The Habsburg Self? Narrative Perspective and Linguistic Identity in Robert Musil's 'Tonka,' Herta Muller's 'Niederungen' and 'Reisende auf einem Bein' and Terezia Mora's 'Alle Tage'

My dissertation suggests a connection between German linguistic identity in the Habsburg context, as exemplified in Robert Musil's literature, and today's interest in transnational literature. I approach a desired freedom of linguistic identity in German-language literature through the formal aspect of narrative perspective, following increasing complexities of narrative perspective, to identify how the meeting of narrative choice and cultural expectations determine the characters' identities. The death of Musil's character Tonka emphasizes the tragic hegemony of the single monolingual German perspective and expected identity, while Muller's early fiction emphases duality as bilingual identities split her characters. Mora introduces a multiplicity, a new multilingualism and even translingualism in Alle Tage, and her latest novel, Der einzige Mann auf dem Kontinent constantly shifts narrative perspective and leaves us with a possible open and integrated linguistic identity. However, I argue that we already find the translingualism productive for today's German identity in the Habsburg model of a flexible linguistic identity.;My first chapter reads Robert Musil's novella "Tonka" against the history of Brno. Recently, historians have argued for a unique multilingual identity found in Habsburg Austria before the creation of nations. Through the narrative complexity of "Tonka" we come to an understanding of Tonka's identity beyond that suggested by her young lover - she is greater than, and other than, who this young man describes her to be, not least because of her Czech background. The narrator gives most of the novella over to her lover's perspective, colored by colonial images, but in the rare moments we hear of Tonka's psycho-narration, Musil allows her a life beyond her lover's determination. Monolingual expectations for her character ultimately destroy Tonka, but this negative example points forward to Ulrich's later freedom in Musil's Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften and opens the possibility of an undetermined identity.;My second chapter examines German linguistic identity in Herta Willer's early fiction. Niederungen (1982) and Reisende auf einem Bein (1989) explore a position of double minority: the character as a part of the German minority in Romania, and then as an Eastern European interloper in the Federal Republic of Germany. The split narrative perspectives of both books show the violent and dismembering effect of expectations for German identity, both in the isolated village intent on preserving German cultural heritage in Romania and in West Berlin, unwilling to allow immigrants full participation in German identity. The German community separates the child from expression in "Niederungen," while the expectations in Berlin deny the influence of Romanian language in Reisende auf einem Bein. Irene only reconciles herself to Berlin because the city, split between East and West, reflects her own impossible bilingual identity.;My final chapter examines the linguistic identities of Abel from Terezia Mora's Alle Tage (2004) and Flora from Der einzige Mann auf dem Kontinent (2009) as they negotiate current translingual options for undetermined identity in contemporary Europe. In Alle Tage, written in a constantly shifting point of view, we find an earlier Habsburg possibility of a pre-national, translingual identity. Abel's identity is doubly open and multi-voiced: linguistically, as he speaks over ten languages fluently, but also in perspective, as the narrative uses the other characters' voices and perspectives to describe Abel. However, by the end of the novel his many languages are beaten out of him, leaving only the broken German phrase, "Es ist gut," as the failure of language becomes a failure of translingualism. Reviewers universally praise Mora's most recent book Der einzige Mann auf dem Kontinent, as indicating Mora's full arrival in German literature. The main character's wife, Flora, expands our reading of Abel's place in Germany as she also suffers obviously anti-foreign sentiment and, like "Tonka," we only see a few glimpses of her thought. Attacked as a prostitute, Flora interprets the violent confrontation as a battle of language. However, by the end of the novel, instead of dying in scandal like Tonka, or losing her languages like Abel, she finds a place for her translingual identity and the novel ends with the beginnings of reconciliation in her marriage.