Elfriede Jelinek Criticism
Elfriede Jelinek, born in 1946, is an Austrian novelist, playwright, and screenwriter renowned for her outspoken feminist perspectives and critique of capitalist patriarchy. Her literature often delves into the material conditions impacting the working class, especially women, and typically features strong female protagonists who confront male-dominated abuse. Influenced by Bertolt Brecht, Jelinek employs graphic and shocking language to challenge societal norms and taboos.
Jelinek's upbringing in Vienna was marked by rigorous academic and musical training, which she pursued alongside her early interest in writing. Her career took off with critical recognition for her poetry and prose in the late 1960s, leading to her involvement in radio plays and various literary accolades. Her novels, set against a backdrop of fictitious rural Austria, address broader societal myths, including those of family and free will, through media-influenced imagery. In works like Women as Lovers and The Piano Teacher, Jelinek explores themes of personal and financial independence, the complexity of human desires, and the consequences of societal oppression.
Jelinek's plays, such as What Happened after Nora Left Her Husband or the Pillars of Society, expand on these themes by critiquing the capitalist elite's control over political and economic spheres. Her theatrical works often provoke controversy, as seen with Burgtheater and Illness or Modern Women, which confront sensitive topics like Nazi collaboration and gender dynamics.
Critically, Jelinek's narrative style and thematic explorations have sparked considerable debate. While feminist critics commend her for exposing patriarchal exploitation and violence, some argue that her vivid depictions of female masochism detract from feminist objectives. Despite such controversies, Jelinek's incisive satire and political commentary have earned her respect, drawing comparisons to figures like Karl Kraus and Elias Canetti. Notably, her novel Lust incites debate over its perceived pornographic content. Nonetheless, her work remains celebrated for its unflinching examination of societal and cultural issues.
Contents
- Principal Works
-
Essays
-
Brute Encounters
(summary)
In the following review, Hulse discusses the satiric elements and disturbing subject matter of Lust. The main characters in Elfriede Jelinek's new novel Lust are the managing director of an Austrian paper-mill and his much-abused wife Gerti. The man is referred to as “der Direktor”, much as one might refer to “der Führer”; his attitude to women matches that expressed in Hitler's table talk. Hermann is Schiller's “Ewig-Gestrige” with a vengeance, a man whose life is spent in the pursuit of power.
-
Dreamed of Depths
(summary)
In the following review, Morin praises The Piano Teacher as a “dramatic” and “seriously comic” work of fiction. Good books, like haircuts, should fill you with awe, change your life, or make you long for another. Elfriede Jelinek's The Piano Teacher manages to fulfil at least two of these demands in a reckless recital that is difficult to read and difficult to stop reading. The racy, relentless, consuming style is a metaphor for passion: impossible to ignore.
-
Elfriede Jelinek's Political Feminism: Die Ausgesperrten
(summary)
In the following essay, Lorenz explores Jelinek's attitudes toward feminism and the role of women in Die Ausgesperrten.
-
Triumph of the Will
(summary)
In the following review, Morin offers a mixed assessment of Wonderful, Wonderful Times, calling the novel “a flawed triumph.”
-
A Universe of Pain
(summary)
In the following review, McRobbie examines the depraved and bleak world portrayed in Wonderful, Wonderful Times. Elfriede Jelinek's Vienna is a city of sexual squalor, where the post-war population takes revenge on its past. The characters are victims of their own suffering, and the review discusses the central character Erika from The Piano Teacher, who is raised by a mad mother and experiences a life of degradation and self-hatred.
-
A Cuckoo Clockwork Orange
(summary)
In the following review, Eder notes the “black irony and jarring distortion” in Wonderful, Wonderful Times, comparing Jelinek to Austrian author Thomas Bernhard.
-
Jelinek's Radical Radio: Deconstructing the Woman in Context
(summary)
In the following essay, Levin examines the gender and feminist themes explored in a selection of Jelinek's radio plays.
-
Death in Vienna
(summary)
In the following review, Innes compliments Jelinek's exploration of fascism in Wonderful, Wonderful Times, noting that the novel is “a comedy of the absurd.”
-
Inscribing Erika: Mother-Daughter Bond/age in Elfriede Jelinek's Die Klavierspielerin
(summary)
In the following essay, Kosta analyzes the mother-daughter relationship in Die Klavierspielerin.
-
The German Language: An Interview with Elfriede Jelinek
(summary)
In the following interview, Jelinek and Honegger explore the impact of Heidegger's philosophy on Jelinek's work, her critique of the linguistic and cultural legacy of Austrian literature, and her efforts to expose the persistent influence of rightist ideologies through a dissection of language and its historical contexts.
-
Review of Die Kinder der Toten
(summary)
In the following review of Die Kinder der Toten, Cocalis argues that Jelinek's prose style and subject material are enjoyable in “small doses,” but are too excessive and overwhelming in novel form.
-
Beyond Patriarchy: Marxism, Feminism, and Elfriede Jelinek's Die Liebhaberinnen
(summary)
In the following essay, Haines utilizes the theories of feminist theorist Luce Irigaray to delineate the relationship between Marxist and feminist thought in Die Liebhaberinnen.
-
Elfriede Jelinek's Nora Project: Or What Happens When Nora Meets the Capitalists
(summary)
In the following essay, Kiebuzinska discusses how Was geschah, nachdem Nora ihren Mann verlassen hatte oder Stützen der Gesellschaften functions as both a deconstruction and re-appropriation of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House.
-
Review of Ein Sportstück
(summary)
In the following review, Wolf praises the lack of plot-driven action in Ein Sportstück, contending that the long passages of dialogue and monologue 'allow Jelinek to diagnose and criticize directly society's ills.' Ein Sportstück, the latest drama from the controversial Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek, is a brutally graphic condemnation of contemporary society's obsession with sports, the athletes who compete, the narcissistic attitude bred by athletics, and the language used to describe competition and victory. Stretching the bounds of dramatic form, Jelinek creates a work with very little action; she even admitted in a recent interview that there is none. Instead, she relies on long dialogic passages, and employs her command of language to portray a society in which the desire for competition, the indiscriminate use of violence, and the ultimate victory have created a new set of ethical and moral norms. The 'athlete,' a metaphor for the individual who, because of fame, power, and money, does what he pleases regardless of the feelings and welfare of others, pursues an agenda of immediate gratification, and, in doing so, debases humanity.
-
Subjectivity in Elfriede Jelinek's Clara S.: Resisting the Vanishing Point
(summary)
In the following essay, Thomas explores the theme of female subjectivity in Clara S., contending that “Clara's usurpation of power and will separates this drama from Jelinek's other works.”
-
Pathography as Metaphor: Elfriede Jelinek's Die Klavierspielerin
(summary)
In the following essay, Swales delineates the effects of Jelinek's “fierce pathography” through a close reading of Die Klavierspielerin, contending that her stridency generates “a sense of tensions that invite the reader to be not reductive but reflective.”
-
Review of Das Lebewohl: 3 kl. Dramen
(summary)
In the following review of Das Lebewohl: 3 kl. Dramen, Wolf compliments the social commentary in Jelinek's three dramas, but notes that without a firm understanding of Austrian politics, “one will not catch their poignant political critique.”
-
Of Gender and the Gaze: Constructing the Disease(d) in Elfriede Jelinek's Krankheit oder Moderne Frauen
(summary)
In the following essay, Szalay investigates the influence of the theories of French philosopher Michel Foucault on Jelinek's Krankheit oder Moderne Frauen.
-
Review of Gier: Ein Unterhaltungroman Elfriede Jelinek
(summary)
In the following positive review of Gier, Atzert calls Jelinek 'one of the few established and interesting authors in the German-writing world.' In nine numbered but untitled sections, Elfriede Jelinek tells a story of violence, set in rural Austria, involving a police officer and his abusive relationships with women.
-
Brute Encounters
(summary)
- Further Reading