traditional attitudes toward female articulation. Contemporary autobiographical writing, I argue, brings to light the "technologies" that deny women their voices, bodies and experiences. Moreover, most of these writers not only challenge the paternal narratives inscribed on their lives but also the canonical notions of autobiographical writing/filming and traditional concepts of the self.;In Kindheitsmuster the impossibility of autobiographical representation stands in tension with the urgency of subjectively confronting Germany's recent history. The fallibility of memory and its processes of repression inevitably challenge and thus redefine the autobiographical project. In Der Mann auf der Kanzel the autobiographical perspective serves a daughter's attempt to come to terms with and criticize her father's passive role as pastor during National Socialism. I try to show the ways in which the parent is internalized in her final verdict of her father.;The adoption of the autobiographical mode in film and specifically representations of the mother-daughter relationship are points of inquiry in both Deutschland, bleiche Mutter and Hungerjahre. These chapters illustrate the repression sexuality and the female voice during the postwar period.;The underlying motive in most of these autobiographical endeavors is the desire to reconstitute the female self.