Probable or Possible?: The Issue of Women's Emancipation in German Literature of the 1920s

Probable or Possible? The Issue of Women's Emancipation in German Literature of the 1920s Lynda J. King University of Texas at Austin The period directly following World War I was a time of great outward change in women's lives. New laws guaranteed women legal rights, and the equality of the sexes was affirmed in new constitutions. Much publicized women with radical hair and clothing styles were openly flaunting sexual freedoms, and working at new jobs, studying at universities, and debating in parliaments. In reality these women comprised only a small minority of the female population; yet there was a general belief that a "new woman," an emancipated woman had come into being.1 The nature and value of women's emancipation became a hotly debated issue, and many writers took part in the debate during the fifteen years after World War I by creating a personal vision of emancipated women in their works. Exactly who were these writers? Most of the major works written during this period like Mann's Der Zauberberg (1924), Musil 's Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (particularly Book I, 1930), Kafka 's Der Prozeß (1925), or Dublin's Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929) revolve around male characters, relegating women to peripheral roles and largely ignoring the new questions being raised about women's lives.2 On the other hand, works of popular literature written to entertain broader audiences were much closer to the contemporary social scene, often presenting the issues of women's emancipation, and are interesting today mainly in their value as documentation of the social impact of emancipation and similar issues. Some works of this caliber are Felix Dörmann's Jazz (1925), Josefine Widmar's Die Kameradin (1930), Melchior and Eva Vischer's Kind einer Kameradschaftsehe (1931), and Die letzten Tage von . . . (1931) under the collective authorship of "K.OLEKTIV."3 Between these two poles lie works which, while not major, nonetheless achieve a certain literary niveau, as well as entertaining their audiences. In this type of literature from the postwar era, the emancipation of women plays an important role, combining the authors' insights into and opinions about the social question with genuine literary value. Included in this group are Robert Neumann 's Karriere (1931), Erich Kästner's Fabian (1930), Joseph Roth's Flucht ohne Ende (1927), Marieluise Fleißer's Mehlreisende Frieda Geyer (1931; reprinted in 1972 as Eine Zierde für den Lynda J. King139 Verein), works by the little known Austrians Mela Hartwig (Das Weib ist ein Nichts, 1929) and Hermynia zur Mühlen (Reise durch ein Leben, 1933), as well as Schnitzler's Thérèse (1928) or Das Spiel im Morgengrauen (1926-7), and a collaborative play by Alexander Lernet-Holenia and Stefan Zweig, Gelegenheit macht Liebe (1928).4 A play and two novels representative of this middle group are useful for analysis. They are Robert Musil's Vinzenz und die Freundin bedeutender Männer (1924), Joseph Roth's Zipper und sein Vater (1928), and Jakob Wassermann's Laudin und die Seinen (completed in 1925).5 Several elements bind these works together. Although the titles suggest a male perspective, each work does portray one or more major female character and her involvement with what the authors saw as the issues of emancipation; that is, each depicts a certain view of the social phenomenon of the new woman. Beyond this thematic similarity, the works place their women in a similar environment: the theater or a related world of conscious role-playing. This was one of several backdrops against which the issues of emancipation were played in the popular and middle groups of literature. Others were the business world, educational institutions, and artistic occupations.5 In Wassermann's novel a housewife carries on her struggle for self-determination with the family unit in direct contrast to the theater world. Finally, another pattern emerges in analyzing the type and quality ofemancipation as these four authors create it: true emancipation, i.e. individual fulfillment gained by the ability and opportunity to control one's life through one's own decisions, is seldom achieved. The emancipation presented is, in three of the four cases, either a camouflage for inadequacies, or a vain battle...