„Стена” Марлен Гаусгофер: австрийский вариант изоляции
Anthropology of Isolation in „The Wall” by Marlen Haushofer

Summary/Abstract: The novel „The Wall” („Die Wand”, 1963) by the Austrian writer Marlen Haushofer (1920-1970) is analyzed from the perspectives of modern literary anthropology. Attention is focused on the poetics of everyday life and the ways of communication during total isolation. The phenomenon of the barrier that separates the nameless first-person narrator from the usual coexistence with people is considered. The gradual reception of a conditional wall with certain stages is emphasized: identification through naming, state of fear and impulse to destroy an object, its visualization (finding of a material form), equating it to a weapon of mass destruction and consciously ignoring the irritant. The adaptation means of the female protagonist to the new reality with the opposition „city-village”, and „man-animal” are studied. The poetics of everyday life is clearly demonstrated in the detailed daily routine with the adaption of home (a hunting lodge with outbuildings and a mountains hut), the struggle for the harvest of potatoes and legumes, hunting for wild animals and caring for domestic animals, hay and firewood harvesting for the winter.

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