"Confusion of Tongues"

The protagonist of the title story in Bachmann's last collection Simultan is arguably at least as much language itself as it is the simultaneous translator Nadja. In the course of the narrative, Nadja experiences various kinds of danger associated with signification, from its suffocating presence to its terrifying absence. Readers, too, find themselves alternately drawn in, carried away, or completely shut out by the uniquely potent combination of interior monologue, third-person narration, indirect discourse, and the occasional moment of direct dialogue. The paper enlists the theories of Sándor Ferenczi, notably his late paper on "Sprachverwirrung zwischen den Erwachsensen und dem Kind," to illuminate how the linguistic impasses in Bachmann's story function both as trauma and as catalysts to transformation

Art · Confusion · Linguistics · Literature · Narrative · Psychoanalysis · German Literature and Culture Studies · Linguistic research and analysis · Literature and Cultural Memory · Philosophy · Psychology