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Schreiben gegen schweigen: Grenzerfahrungen in Jean Amerys autobiographischem werk
Abstract
This dissertation focuses on the connection between history, lived experience and language in the first part of Jean Amery's autobiographical work At the Mind's Limits. Amery's lifelong struggle in finding an adequate language for experiences in extremis is especially prominent in this testimony of the Holocaust. The shifts between revolt and resignation which pervaded Amery's life and work are traced in the following themes: the resigned acceptance of his Jewish identity and simultaneous revolt against it; the description of torture while aware of the inadequate communicability of words to mediate the lived experience; the writing process itself which rebels against forgetting the enormity of the crime but which recognizes the limited didactic success of testimony. His final revolt, in suicide, however, forestalled any further critical involvement in the intellectual scene of Germany and France. A discussion of Amery's idea of an integral humanism and evaluation of testimonial writing in general conclude this work. The example of Primo Levi, whose work is referred to throughout this study for purposes of comparison and contrast, is indicative of what the legacy of testimonies should be. Levi advocates a close reading of these "stories of a new Bible" to enable us to live as responsible human beings. Amery's identity problem, self-alienation, homelessness, and growing discontent with the course of history, politics, cultural and literary development are all mirrored in his conscious use of language. Irony, word games, distortions of well-known proverbs, inversion of the traditional Bildunqsroman genre and his disturbing use of personal pronouns demonstrate the difficulty of writing in the perpetrator's language while at the same time assuming a communality of cultural heritage. His testimony constitutes one attempt at a renovation of the German language after the abuse by the National Socialists. Thus, his conscious use of language educates a German-speaking audience while the urgency and importance of his topic concerns an international reading public as well. In the final analysis, Amery's faith in language does serve to make what is considered the ineffable known to the world.
Subject Area
German literature|European history|Biographies
Recommended Citation
Fiero, Petra S, "Schreiben gegen schweigen: Grenzerfahrungen in Jean Amerys autobiographischem werk" (1994). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9510969.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9510969