"Ein Nebel schließt uns ein." Social Comment in the Novels of German Women Writers, 1850-1870

"Ein Nebel schließt uns ein." Social Comment in the Novels of German Women Writers, 1850-1870 Ruth-Ellen Boetcher Joeres In 1850, 0. L. B. Wolff published the second revised edition of his Allgemeine Geschichte des Romans, von dessen Ursprung bis zur neuesten Zeit. Despite its considerable scope, he did not choose to devote much room to the subject of women novelists, confining his commentary on them primarily to the latter pages of his final chapters. But in the course of these almost gratuitous observations, he posited a critical difference between male and female novelists—for that matter, between men and women—that is significant for any review of women as writers of socially commented prose: Eine schriftstellernde Frau muß, wie jede andere, die in Deutschland sich öffentlich zeigt, stets geharnischt dem Publicum entgegentreten , denn die Begriffe Frau und öffentlich liegen in unseren Ansichten zu entgegengesetzt, und wir verzeihen es eigentlich dem Weibe nie recht, wenn es mit dem Mann um den Beifall der Menge wetteifert, sondern tragen es ihm wenigstens heimlich nach. The assumption that writings are in every regard public is in itself a generalization. But the aligning of women with the private sphere—a sphere that is both physically removed from the public center and that focuses on the subjective and personal realm of life—has been common since at least the latter half of the eighteenth century, and in that respect, Wolff's discomfort at connecting women with writing as a public act is expected. Nevertheless, and particularly in the case of the novel, women have been well represented since the rise of the sentimental novel. After the relatively small numbers of women writers in the eighteenth century came a veritable flood in the following century. With the development of such subgenres as the epistolary novel, the novel of society, the psychological novel, and the epochal novel, and with the move away from galante Romane and the Robinson Crusoe imitations, the introspective and private spheres traditionally associated with women were increasingly identified with the genre. The rise of the subgenre of social novel in the 1840's also did not exclude women. Louise Otto, Luise Mühlbach, Louise Aston, and Fanny Lewald, among others, have indeed been labelled Young Germans by Renate Möhrmann in her attempt to define their 101 3 socially critical, rebellious early fiction. The mood of the Vormärz facilitated social criticism for women, and both Louise Otto and Louise Aston have been included by Erich Edler among the initial group of writers he has claimed were those who introduced the social novel in Germany. As has so often been the case, the development of a literary form in Germany echoed an earlier development in England—and the leading author of the English social novel was, in fact, a woman, Elizabeth Gaskell. In regard to the alliance of women with social commentary and concerns, a recent study of psychological theory and women's development provides a useful observation: Carol Gilligan, in her book In a Different Voice (1982) sees in her interviews with women a consistent concern with the plight of others, particularly those who are suffering: "The moral imperative that emerges repeatedly in interviews with women is an injunction to care, a responsibility to discern apd alleviate the 'real and recognizable trouble' of this world." Gilligan's assertion that "(w)hen women construct the adult domain, the world of relationships emerges and becomes the focus of attention and concern" (167) also might underscore the relationship between women and social novels, which essentially center upon relationships between classes and individuals, the clashing of class values and beliefs, the dissolving of relationships and the construction of new ones. Yet a review of the involvement of German women with social novels does not corroborate these assumptions nor does it provide a mirror of the English experience, in which Mrs. Gaskell took such a predominant role. Even in the 1840's, when the German social novel was at its peak, there was very little active participation by women, whose contributions to the subgenre seem diffused and indirect, with plots that are constantly led down other paths and into involvement with other paradigms than those...