The Family-less Body and its Performative Character

The emergence of body discourses in social and literary analysis has provided cultural space for variations in understandings of identity, including the influence of family. Introducing two new terms, the family-less, and the family-less body, I will use Butler’s theory of performativity to address representations of family-less characters within 19th and 20th century German-language fiction. The term familienlos, family-less, refers to children, whose parents are unable or not permitted to raise their children, and who therefore at times live outside of family structures. I will probe the possibilities and limitations of the family-less body’s alterability, its creation and associated identity shifts. Further, I will examine whether the physical alterations of characters in these texts reflect identity. In particular, I will refer to Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach’s novel Das Gemeindekind, 1887 (Their Pavel) and the novel Daskind, 1995 (Thechild) by Mariella Mehr as cultural representations of the family-less body, its performative responses and its socio-economic confinements.