Reflexionen über Entfremdungserscheinungen in Christa Wolfs Medea. Stimmen
This work aims at elucidating Christa Wolf’s understanding of alienation, her examination of this topic, her own experience of alienation, as well as the subjective experience of alienation through the literary figures in her Medea.Stimmen. The introduction provides explanations concerning the history of the term alienation and shows that the research on Christa Wolf barely considered the crucial importance of alienation for her work and neglected the autobiographical statements of the author on that topic. In the first chapter, some of the most important cultural and political events in the GDR and those occurring shortly after the reunification of Germany have been analyzed in order to understand which influence these events had on the literary work of Christa Wolf. This analysis aims at identifying which degrees of alienation were present at given times and at deciphering the alienation experience in details. In this context, autobiographical and biographical relations, diaries, interviews, essays and other works of Christa Wolf were considered. Under the aspect of alienation the second chapter considers the adaptation of myth by Christa Wolf, compares her dealing with the Cassandra- and Medea myth and tries to make apparent similarities and differences in her concept of alienation. The aim is to show which function the myth fulfills in this context and in which aspect the myth is used for projections of alienation. A comparison of those two myth adaptations seems necessary in order to find out if a shift took place in the perception of the author concerning alienation. The third chapter refers to the theory of alienation by the sociologist Melvin Seeman. Seeman transferred the term of alienation from the sociological context to the socio-psychological context and at the end of the 50ties developed a scheme of five categories of subjective experience of alienation. According to his understanding there are five common meanings of this term: powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, isolation and self-estrangement. Seeman’s theory led to many controversies, mainly because the choice of his five categories and their relation to each other was questioned. After a short introduction of Seeman’s theory of alienation the importance of his theory for the analysis of literary figures will be discussed. The fourth chapter aims at interpreting the alienation features of the literary figures in Medea.Stimmen on the basis of the classification by Melvin Seeman. Contrary to the prevalent belief that Christa Wolf’s Medea is a non-alienated figure, that judges, decides and acts with a great degree of determination, this work defends the thesis that not only Medea but rather all figures are alienated in different degrees. The theory by Melvin Seeman serves as a basis for the analysis of the different forms of alienation experience of the literary figures. Under consideration of two important aspects, the political and cultural alienation, feelings, emotions and behavior of the figures will be explained. The plot of the novel is told from the perspective of the six figures: Medea, Jason, Agameda, Akamas, Glauke and Leukon. This serves as a basis for the literal analysis. The conclusion serves to compare the experience of alienation of the author with those of her literary figures.
info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/830, Wolf, Christa / Medea, Entfremdung, Mythologie, Kulturpolitik, Deutsche Literatur, alianation, mythology, cultural and educational policy
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