Stereotype and Destiny in Arthur Schnitzler’s Prose: Five Psycho-Sociological Readings by Marie Kolkenbrock (review)

This fresh and original contribution to the scholarly literature on Arthur Schnitzler is informed by critical paradigms of poststructuralism (particularly Judith Butler and Pierre Bourdieu) and builds a strong theoretical foundation for original readings of several of his prose works. The works discussed here range from the thoroughly examined novel Der Weg ins Freie and Traumnovelle through the essential Flucht in die Finsternis to less known stories such as “Die Weissagung” and “Die Fremde.” Kolkenbrock identifies key moments in the development of mass culture in late Habsburg Austria, tracing the instrumental deployment of stereotypical “Viennese types” that provided a nostalgic escape from the disruptions of industrialization and modernity. The central protagonist in many of Schnitzler’s texts is an individual subject in this milieu, one whose ability to assert his or her identity was constantly fluctuating between autonomy and being part of the dominant culture.

The tension that Schnitzler creates in his characters’ minds is central to Kolkenbrock’s argument: “Rather than indulging the longing for old-Viennese cosiness through the representation of typecast figures, Schnitzler’s prose reveals the psycho-sociological mechanisms behind this form of nostalgia” (2). The author thus situates her work firmly within the tradition of Schnitzler scholarship that has described an author who, far beyond merely chronicling a bygone age, produced works that, in their aesthetic construction, excavate the hold that social types and expectations maintain on the individual, that is, the way that such types “worked to stabilize the power structures of a social order, which was increasingly under pressure” (3).

One of the strengths of this study is its broad definition and problematization of the concept of stereotyping. By identifying the mechanisms of stereotyping broadly, involving not just physiognomy (and the rise of photography as mass medium) but also behavior, class, and social status, Kolkenbrock is able to highlight particular moments in Schnitzler’s work in which the protagonist is disoriented by the inevitable tension between individual desire and social and political expectation; Schnitzler’s ability to embed this crisis of individuality and social engagement within the narrated monologue of the protagonist is part of what makes his works resonate so compellingly with readers today.

Kolkenbrock theorizes Schnitzler’s unique take on human subjectivity by deploying the concept of “destiny,” the inevitable confrontation of the individual in his or her complexity with social and political norms that depend crucially on a stereotypical depiction of the human experience. The readings of the particular texts are animated by a clear focus on their protagonists’s crises of destiny, that is, their inability to simultaneously fit into society and to be unique. This theoretical tool allows Kolkenbrock to see the texts with fresh eyes: Georg’s abandonment of Vienna and his many Jewish friends in Der Weg ins Freie; Robert’s inability to distinguish reality and fantasy and misinterpretation of his brother’s humane gesture—and resulting fratricide—in Flucht in die Finsternis; Fridolin’s exploration of sexuality and transgression and return to a comfortable existence in “Traumnovelle”; all of these trajectories are illuminated in interpretations that are historically informed and attentive to the narrative techniques that Schnitzler deploys to maintain maximum tension and an ineffable open-endedness.

Crucial to her interpretations is the power that normative constructions of identity exerted on the individual in Viennese society around 1900. This tension between social norms and individual identity is irreducible and insoluble and in turn reveals Schnitzler’s depictions to be apt and suggestive. As Kolkenbrock cogently summarizes: “By almost always offering the reader the perspective of the protagonists through internal focalization, these texts suggest that stereotype and destiny may be set up as coping mechanisms not only for the characters, but also for the readers. However, the protagonists’ (existential or interpersonal) failures cast these mechanisms into question” (245). The psycho-social structure of stereotyping the other identified in Schnitzler’s prose is operative today in any number of social hierarchies and political mobilizations and...