«Alles mein Wasser!»: The Role of Shame in Elfriede Jelinek’s Work

Abstract

Moving from specific studies on the role of shame in Elfriede Jelinek’s work and referring to feminist theories by Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous, my paper investigates the conceptual pair Scham/Schamlosigkeit (shame/shamelessness) in selected works by the Austrian writer and 2004 Nobel Prize for Literature Elfriede Jelinek. Two novels (Die Klavierspielerin and Lust) and two essays (Schamgrenzen? Die gewöhnliche Gewalt der weiblichen Hygiene and Schamlos: Die Zeit) will be examined to show that the private violence committed in some apparently perfect Austrian families from the middle-class - depicted in Jelinek’s novels - is deeply rooted in shame and shamelessness. To Jelinek shame always has a political and gendered connotation and has terrific consequences on body and language. The relationships described in Jelinek’s novels reveal sadomasochistic and typically patriarchal dynamics in which masculine disgust and feminine shame stand opposite. Through weak “resistance words” the vulnerability of Erika and Gerti, the two main female characters of both the novels involved in the study, arises, and they try in vain to find a way to overcome the “shame’s door” and go beyond it.