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

Readers of Schnitzler will be familiar with the stereotypical characters featured in his work, the süßes Mädel of course foremost among them. But in both intention and execution, this study considerably transcends a motif study of the nostalgic, sentimental social types in Schnitzler's œuvre. Kolkenbrock focuses on the thematic nexus of stereotype and destiny as a mechanism through which Schnitzler's characters cope with the difficult relationship between the individual and society at the turn of the century, as the Austro-Hungarian Empire was in its death throes. Characters in Schnitzler's prose, she argues, are often split between their desire for conformity to bourgeois norms and their longing for individuality; mystified stereotypes of otherness function to tempt characters away from their sense of social destiny.

The psycho-sociological theories of three thinkers are especially important for Kolkenbrock's model: Eric Santner, Judith Butler, and Pierre Bourdieu. The "central paradox of modernity" (6) identified by Santner—that the subject's search for autonomy is defined by the very community that is undermined by this endeavor—is key to the dynamic Kolkenbrock is investigating in Schnitzler's texts. Similarly, she cites Butler's attention to the tension between the originality of the subject and the rules and rituals that constitute the social order that the subject produces and reproduces. Finally, Kolkenbrock discusses Bourdieu's analysis of the ways in which social rites and institutions assign individuals their social statuses and roles and thus assume a fate-like character. Specifically with regard to Schnitzler's prose works, she contends that if characters feel coerced by their social destiny, a metaphysical or higher power of destiny is frequently invoked as a coping mechanism.

Kolkenbrock's chapter organization is determined by the five representative readings she has selected to illustrate the complex of stereotype and destiny in Schnitzler's narrative writing. The first chapter focuses on the novel Der Weg ins Freie. Much critical attention has been paid to the ways in which the novel reflects the increasing anti-Semitism of turn-of-the-century Vienna, but Kolkenbrock delves deeper into this phenomenon through her examination of the intersection between race, class, and gender. By closely analyzing the relationships between the work's non-Jewish protagonist Georg and his Jewish friends as well as with his lover, she shows that stereotypes can take on the role of destiny: they function as cultural narratives that create a repetitive series of performances which then engender social realities. The two-sided nature of the stereotype of the Jew (as both vilified and idealized) not only points up the constructed nature of stereotypes in general but explains Georg's ambivalence toward his Jewish friends, just as the upper-class Georg struggles with his commitment to his bourgeois mistress.

Turn-of-the-century German-language literature is often described as neo-Romantic, and Kolkenbrock's study bears out this characterization in its identification of numerous Romantic features in Schnitzler's prose. This is evident for example in the book's second chapter, devoted to "Flucht in die Finsternis," described by Schnitzler in his journal as his Wahnsinnsnovelle. Kolkenbrock's reading of this text explores the stereotype of Romantic insanity, associated in particular with E.T.A. Hoffmann, as both seductive and pathological. She views the mental illness of the protagonist as a crisis of investiture—bound up with his lack of security concerning the aspects of his social role with which he has been officially endowed by institutional authority. That madness appears to offer an escape from his bourgeois existence is reflected in the protagonist's tendency to interpret Romantic images in the text as signs of a higher destiny. This process is emphasized by the prominent role in the text of Grauen (horror)—the sensation incurred by the blurring of differences which have previously been secure. Kolkenbrock links Grauen as an element of setting...