Faschinger`s Aesthetic Analysis of Power Relations in Wiener Passion

Faschinger’s Aesthetic Analysis of
Power Relations in Wiener Passion
MARIA-REGINA KECHT
R ICE U NIVERSITY
«Nicht die Feinde des weiblichen Geschlechts sind es, welche gegen dessen Emancipation sich auflehnen, sondern dessen wärmste und aufrichtigste Freunde. Nur
wer das Weib achtet und liebt, wer es anbetet und verehrt, kann sein höchstes Glück
darin finden, es zu bevormundschaften und die schwere Last des unbestrittenen
Ober-Regiments auf sich zu nehmen.»
Anton J. Grosshoffinger, Die Schicksale der Frauen und die Prostitution (1847; 15)
«It seems to me … that the real political task in a society such as ours is to criticize
the working of institutions which appear to be both neutral and independent; to
criticize them in such a manner that the political violence which has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight them.»
Michel Foucault, «Human Nature: Justice versus Power» (1974; Rabinow 6)
A cursory look at the original jacket of the hard-cover edition of Faschinger’s
Wiener Passion – with its creamy and reddish-brown colors and its depiction of a small café table covered with a white tablecloth – may evoke in the
prospective reader a whole series of clichés about Vienna. It most likely includes the image of Vienna as a historically important, pleasant, entertaining,
culturally rich, and music-filled metropolis that attracts hundreds of thousands of international tourists every year. They come to admire the splendor
of Vienna’s imperial and royal past and are captivated by the city’s successful
strategies for making history come alive – at least the part of history that is
intended to be enshrined in cultural memory and thus solidify a positive national identity one can refer to proudly.
Even if the jacket design of Faschinger’s novel and its back-cover twosentence plot summary appeal to the mind-set sketched above, the story of
Wiener Passion, running to more than 550 pages, presents two alternative
models of Vienna. Each breaks with cherished myths, and neither one would
be ratified by the municipal tourist board. There are two distinct story lines
which, though separated by a hundred years, interweave and connect in fanciful ways. The plot set in today’s Vienna functions as a 181-page frame for
the 375-page story-within-a-story that takes us back to the last decades of
the nineteenth century. Faschinger’s satirical view of modern Austria’s capital
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focuses on its musical traditions and cultural institutions, as well as on its
cosmopolitan image, with plenty of comical elements; her critical and polemical narration about the center of the monarchy is more encompassing in
thematic scope and far more realistic, notwithstanding the inclusion of some
light-hearted legends and lore. She imaginatively revives a part of the city’s
fin-de-siècle history that has been ignored and forgotten. In the protagonist,
Rosa Havelka, a young Bohemian immigrant seeking employment in Vienna,
Faschinger creates a «life story» that allows her to pursue the feminist and engagé political agenda of her previous novels, so despite the familiar delightful
humor and the elaborate nature of her yarn, Faschinger’s Wiener Passion is a
profoundly serious portrait of the sordid reality most inhabitants of Vienna
endured in the late nineteenth century.
Through her choice of topic and her expansive, well-researched treatment
of the fictional history, Faschinger breaks new literary ground.1 Anyone familiar with European literature is likely to recall grim depictions of London,
Paris, Berlin, or St. Petersburg, but will find it difficult to point to an imaginary cityscape of Vienna that goes much beyond the boundary of the Ringstraße and the milieu of aristocrats, intellectuals, and liberal bourgeoisie. As
intricately as the names Stefan Zweig, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and Arthur
Schnitzler are connected with the city of Vienna, they, among others, have
contributed to the discursive construction of an exclusively high-culture metropolis. Discussions of modernity or nostalgia for «the world of yesterday»
are squarely located inside the Ring and, as Wolfgang Maderthaner and Lutz
Musner note, «Thema ist ein imaginiertes, historisiertes und naturalistisch geordnetes Wien, in dem alle Ströme europäischer Kultur zusammengeflossen
sind und dessen Multiethnizität nicht als Quelle politischer und kultureller
Konflikte, sondern als quasi alchimistische Voraussetzung eines speziellen
Genius loci entschlüsselt wird, dem es […] gelänge, alle Spannungen in Harmonie aufzulösen und dadurch ein spezielles Wienerisches Flair zu schaffen»
(69). What is entirely ignored and what has been largely excluded from preservation in (and thus the transmission of) cultural memory is the following:
namely the history and reality of the life led by the vast majority of Viennese,
who struggled for subsistence as workers, craftsmen, domestic servants, seasonal migrant laborers, or homeless and down-and-out men and women. This
is indeed the «invisible modernity» of the metropolis; this is the «other» Vienna so compellingly analyzed by Maderthaner and Musner – and by Faschinger, who insists on creatively inverting common modes of perception, and
thereby pays tribute to these forgotten individuals of fin-de-siècle Vienna.2
Wiener Passion is about victims: against a well-drawn panorama of economically exploited and socially marginalized characters, we are asked to ac-
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company Rosa Havelka on the thorny and painful journey through her short
life, which ends in execution on the gallows. (As one can delineate fourteen
stations of this woman’s passion, the narrative structure might be considered
an irreverent debunking of Catholicism through parodistic inversion.) The
author, however, is not really interested in the unhappy story of the orphaned
Bohemian country girl, who is lured to seek a modicum of well-being amidst
the renowned splendor of the Viennese capital. Rather, Faschinger is intent
on revealing the multiple social and ideological forces that effectively constitute Rosa Havelka as a female subject and place her repeatedly into destructive power relations. In her own remarks on the plot of Wiener Passion, Faschinger observed:
Opfer und Täter sind zwei Seiten einer Münze, das gehört immer zusammen. Immer. Täter sind nur möglich, weil Opfer möglich sind. […] Weil die Opfer mitmachen. Aber manchmal sind die Zwänge ja so stark, dass man von vornherein kaum
Chancen hat … [wenn es] um wirtschaftliche Zwänge [geht], wo die Befreiung sehr
schwierig oder nahezu unmöglich ist. Da wird ein konsequenter Niedergang erzählt, der Niedergang einer Person mit vielen Begabungen, dadurch, dass sie bestimmte Normen einfach annimmt. (Roethke 56)
She demonstrates that the protagonist’s downfall is brought about by her unquestioning acceptance of particular accepted norms enforced by means of
various disciplinary practices and penalizing strategies.
The novel can be considered a poignant artistic intervention on behalf of
the most downtrodden and abused of fin-de-siècle Viennese society, namely
its female domestic servants. In taking up their case, Faschinger restores suppressed history and symbolically returns lost human dignity to them,3 but
even more importantly, she engages in a political struggle to unmask the insidious power/knowledge complex and – to stay with Foucault’s concepts – a
struggle to identify the «technologies» effecting the subjection of individuals.
From Faschinger’s earlier novels and her comments in various interviews we
know she is convinced that any hope of altering unequal power relations and
eliminating unfair gender conditions depends on our understanding the past
and our ability to reconquer territory that has been lost to pervasive cultural
practices of discrimination and exclusion.4 Wiener Passion is a fascinating exploration of an overwhelmingly androcentric network of power and its manifold strategies of surveillance and control.
My reading of Faschinger’s text is guided by Foucault’s genealogical studies of the concept of the subject and will concentrate on the process of Rosa
Havelka’s subjectification (assujettissement) by means of disciplinary measures aimed at producing «docile» bodies. Discipline refers here to mechanics
of power that «define how one may have a hold over others’ bodies, not only
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so that they may do what one wishes, but so that they may operate as one
wishes, with the techniques, the speed and the efficiency that one determines»
(Foucault, Discipline 138). The effecting of a «docile» (female) body – referring quite literally to the physiological being, but also implying the social,
psychological, and mental state of the subject – is the work of institutions and
fields of discourse that can all be subsumed under the concept «pastoral power.» As the term suggests, «pastoral power» claims to assure individual salvation, and its practitioners need to know a great deal about individuals and
their thinking and feeling in order to look after them effectively. Pastoralism
drives the activities of the modern welfare state and characterizes the efforts
of education, medicine, jurisprudence, science, and so on. In fact, this is the
individualizing aspect of government in its original role of designating «the
way in which the conduct of individuals or of groups might be directed: the
government of children, of souls, of communities, of families, of the sick […].
To govern, in this sense, is to structure the possible field of action of others»
(Foucault, «The Subject» 221).
The «governing» modes of various institutions that take a special salvation-oriented interest in Rosa Havelka will be discussed in the next several
pages. I will examine Faschinger’s aesthetic depiction of the patriarchal «will
to power» and, specifically, the desire to subjugate women for the purpose of
creating and maintaining a healthy social body that relies on the acceptance of
seemingly natural categories of masculinity and femininity. Faschinger identifies several spheres and their representatives as collaborators in the complex
measures of creating «docile» female bodies: at the most individualized level,
the family and, within it, mothers as primary caretakers; the school system for
girls administered by Catholic nuns; the health-care system, which becomes a
vast domain of «bio-power» over bodies and minds; the legal system and correctional facilities dealing with deviance and resistance; the Catholic Church,
which presents the hierarchical social order as divine order; and, most influential of all in inculcating values and identities, capitalist economics with its
coercive forces. So the question arises – given Faschinger’s feminist agenda –
how does she succeed in imparting an empowering perspective, despite the
fact that Rosa Havelka’s life story spirals from one subordinate subject position to the next and is, as the author suggests, an unavoidable decline and fall?
Answering this question requires a closer look at the process of subjectification.
Apart from a socially pervasive gender hierarchy which ranks Rosa Havelka
as a female, per definitionem, in an inferior position, there are various categories within the order of public, hegemonic discourse that, in effect, create her
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«deviant» identity. This, in turn, enables and results in a pattern of dependent
relationships that allow the more powerful party to exert disciplinary practices on her body, mind, and soul.
Having been born out of wedlock – the daughter of an uneducated Bohemian cook in a Viennese household in Marienbad – Rosa is the embodiment
of her mother’s sinfulness. According to the Catholic Church, Rosa thus
brings with her a predisposition towards an immoral life and requires special
surveillance and guidance. As a domestic servant with bourgeois families in
Vienna, she is not just factually at the lowest economic level, she is also at the
mercy of employers who expect dishonest, deceptive, and unruly behavior
of «her kind.» Her national identity (Czech) puts her at odds with the dominant German population in Vienna at a time when mass immigration from the
Habsburg crown lands was perceived as an imminent threat to the well-being of the royal and imperial capital. When Rosa steals a musical instrument
in order to make a living as a street musician, she thus «confirms» that her
«true» immoral and criminal self is in need of training at a correctional facility.
Trying to obtain food and shelter through occasional prostitution, Rosa joins
a large number of young down-and-out females whose moral- and healththreatening conduct requires the strong intervention of the police vice squad
and the medical experts. Displaying psychological disturbances scientists declared «typical» of the female nature, Rosa becomes a case to be treated in
psychiatric wards. Shock treatment and other therapeutic interventions are
applied to regulate her behavior and thus protect society from any dangers.
So the emerging picture is clear: in the scheme of late nineteenth-century
bourgeois Austrian society, Rosa is an unproductive, corrupt, sick, and sinful
creature whose crime of stabbing her husband to death is an entirely «logical»
climactic ending to her deviant life trajectory. From the reader’s point of view,
however, Rosa’s own reflections on her life – as constructed by Faschinger –
are more likely to be persuasive. She believes «daß eine Lebensgestaltung
gemäß der den Menschen von Religion und Jurisprudenz vorgeschriebenen
Richtlinien für Individuen meines Zuschnitts nichts anderes als die Katastrophe, den Untergang zur Folge haben muß» (92).
It is a complex web of normalizing practices – many «prescribed guiding principles» – that, despite their pastoral intent, have destructive consequences. Central to the mechanisms of discipline and punishment is, as stated
above, the (female) body, and, in many variations, female sexuality. Rosa is
raised to serve others – in every possible respect. Her interaction with the
world is based on the premise that it is a Christian woman’s duty to respond
obediently and joyfully to the desires and demands of others. Therefore, Rosa
wants to be docile and compliant even if it means that in practically all rela-
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tionships, professional as well as personal and intimate, she is forced to accept
and/or adopt others’ opinions, wishes, and desires, and submit to them. Regardless of whether the dominant person in a series of oppressive and inegalitarian relationships is male or female, it is the Law of the Father that governs
the process of subjectification. Rosa’s relationship to herself and her body is
profoundly shaped by the dynamics of patriarchal disciplinary power. In fact,
the effectiveness of this power reveals itself in «its ability to grasp the individual at the level of [her] self-understanding – of [her] very identity and the
norms that govern [her] practices of self-constitution» (Sawicki 161). Rosa is
either dependent on others or under their control, which makes «even modes
of self-governance […] perniciously disciplinary» (162).
Readers familiar with Faschinger will not be surprised to learn that Rosa’s
subject formation originates in the upbringing her mother provides.5 Far from
offering any empowerment and thus being a source of affirmative subject
formation, Libussa Tichy, a sexually abused and exploited domestic servant
herself, is unable to muster resistance to her employer or teach her daughter to learn from her mother’s suffering.6 On the contrary, she dogmatically
instructs her child in the Christian obligation to accept one’s social and economic position because «es wäre nicht nur unvernünftig, sondern verstieße
gegen die göttliche Weltordnung, […] sich gegen eine dienende Existenz aufzulehnen. Eine dienende Existenz sei eine gottgefällige Existenz. […] Der
Wunsch, anderen zu helfen, sie zu unterstützen und zu entlasten, entspreche
einem natürlichen Bedürfnis der weiblichen Seele …» (95). Clearly, Catholic
teachings and general misogynous ideas of the «nature» of the female species
converge here. There is no reason to speculate whether, in the story’s historical context, a person like Libussa Tichy would have been familiar with the
physiological and psychological constructions of gender difference propagated in scientific as well as popular publications of the time. She would most
likely not have been aware of the power/knowledge complex responsible for
the polarization of gender characteristics and the «natural» derivation of typical and acceptable social and cognitive abilities from the biological-anthropological constitution of femaleness.7 Nevertheless, Libussa Tichy understood
that a woman’s duty rested in her willing subordination to any man’s wishes.
Her material legacy to her daughter appropriately includes items essential to a
good life as she sees it: a prayer book to help strengthen virtue and joyful suffering; a small statue of the Virgin Mary, most revered accessory to the Lord
in seeking forgiveness; and four cookbooks and the Goldenes Hausfrauenbuch, an invaluable guide and reference for any self-respecting woman eager
to please a man.
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Not only does Rosa’s mother avoid enlightening her daughter on issues
of sexuality, offering myriad superstitious tales instead which completely
confound the girl and leave her clueless about her body, she also instills in
Rosa the conviction that life’s twists of fate call for «Nachsicht und Geduld,»
«Barmherzigkeit und Vergebung» (117). This maternal process of subjection
is political in its function and pastoral in its benign intent, but disastrous in its
consequences. It is control within the debilitating norms of patriarchy, and
it certainly does not empower Rosa or enhance her autonomy. The mother
figure executes socialization in compliance with male-defined notions of acceptability and thus helps effect the «docile and productive» body desired by
modern social-power networks.
It is worth noting that Faschinger’s Wiener Passion – a story devoid of fathers – presents a whole spectrum of mother figures skillfully disciplining
their children, exerting stifling control over them, and successfully laying the
groundwork for the emergence of individuals who experience forms of subjection without resistance.8 Since these women are themselves the products of
far more powerful practices of subjectification, Faschinger’s biting criticism is
reserved for the representatives of the male power/knowledge complex.
In her aesthetic analysis of the power relations that hold Rosa Havelka in their
tight disciplinary and discursive grip, Faschinger points her accusatory finger
at the institution of the Catholic Church. Its hypocritical pastoral preaching
to the poor and disenfranchised, indoctrinating them to endure their miserable lives and promising them happiness after death, not only strengthen an
unjust class structure, but also support a body intent on individual isolation
and normalization. In Wiener Passion, the Church and its servants refer to
God’s will when they assist in the state’s efforts to «forge a docile body that
may be subjected, used, transformed, and improved» (Rabinow 7), and when
they collaborate with the state in measures «to normalize anomalies through
corrective or therapeutic procedures» (Rabinow 21). Since the Church, in
Faschinger’s opinion, sides with the powers that be in order to preserve its
own dominance, it inevitably assumes a profoundly androcentric position in
its care of the religious community. Women are idolized, if we are to understand the priests’ and nuns’ views in Wiener Passion correctly, as models of
devotion, self-sacrifice, and moral virtue as long as they are willing to follow
one of two prescribed paths: either that of a loving wife serving her family, or
that of a celibate nun serving the bridegroom Jesus Christ. The premise is that
if the virtue of demure, modest, and submissive behavior is not nurtured, a
woman easily loses her moral compass and strays from the «prescribed guiding principles.» Since «by nature» woman is a weak vessel,9 the risk of her
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yielding to illicit sexual desires is a real concern to the Church and the state.
Moral education emphasizing both the preciousness of virginity and the duty
of marital procreation is thus considered critical in these concerted efforts at
preventing the degeneration of society.
Rosa Havelka encounters the fervor of salvation through religious edification throughout her life. Early on, the country pastor in Marienbad teaches
Rosa an incontestable lesson in the rewards of feminine modesty. He refuses
Rosa’s dying mother the blessing of Holy Water from Lourdes for which the
child comes begging in order to attempt to save her mother’s life. With pompous self-righteousness, the priest expresses regret that he is unable to help but
says it would not be Christian to do so because Libussa Tichy «habe sich im
Laufe ihres zugegebenermaßen mühseligen Lebens leider eine schwere Verfehlung zuschulden kommen lassen, sie habe einen Fehltritt begangen, der
sozusagen am Anfang [von Rosas] Existenz stehe, einen gravierenden Fehler»
(114). Miraculous water must be reserved for those women, «die die schwierige Aufgabe, nicht vom Pfad der Tugend abzuweichen, besser bewältigt hätten als [Rosa’s] Mutter» (115). Even though Rosa is too young and innocent
to comprehend what terrible mistake her mother made that would disqualify
her from receiving the comfort of Lourdes water, she surmises that Libussa
Tichy must have sinned gravely, thus not deserving to be saved from death.
What harsher punishment can there be?
Rosa’s sinful predisposition – being the «Domestikenbastard» (101) – invites special attention and Christian disciplinary measures on the part of
the nuns of the Ursuline convent where Rosa is schooled after her mother’s
death. It is there that Rosa is instructed to develop a different voice – literally,
through discipline applied to her vocal cords in order to transform her natural alto into an angelic soprano, and figuratively, through prayer, Bible study,
and hagiographic reading to redeem her descent and background. The nuns
seem to believe that if Rosa follows God’s calling and enters the service of the
Church, she may achieve the perfection of Catholic normalization. And, for
a while, Rosa makes progress in this direction. She is a quiet, withdrawn girl,
who loves to read stories about saintly lives and tries to comfort herself by
contrasting her mother’s death to the horrible sufferings of Catholic martyrs:
«Ein so wißbegieriges Kind, […] ein ganz und gar verinnerlichtes Naturell,
ein von Grund auf kontemplativer Charakter. […] Man dürfe sich einiges von
Rosa erwarten» (150).
Not surprisingly, in their educational endeavor the Ursulines also take perfecting the female body very seriously. Like all the other girls at the school,
Rosa is constantly told – in vivid metaphorical images from «Flora and
Fauna» (153) – that a young woman’s most important quality is her chastity.
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Avoiding any mentally contaminating contact with sin and therefore not enlightening the adolescents on issues of anatomy and biology, the nuns engage
in a discourse on sexuality that constructs femininity as a vulnerable amalgam
of virtues that require utmost protection against ubiquitous hazards, and the
responsibility for successfully guarding the treasure of «Sittsamkeit, Keuschheit, Unschuld, Tugendhaftigkeit und Zucht» (153) rests completely with the
woman.
Just as Faschinger starkly reveals the Marienbad priest’s hypocrisy and
misogyny through Rosa’s encounter with him, she unmasks the nuns’ selfserving, bigoted practice of Christian doctrines by creating a psychological
situation that calls for pedagogical sensitivity and empathy rather than moral
outrage and stern punishment. When Rosa befriends Olga, a converted Jew,
it is the bond between two lonely outsiders. Their adolescent rapture for each
other makes them forget their sense of isolation, and their homoerotic desires
allow them to discover their bodies, new sensations, and emotions. However,
as soon as their relationship is exposed and identified as gravely sinful and
deviant, the will of a furious God must be executed: Olga is dismissed from
school – her immoral behavior is linked to her Jewish origin – and Rosa, having shown so much early promise in leading a virtuous life, is given the opportunity to demonstrate contrition. Her soul is to be saved, her body to be
chastened, and, let’s not forget, her voice to be purified (the task assigned,
interestingly enough, to the lesbian nun, Sister Perpetua). But this arduous
process of Catholic subjectification is thwarted: Olga immediately commits
suicide, an act which is neither acknowledged as such nor regretted by the
devout women, and Rosa, in utter despair and confusion, runs away from her
monastic surroundings.
What the Ursulines in Prague may have failed to do, namely exert their
pastoral power over a weak and lonely human being in order to assume full
control over the subject, the widow Galli in Vienna – a passionate member
and honorary chair of the «Wiener Verein zum Schutze christlicher Wertmaßstäbe» (390) – almost succeeds in doing when she offers Rosa employment in her house. Faschinger’s cynical portrait of this pathologically religious woman is not devoid of caricature-like distortions, but it undoubtedly
helps to strengthen her ideological argument about the deleterious impact
Catholicism has had on the development of subjects. Here we encounter
pure, evil lust for domination hidden under the cloak of Christian salvation and Nächstenliebe! Rosa’s victimization at the hands of the widow is
possible only because she has already internalized norms of obedience and
submission; she has interiorized the disciplinary gaze and created modes
of self-governance. Thus she is willing to comply with «den Befehlen der
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Herrschaft, auch den befremdlichsten und widersinnigsten, ohne Ausnahme»
(336).
At first it seems as though Galli is coming to Rosa’s rescue since she is unemployed and without shelter. We are even led to believe that the kind lady
is in solidarity with members of her sex when she comments, «insbesondere
wir Frauen seien der Schlechtigkeit der Welt schutzlos preisgegeben» (318).
But this veneer of compassion and empathy is stripped away swiftly, exposing a zealous evangelism that endorses penitential exercises and self-chastisement to redeem the world’s evils. Rosa’s feminine talent of embroidery
is utilized to expand the widow’s vast decorative collection of artistic Holy
Crosses10 and biblical quotations, and Rosa’s religious schooling makes her
an ideal reader of the Old Testament. Both practices are intended to nourish and purify the girl’s soul. When these self-disciplining exercises are insufficient in the struggle against the seductions of the world, Galli physically
punishes Rosa, who spends her minimal free time with a pleasant young fellow, strolling through Prater Park and enjoying the popular social ritual of
the Fünfkreuzertanz. Later, left to her own recognizance, Rosa feels forced
to demonstrate her remorse through self-flagellation: «[W]ir seien Sünder,
alle, alle seien wir Sünder vor dem Herrn und müßten Buße tun bis ans Ende
unserer Tage, damit wir nicht in ewige Verdammnis gestoßen würden, auch
ich, ja, vor allem ich müsse mein begehrliches junges Fleisch züchtigen, um
nicht alle Qualen der Hölle erdulden zu müssen, sie befehle es mir» (334–35).
The body becomes the object of painful disciplinary retribution. The weakness of human flesh must be penalized in order to restore control over the
expression of moral deviance and to regain God’s love. Rosa’s body needs to
have its inferior status inscribed through the lashing of the «Lederschnur, in
die spitze Metallteilchen eingeflochten waren» (336). In this way, she learns
techniques to regulate her behavior and voluntarily – ultimately, naturally –
produce a «docile» and «subjected» body. Faschinger’s portrayal of the process of Entmündigung and humiliation is, despite its comic exaggerations
and its references to the widow’s dabbling in magic, frightening. In fact, we
see Rosa’s submission to Galli’s ruthless domination deteriorate into total
surrender, leaving a suicide attempt – the extinction of the self – as her only
recourse.
In Wiener Passion we meet a goodly number of other impressively pious
and ostensibly caring men and women who participate in the discursive production and upholding of the Catholic power/knowledge complex. Their
share in the application of pastoral «technologies,» their contribution to the
subjectification of Rosa Havelka and thus the effecting of her as an individual –
as an inferior, depraved female – is what Faschinger resolutely condemns.
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As was pointed out earlier, so-called pastoral power has moved beyond its
ecclesiastical institutionalization in the eighteenth century, and its functions
have spread and multiplied since then. The modern state has made good use of
this isolating (and at the same time all-inclusive) approach to the organization
and control of the social body. In Wiener Passion we witness the workings of
jurisprudence and its correctional facilities as they pursue the truth of their
disciplinary discourse and intervene on behalf of Rosa Havelka’s improvement and, of course, much more importantly, on behalf of a healthy society.
Since the family was considered the sanctuary of personal happiness and
the foundation of the state, late nineteenth-century legal discipline enshrined
a very gender-specific type of juridical truth in order to regulate family relations and spouses’ rights and duties, as well as disciplinary action in case
of transgression; and these laws also applied to domestic servants living and
working within families: «Die Rangordnung von Mann und Frau wurde […]
im Sinne des patriarchalischen Systems strikte festgelegt: Dem Mann wurde
die unumstrittene Vorherrschaft zuerkannt» (Heindl 162). Not only were
women not recognized as bodies corporate (Rechtspersonen), hence having to
accept the «natural» abrogation of many rights in favor of their husbands or
fathers, they were also completely dependent on a man’s rules and decisions.
The male head of household was, of course, in charge of the property, including the wife’s. He also had the right to see all his wishes fulfilled – by his wife,
his children, and his servants. These wishes were not infrequently construed
to include sexual rights over his female servants. Not fulfilling the wishes
of his domestic authority could lead to legally condoned physical punishment.11
Obviously, the rigorous Austrian Dienstbotenordnung of 1810 not only
reflected the general patriarchal jurisdiction, but also legitimized arbitrary
authority over domestic employees, the vast majority of whom were female.
As social historians have underscored, this authority extended beyond the
actual human labor of the subordinate; it usually encompassed all aspects of
the individual’s being, thus entangling her in a web of subjectifying practices
(see Tichy 34). The Dienstbotenordnung consisted of 161 paragraphs effectively legalizing abuse and exploitation. Like Rosa Havelka in Wiener Passion, servants had no legally stipulated working hours and were «on duty» for
sixteen to eighteen hours a day; they had no protection against physical overexertion; they could not refuse any assignment without risking dismissal for
insubordination; they had no privacy and minimal freedom when off-duty;
they were given wretched accommodations, often in closets or bathrooms,
and were not allowed to have regular meals and frequently starved; they had
no right to health insurance and were rarely allowed to report sick since phy-
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sicians usually sided with the employers; and they could not appeal to the
police when they were treated with brutality and violence because the representatives of law enforcement protected the socially powerful. When, in 1851,
a mandatory Dienstbotenbuch was introduced – a kind of report booklet that
allowed employers to record their evaluations based on their conscience (!)
– the degree of disciplinary power over domestic servants increased even further. Not guided by any official criteria, the law permitted employers to judge
a servant’s «Fleiß, Treue und Sittsamkeit» (Tichy 38) and, since the booklet
had to be presented to each potential new employer, the servant was totally
dependent for survival on her previous employer’s good will. Judging by the
statistics of female domestic servants who lost their positions permanently
and drifted off into prostitution, goodwill was hard to come by.12
All these legal and historical realities are incorporated into Faschinger’s narrative about Rosa’s Viennese work experience.13 We see her naive acceptance
of her first position as a servant in the household of the upper-middle-class
family of Oberpostrat Roman Lindner, where she is immediately informed
that domestic law and order are to be strictly maintained. In case of disobedience, «sei die Herrschaft […] befugt, [ihr] gegenüber Züchtigungsmittel
anzuwenden» (213). Rosa dutifully carries out all the assigned tasks, which
amount to corporeal punishment as a matter of work routine (heavy labor,
insufficient nutrition, sleep deprivation). Due to exhaustion she can barely
keep up with the demands, thus seeming to validate her employers’ notion of
slovenly, disobedient, and unqualified Bohemian maids. When she collapses
and loses consciousness, she is given neither aid nor sympathy; on the contrary, she is scolded for her carelessness and instantly fired. In her servant
booklet the Lindners record «labiler, schwer lenkbarer Charakter» and «unüberwindliche Arbeitsscheu» (229).
With the help of a friend, Rosa succeeds in finding another position as a
maid, this time with nobility in an apartment on the Ringstraße. For even
less remuneration and less food, Rosa is supposed to do domestic chores and
take care of the family’s small children. Faschinger’s depiction of the master’s
and mistress’s hypocrisy makes the ruthless exploitation of women servants
in their legal helplessness quite obvious, no matter how hilarious the representation may be:
Auch was meine Ernährung betreffe, müsse ich einsehen, daß sie bei den gegenwärtigen Lebensmittelpreisen nicht allzu üppig sein könne, doch sei darauf hinzuweisen, daß zu reichhaltige Gerichte sehr rasch zu Fettleibigkeit und in weiterer Folge
zu verschiedenen Erkrankungen des Organismus führten, weshalb eine weniger
opulente Verpflegung, die sich auf natürliche und schmackhafte Kost beschränke,
vom gesundheitlichen Standpunkt aus ohnehin vorzuziehen sei, ich wolle mir doch
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171
meine kräftige Konstitution erhalten, der menschliche Körper, vor allem der jugendliche, komme im allgemeinen mit einer wesentlich begrenzteren Nahrungszufuhr aus, als gemeinhin angenommen werde. (256)
This pseudo-rational explanation for the aristocratic von Schreyvogels’ starving Rosa in accordance with some official health standard is a vivid expression
of pastoral power that pretends to look out for Rosa’s well-being – her nutritional salvation – while effectively controlling her behavior and maximizing
her dependency. And its consequences in the process of the subordinate’s subjectification are virtually pre-programmed: constantly hungry, Rosa secretly
starts taking food from the kitchen and cellar; she becomes a thief, placing
herself outside the rules, not only of the «Regulations Regarding Servants.»
She manages to cover up her misdeed through lies but still loses her position when she is reported to have let the children under her care interact with
ruffians and vagabonds. Her character is now described as an «Ausbund an
Hinterhältigkeit und Verlogenheit, ja […] geradezu gemeingefährlich» (267).
Such insidious qualities call for instant dismissal, and Rosa is lucky not to be
taken to the police.
In the household of the von Schreyvogels, we realize, a servant’s corrupting influence will not be tolerated; different standards, however, apply to the
master. His authority over others and their duties and services – endorsed by
law, as we recall – includes sexual control over their bodies (Verfügungsgewalt). Rosa is seduced by the artful, skirt-chasing nobleman and gets every encouragement «ihm auch auf diesem neuen Gebiet zu Diensten zu sein» (278).
When the amorous affair loses its charm, and Rosa’s docile body is pregnant,
the power dynamics find yet another expression. We witness Faschinger’s
sarcastic unmasking of self-serving male power and its willful effect on an inferior (female) subject: Rosa is stigmatized as a typical domestic servant who
cunningly and calculatingly uses her claim of pregnancy for extortion. Any
responsibility for the situation is vehemently denied:
Man kenne die weiblichen Dienstboten, die sich mit solcherlei Hintergedanken
auf ein Verhältnis mit ihrem Herrn einließen, zur Genüge, es seien in der überwiegenden Mehrzahl flatterhafte und raffgierige Mädchen, die sich während ihrer Ausgehnachmittage nach Gutdünken mit Männern ihres Standes herumtrieben und,
wenn diese Liebschaften Folgen zeitigten, ihren Dienstgebern die Verantwortung
dafür in die Schuhe zu schieben trachteten, um frech Kapital daraus zu schlagen.
(285)
Given the claim that Rosa has demonstrated promiscuity, mendacity, and rapacity, it is obvious that such an individual represents a danger to the moral
fiber of a decent family14 and to society. A vast legal corpus was available and
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experts from various disciplines could be called upon to provide the necessary
evidence of such danger should the servant girl dare to turn to the courts.
As indicated above, in late nineteenth-century Austria there was no gender
equality before the law, and this was based on the accepted «scientific truth»
positing a «natural» difference between the sexes that proved the female to be
inferior and deficient.15 So information provided to the courts or the police
by women was, as a matter of rule, not taken seriously, particularly when the
woman was of low social status. We see this exemplified later in the novel
when Rosa finally turns to the authorities not to request any help for herself, but to prevent her husband, Karel Havelka, a mentally disturbed sexoffender, from persecuting and assaulting Viennese women. At the police station her account is ridiculed – «[sie] solle keinen Unsinn reden» (541) – and
her insistence on the accuracy of her statement is countered by a mocking
reference to the typical, insane fantasies of a housewife. Rosa’s customary
submissiveness is displaced by obstinacy as soon as she learns that the police
suspect a man who is totally innocent of the serial attacks. Her plea to be
given credence cannot persuade the officer, however; on the contrary, Rosa
is immediately accused of being drunk and threatened with appropriate legal
action.
We readers, of course, already know from the plot development that Rosa
speaks the truth and has every reason to worry about her perverse husband’s
continuing crimes. We also know, however, that within the discursive practices of jurisprudence, Rosa’s truth will not be heard because it is not attached
to a body of power. Her opinions are automatically disqualified because, as a
woman, she is neither entitled to disagree with male authority – particularly
not in a public context – nor trusted to have any sense of judgment. Like most
of Rosa’s contemporaries, the policemen of Wiener Passion are convinced that
women are hysterical by nature.
Oddly enough, this characteristic – anatomically derived, ostensibly scientific evidence for female weakness – is not considered a mitigating quality
when Rosa is tried for stabbing Karel Havelka to death while he is attacking
yet another young woman. Female aggression was, as historians have noted,
treated far more harshly by the Austrian courts of the time than male acts of
violence. Killing your husband – not just any man – was an additional aggravating factor, and it did not matter whether the crime was committed in
self-defense or in defense of someone else (for details, see Kolleth). Rosa is
convicted of murder and executed on the gallows. The judicial system fails
to recognize its mistake. Power and truth are identical. The systematic, normalizing processes of the law have identified the anomaly of this particular
individual, and the legal web of supposedly objective codification has created
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173
a murderer out of Rosa Havelka. Overwhelming power relations have, as Faschinger illustrates, an immediate hold upon this subject and her body.
As we have seen, the Catholic Church and the state’s jurisprudence provide
various «prescribed guiding principles» and impose multiple disciplinary
practices on Rosa, but Faschinger adds another institution or discipline to the
power/knowledge complex. She identifies medicine as an injurious influence
on woman’s perception and understanding of her self. By the time of Rosa’s
«passion,» medicine had acquired the reputation of being the most progressive
science, and it had advanced to the status of being the superior discipline in
diagnosing the pathologies of modern society and eliminating them through
appropriate therapies: «Damit lag das öffentliche Wohl und der allgemeine
Fortschritt des Menschengeschlechtes in den Händen der Medizin» (Bührmann 86). The technologies and practices of such bio-power turned out to be
particularly manipulative of women.
We must not forget that the nineteenth-century ascendancy of the «Wissenschaft vom Weib» – the favorite preoccupation of established biologists,
physicians, and anthropologists, as well as moralists – had its consequences.
It quickly developed into a major invasive control mechanism over the female
body, female sexuality, and, by derivation again, over acceptable feminine behavior.16 Clearly, discourse about the physical, mental, and psychological nature of «healthy,» «good,» and «sane» women and all forms of gender-specific
deviance was patriarchal. This seemed perfectly logical to the participants in
the relevant discussions, since male thinkers had already convinced themselves that man was the representative species of humanity in general and fully
responsible for the rise of civilization, and that woman was his polar opposite
in every regard.17 Woman, being different from man, was a deviation from
the norm, and therefore she required closer scientific scrutiny. Faschinger is
obviously quite familiar with this kind of truth production. Her satirical portrayal of misogynous medical beliefs and practices humorously debunks the
nineteenth-century concept of a «natural» gender difference and underscores
its historical constructedness. Perhaps because of their therapeutic emphasis
on the subject’s confessions and thus their very individualized incursions into
the private (female) self, Faschinger chooses the vanguard medical subdisciplines psychiatry and psychoanalysis to illustrate the arrogance and the erroneousness of medicine’s efforts at salvation.18
Every single example of the intervention of the state’s bio-power and every
piece of advice its medical experts dispense in Wiener Passion make it clear
that the patient’s or client’s own understanding of the condition under scrutiny is ignored. She lacks the necessary knowledge to make accurate comments
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Maria-Regina Kecht
about her body or mind, and her «naturally» hysterical condition invalidates
any of her observations. Instead, ready-made categories of mental and psychological pathologies are quickly evoked, diagnostic judgments pompously
enunciated, and therapeutic actions prescribed. Faschinger’s fictional prototype of a medical know-it-all, Dr. Doblhoff, an ambitious academic and civil
servant at the largest Viennese insane asylum, is comic in his self-delusions,
but our laughter trails off as we recognize the detrimental, even disastrous
consequences of the man’s pastoral power.
Rosa makes her first acquaintance with Dr. Doblhoff and his wisdom when
she finds herself in a straightjacket in a padded cell in the women’s ward at
the Alsergrund psychiatric hospital. Widow Galli has had her delivered there
after discovering Rosa, in desperation, standing on the windowsill and about
to jump out and kill herself. The therapy immediately applied at the hospital –
isolation, immobilization, and cold-water dousings – is intended to snap her
back to normal. Her suicide attempt is swiftly diagnosed as the culmination
of her aberrant inclination to self-punishment, for which Galli has provided
persuasive testimony. Rosa’s own insistence that her lacerations are the result
of Galli’s frequent corporeal punishment is dismissed as the typical excuse
of a sick mind, and Doblhoff does not care to hear about the living situation
which has driven her to this impulsive act of despair. A tidy clinical picture is
established instead: the physical symptoms of Rosa’s pathological condition
are considered to be self-induced, «da [Rosa] offenbar übertrieben strengen
Bußpraktiken anhinge, eine Gewohnheit, die gleichfalls nicht für eine robuste
geistige Gesundheit spräche und auf die krankhafte Tendenz zur Autopunition schließen lasse» (357). Her deeply disturbed mental state is considered to
govern her perceptions, and these are, by deduction, also abnormal. A passage
from Wiener Passion will illustrate this and capture the spirit of Faschinger’s
rendition of medical discourse, which passes off its disciplining practices as a
salutary means of improving the sick self. Rosa describes the scene:
Ich fragte den Arzt, in welche Zelle man mich gesperrt und weshalb man mich
gefesselt hätte, worauf er meinte, weder würde er das Kabinett, in dem ich mich befände, mit dem etwas abwertenden Begriff Zelle noch das zugegebenermaßen nicht
sehr bequeme Kleidungsstück, das mir aus gutem Grund übergestreift worden sei,
als Fesselung bezeichnen, das sogenannte Einsperren, das sogenannte Fesseln seien
zu nichts anderem als zu meiner Beruhigung und Mäßigung getroffene Maßnahmen, im übrigen würde er die Schwestern veranlassen, mich unverzüglich in den
Krankensaal zurückzubringen, das Kabinett stünde schließlich nicht mir allein zur
Verfügung, die Anstalt sei überbelegt, es gebe viele, die nur darauf warteten, sich ins
Kabinett zurückziehen zu dürfen. (358)
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175
Rosa is then allowed to spend her time in the company of the mentally retarded, the phobic, and the psychotic, as well as alcoholics. Lacking opportunities for interaction and conversation for months, she reads the few books
in her possession – over and over again, until she can recite them by heart
and thus entertain herself. Her audible monologues become compulsive, she
cannot help but describe out loud everything she does, and soon the other
patients react violently to her annoying habit. Medical intervention becomes
necessary. Dr. Doblhoff believes that Rosa’s logorrhea, which is the result
of «tiefgehende Perturbationen [des] seelischen Zustandes» (360), would in
fact mandate her transferal to the ward for the incurably ill/insane, but given
the enormous nuisance she represents to everyone in the ward, she will be
discharged. As the reader has seen before, Rosa’s own explanations, causally
connecting her utter boredom and loneliness to her compulsive talking and
thus denying a chronic or even incurable disease, are patronizingly brushed
off as naive and abstruse misconceptions of «hochkomplizierte psychische
Vorgänge» (362). In fact, her presumptuous self-diagnosis is considered to
confirm the profile of a psychotic patient.
In this kind of power game, science becomes an instrument of regulation
and subjectification while it repudiates the individual’s own different and
largely intuitive understanding. Due to this particular manifestation of the
power/knowledge complex – with Dr. Doblhoff as the key player – Rosa is
forced to suppress her voice, question her own judgment, and submit to the
wisdom of the medical expert.
A hundred pages later when, through a series of coincidences, Rosa accepts
Doblhoff’s invitation to work as his cook and housekeeper while his wife is
being treated for tuberculosis in far-away resorts, our heroine dutifully internalizes the master’s disciplining practices and becomes her own best censor
in controlling her own conduct. In order to please and be accepted as normal, Rosa does not interrupt her employer’s lectures, submits to his opinions, withholds any comments or questions, and learns to demonstrate her
participation through «ein, zwei bestätigende, ermutigende oder bedauernde
Laute» (475). Observing such obvious progress towards normal feminine
behavior, Doblhoff expands the spectrum of domestic services and rewards
himself with sexual favors that lead to a promise of marriage, since his wife’s
death has been predicted by a team of experts.
Faschinger puts her fictional psychiatrist into an increasingly aggressive
and antagonistic competition with Dr. Freud, and in this context Doblhoff
shifts his research from the study of female hysteria to the examination of the
«Funktionieren der menschlichen Seele» (456) and, therefore, to the analysis
of dreams. Rosa’s recurrent nocturnal forebodings of Frau Doblhoff’s recu-
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peration and return cannot, however, be accommodated within the complex
theoretical framework of dream interpretation and its links to the analyst’s
understanding of repressed early childhood sexuality. Of course, as the reader
can predict, Rosa’s non-scholarly analysis of her dreams turns out to be confirmed by a telegram announcing the wife’s arrival in Vienna. The proposed
wedding is cancelled, Doblhoff returns to his matrimonial routine, and Rosa
has his child out of wedlock.
As if to prove to us that the medical profession is irrevocably patronizing and doctors are utterly self-satisfied, used to operating in a high-handed
manner, and incapable of admitting mistakes, Faschinger brings Doblhoff
back to the stage when Rosa grows concerned about her husband’s strange
obsession with Sisi, the Empress of Austria. Even though the psychiatrist
thinks «er [sei] nahe daran, an der Ignoranz und Unbelehrbarkeit der unteren
sozialen Schichten, vor allem an der ihrer weiblichen Angehörigen, zu verzweifeln» (469), he is willing to share his new scientific findings about obsessive-compulsive neurosis. Based on his insights, however, he cannot corroborate Rosa’s reasons for anxiety and subscribe to her suspicion that Havelka
may have been assaulting women resembling Sisi. Not only does Doblhoff
adamantly deny the possibility that the man’s presumably mild neurosis may
lead to violence, he also warns Rosa of symptoms suggesting her relapse into
insanity, since her statements about her husband are «ebenso ungeheuerliche
wie absurde Anschuldigungen» (536). It is not clear here whether Doblhoff’s
scientific hubris or his acute sexism weighs more heavily in his misjudgment.
Interestingly enough, Faschinger does not have the disciplining powers
of the state medical apparatus bear on Rosa’s (and other minor characters’)
prostitution and their «professional hazard,» syphilis, even though these interrelated issues are at the core of late nineteenth-century public debates. In
fact, science, government agencies concerned about population regulation
and public health, and church institutions all joined forces in combining care
and control through a web of strategies to fight unbridled (female) sexuality
and its physiologically debilitating and morally corrupting impact. Prostitution was probably the most thoroughly policed human activity in fin-desiècle Vienna! Still, we do not see this kind of surveillance and pastoral power
in Wiener Passion. Instead, Faschinger chooses to place Rosa’s termination
of her first and unwanted pregnancy, as well as her problems with venereal
disease contracted through occasional prostitution, into the hands of a wise
woman.
Even though Black Sophie, a midwife and skilled abortionist, the «sachkundigste Engelmacherin von Wien» (305), is quite a strange character with
a disposition towards superstition, she is the only «expert» in the novel who
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177
administers truly pastoral power without exerting disciplinary and normalizing control over the subject receiving her aid. Without any invasive procedure
she helps Rosa regain control over her body – undo the fruit of too docile a
body – and later Black Sophie gives her the right kind of herbal medicine to
stop the progress of syphilis. No moralistic exhortations or penalizing actions accompany this intervention of salvation. The contrast to the practices
of official medicine is stark and may appear almost facile, but the figure of
Black Sophie, living in poverty on the periphery of the city and practicing an
alternative (illicit) «Wissenschaft vom Weib» that truly benefits and comforts
women in distress, allows Faschinger to introduce a female character who has
managed to escape the massive network of socialization and subjectification,
and who has thus not been «normalized» by the reach of the power/knowledge complex.
As the focus of this interpretation is on Faschinger’s critique of pastoral
power, of institutional bodies of authority offering salvation while effecting
the individual’s subjectification, I will not closely examine the anonymous
disciplinary powers which, in their wide dispersion, are admittedly very effective and, in fact, perhaps even more insidious because their ubiquity may
make their operations appear entirely natural and conceal any target for resistance.19 There is no explicit pastoral intent, however, attached to these forces.
In Wiener Passion we can observe omnipresent sexist social mores prescribing
gender roles, regulating gender interactions, and creating – like the disciplining systems Foucault describes – armies of docile and compliant females who
have interiorized the male gaze and his judgment. The second «institutionally
unbound» control mechanism that influences Rosa Havelka’s sense of identity is rampant xenophobia, particularly anti-Czech and pro-German-national
sentiment. Since most female domestic servants in Vienna were Bohemian
and Moravian immigrants, the convergence of sexual, economic, and ethnic
modes of disciplining them are impossible to miss. Some brief comments on
both may suffice to delineate the picture.
All of Rosa’s intimate relations are highly inegalitarian. No matter whether
the male partner is of low or high social status, a worker, an artist, or a nobleman, a lover or a husband, Rosa is resolutely placed into a subordinate
position that is defined by service, sacrifice, and submission. In practically
all of these relationships, Rosa is told to keep quiet and act as an audience
for the man’s eloquence. The role of the man – equally vehemently propagated in a multitude of scientific and popular publications of the time – is
endowed with authority, initiative, and self-determination. Rosa’s willingness
to comply with her various masters’ wishes, or rather demands, requires her
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emotional, mental, and physical complaisance. Some extreme examples of imposed discipline – with the purpose of perfecting Rosa’s desired femininity
while strengthening male domination – include the writer Kornhäusel’s use
of Rosa’s back for his creative penmanship,20 Archduke Rudolph’s repeated
demands that Rosa show her loyalty and love by joining him in his exit from
life,21 and her husband’s insistence that she transform herself into a copy of
Empress Elisabeth by reducing her weight to 50 kg, developing a chronic
ailment of the lungs, and inducing anemia for an elegant, pale complexion.22
Rosa fails to achieve these men’s ideal of femininity even though she tries so
hard «zu einem weiblichen Wesen zu werden, das sein eigenes Glück und
das anderer sicherstellt, indem es weibliche Güte, Milde, Hilfsbereitschaft,
sanftes Verstehen und mitfühlendes Wissen ausstrahlt, ununterbrochen aus
übervollem Herzen und mit offenen Händen schenkt und nicht halsstarrig
auf seinem Standpunkt beharrt, sondern sich in Streitfragen nachgiebig und
versöhnlich zeigt» (525). When for once Rosa chooses to be self-willed and
uncompromising in her anxious pursuit of the serial offender Havelka, she
pays for such reprehensible conduct with her life.
Faschinger’s decision to give her heroine Bohemian ethnicity is more than
preserving historical authenticity; it allows the author to develop yet another
dimension of the forces policing and governing Rosa Havelka. In early childhood Rosa is considered a «böhmischer Bauerntrampel» (101) amidst the upper-middle-class children of the Viennese Stellvertretender Kurdirektor. At
the school of the Ursuline nuns, she is the lone Bohemian girl among daughters of German-Austrian civil servants, and her lessons in history identify the
Young Czechs with nefarious rabble-rousers and unpardonable troublemakers. In Vienna Rosa becomes one of hundreds of thousands of Czech immigrants who, according to history, flocked to the capital in order to earn a living and soon discovered that being Czech was a guarantee for isolation and
ostracism. Amidst the increasingly fanatical German-Austrian rule of the city
of Vienna, Czechs found themselves in an economic, social, and even linguistic situation requiring self-abnegation and assimilation in order to become
what they were allowed to be – and that was, above all, servants! In her jobs,
Rosa’s Bohemian descent is added cause for class-conscious condescension
and distrust. What in fiction the protagonist experiences on an individual
level, in history most of Rosa’s compatriots indeed experienced collectively.
They shared a distinct sense that survival in the royal and imperial capital was
possible only if one was willing to serve the masters in place – the real Viennese – and assure them of one’s undivided loyalty. All gestures of submission,
however, merely had the effect of underscoring the «natural» inferiority attributed to the Czechs. Those who refused to bow, like Rosa’s friends Ljuba
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179
and Milan, felt forced to leave a city that required an oath on its «German
character.» Czechs in fin-de-siècle Vienna developed a self-image in which we
can recognize the subjected self of Rosa Havelka:
Man sah sich als «Dienstbotennation», als «zugereistes Gesinde», als «Sklaven, die
ihren Kopf nicht heben dürfen, weil es sonst Peitschenhiebe setzt», als Mißhandelte, die «in geistiger und körperlicher Knechtschaft stehen» und nur «mit Fußtritten bedacht werden», als «systematisch verfolgte Stiefkinder», als «völlig rechtloses
Element auf dem Stand fahrender Zigeuner und sklavischer Heloten», während
einer «langen Zeit babylonischer Gefangenschaft», schließlich als «Unkraut auf
germanischem Feld», als «wehrloses Opfer im ungleichen Kampf» und als «blutig
mißhandeltes wehrloses Wild.» (Glettler 422)
It is, in particular, the last two metaphors that quite aptly capture the biography of Faschinger’s heroine – far beyond the ethnic aspect of her fictional existence. We witness a victim and recognize that her acceptance of subordinate,
subject positions is not the result of her «free» will but the effect of multiple
disciplining practices which powerfully inscribe their norms and their truths
in the individual self. The internalizing of these norms makes the individual’s
self-governed conduct appear «natural» and thus reduces struggle and resistance.
This condition is cause for Faschinger to intervene aesthetically. Her narrative opposition to real-life normalization and subjectification is impelled by
her frustration with existing ideological power structures and their ruinous
impact on women. Faschinger, endowed with her talent as a writer, explores
«how power actually operates in our society,» just as the philosopher Michel
Foucault has urged us to do. As the Foucault epigraph to this essay states,
«The real political task in a society such as ours is to criticize the workings
of institutions which appear to be both neutral and independent; to criticize
them in such a manner that the political violence which has always exercised
itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight them»
(Rabinow 6). Through satire and comic exaggeration Faschinger shapes her
pen into a weapon of critique. Using a double-voiced narrative style, which
emerges from Rosa’s presentation in consistently indirect speech, the author
guarantees distance from the «truth» of the utterances related to us. Mental
space is thus created, allowing the reader to question, doubt, and disbelieve
what she (and Rosa) is being told. Choosing the naive servant girl as the narrator, who merely renders «what happened» without adding any comments,
reflections, or analysis becomes an efficacious tool in the unmasking of institutions and practices of pastoral power. The interface between the story and
the novel’s frame also serves this purpose very well, because we are invited to
compare and contrast life in Vienna around 1900 and 2000. Furthermore, we
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are placed into the position of voyeur-readers watching the fictional reader of
Rosa’s manuscript – Magnolia Brown, an American-Austrian actress visiting
Vienna in the late 1990s – empathetically respond to Rosa’s text and her fate as
she gradually realizes that this woman is her great-grandmother.
If Faschinger herself has referred to the polyphonic structure of Wiener
Passion, aptly called «Wiener Stimmen» in its draft phase (Roethke 54), I
would like to add the concept of counterpoint, because I think this is the underlying principle of her aesthetic, feminist politics here. Counterpoint signifies one musical note set against another musical note, hence one part set
against another part. At the levels of composition, view-point, and language,
Faschinger lets us «hear» the alternatives to the hegemonic values, beliefs,
and practices put forth, and therefore, even though we witness Rosa’s «konsequenter Niedergang,» we are offered an empowering perspective that allows us to identify the workings of subjectifying power so that we can resist
them better. The nun whom Faschinger appoints to preface Rosa’s writings
– composed in her death cell – may express the hope that this report of an
unrepentant, godless soul will persuade its readers to live a «gottgefälligeres
Leben» (88); yet it is not her voice but Rosa’s that makes her own preamble
resound within us. We hear a strong voice calmly passing judgment on the circumstances of an insufferable, wretched life, understanding what forces have
destroyed it, and expressing the wish that any future readers may fully recognize the «verhängnisvolle[r] Fortgang» (92) of this life. I dare say Rosa’s wish
is fulfilled, and Faschinger has won political allies.
Notes
1
2
3
My suggestion that with Wiener Passion Faschinger produces a piece of counter-memory does not take into account that in the early twentieth century, the little-known writer
Felix Salten and the nonauthenticated persona/author Josefine Mutzenbacher described
daily life among the lower classes in the districts beyond the Ring. Adelheid Popp and
her journalistic reflections on the conditions of working women also come to mind;
however, none of these texts has gained canonical status in twentieth-century literature.
In an interview with Gisela Roethke, Faschinger states, «Mir geht’s darum, das [die große
Epoche der Jahrhundertwende] zu demontieren und zu zeigen, dass Wien zu diesem
Zeitpunkt in erster Linie eine Arbeiterstadt gewesen ist mit Massen von unterdrückten männlichen und weiblichen Arbeitern, die von einer Minorität ausgenützt wurden.
Darüber hört man wenig, wenn über diese Zeit gesprochen wird. Das wird beschönigt
oder ignoriert, indem man die andere Seite, den Höhepunkt der Malerei, der Musik in
dieser Zeit betont» (Roethke 55).
Hubert C. Ehalt, co-editor of the volume Glücklich ist, wer vergißt …? Das andere Wien
um 1900, remarks on how our image of the past is often distorted by a persistent focus
on high-culture achievements. He observes, «Die Art und Weise, wie die ‹kleinen Leute›
Faschinger’s Aesthetic Analysis of Power Relations
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
181
in der Vergangenheit ihre Lebenswelt wahrgenommen und bewältigt haben, fand kaum
je einen schriftlichen Niederschlag; und die historischen Zeugnisse von Auflehnung und
Widerstand wurden zudem durch die jeweils herrschenden Mächte häufig zerstört und
dann von der Geschichtsschreibung in einem dies verstärkenden Nachziehverfahren
ignoriert» (11).
When I asked her about ways to develop a historical consciousness, Faschinger responded, «Durch ununterbrochenes Nachdenken über die eigene Biographie bzw. – in einem
umfassenderen Kontext – über die Geschichte des eigenen Landes, durch den Vergleich
von Vergangenheit und Gegenwart des persönlichen Lebens bzw. des eigenen Landes
sowie durch den Vergleich mit den Biographien anderer Personen bzw. der Geschichte
anderer Länder.»
See Faschinger’s comments in her interview with Roethke: «Aber es scheint so zu sein,
dass man von der Unterdrückung durch die Mütter, wie’s in meinem Falle gewesen ist,
auf die größere Unterdrückung durch die Väter und durch die politischen Zustände
kommt» (47).
Not only was Rosa fathered by her mother’s employer, «der Stellvertretende Kurdirektor von Marienbad» (93), resulting in her mother’s complete dependence on his good
will, Rosa also owes her orphaned state to this man: her mother dies because his continued sexual assaults result in another pregnancy and a botched abortion.
For a concise description of the role of gender differentiation in the formation of modernity in the second half of the nineteenth century, see esp. Bublitz 17–18.
Such mothers are present on both narrative levels in the novel. Interestingly enough,
Faschinger also describes the city of Vienna as a mother figure. Several times we are told
that everyone loves Vienna just like his or her own mother: «Nicht nur die Wiener liebten Wien, alle Welt liebe Wien. […] Man liebt es so innig, so wie man seine Mutter liebt»
(14). Given the insidious form of caring Faschinger attributes to her fictional mother
figures, the reader is left to conclude that Vienna is a stifling, destructive environment in
which those who insist on loving her do not dare to speak out.
Examining the dominant discourse of various late nineteenth-century Viennese scientists and philosophers on sexuality, historian Franz X. Eder observes, «Die übersexualisierte Frau ist nun nicht mehr eine ‹gefallene Hure›, sondern eine Marionette ‹genetischer›
Prädispositionen. Wie die sogenannten ‹Wilden› gehorcht sie willenlos den (sexuellen)
Gesetzen der Natur und ist, im Gegensatz zum Mann, der im wahrsten Sinn des Wortes
seine Natur ‹beherrscht›, nicht Herr ihrer selbst» (170).
Here is the actual description of the «sanctified» environment: «Auf sämtlichen Oberflächen von Tischen, Kommoden und Regalen, auf den Sitzflächen, Polstersesseln und
Sofas lagen Zierdecken und -deckchen, allesamt bestickt mit Kreuzmotiven. Frau Galli,
die meine Blicke bemerkte, meinte, das Kreuz, jenes Holz, an das unser lieber Herr Jesus
geschlagen worden sei und auf dem er sein Leben für uns Sünder gelassen habe, sei für sie
das schönste Ornament, ein Symbol von unendlicher Vielgestaltigkeit» (320).
See S. Kolleth: «Die §§ 91, 92 des ABGB unterstellten die verheiratete Frau in allen häuslichen und außerhäuslichen Angelegenheiten der Aufsicht und der Entscheidungsgewalt
ihres Gatten. Ihm oblag die Ernährung seiner Familie, die Verwaltung der Finanzen,
auch etwaiger Güter der Gattin und die Tätigkeit größerer Geschäfte. Ehefrauen waren
damit fast völlig vom Gatten abhängig. Außerdem sprach das Gesetz den Ehemännern
ein ‹häusliches Züchtigungsrecht› zu, das ihnen auch die Anwendung von physischer
Gewalt gegen Gattin und Kinder zur Durchsetzung seines Willens gestattete. Daher
wurde bei gerichtlichen Verhandlungen über Mißhandlung einer Ehegattin immer zu-
182
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
Maria-Regina Kecht
erst auch geprüft, ob der Mann nicht in Ausübung seines Züchtigungsrechtes gehandelt
habe» (146).
According to Maderthaner and Musner, in 1890 – when Rosa Havelka was in (fictional)
domestic services – there were more than 86,000 servant girls in Vienna. This amounted
to about 34% of all employed women. According to Tichy, 94% of the domestic servants were single. Almost half of all prostitutes (between 30,000 and 50,000, according to
historian Karin Jusek) identified themselves as former servant girls.
In fact, there is plenty of evidence that Faschinger largely relied on Marina Tichy’s study
in her creation of the «authentic» life story of Rosa Havelka as a domestic servant, suggesting that her choice of the name «Tichy» – Rosa’s maiden name – may be a gesture of
gratitude toward the social historian for her invaluable research.
Karin Walser provides an interesting analysis of the ideological motivations that underlay the attributing of a «natural» predisposition towards prostitution to domestic servants: «Gerade Dienstmädchen auffallender ‹Prostitutionsanfälligkeit› zu bezichtigen,
erschien für eine diskursive Strategie gegen die Lösung von Frauen aus umfassender
familialer Abhängigkeit von besonderer Funktionalität. Da sie als Bezugsrahmen die
Arbeitgeberfamilie hatten, eigneten sie sich hervorragend als Objekt, um die Verfolgung
eigener, familienunabhängiger Interessen als ‹sittlich gefährdend› zu brandmarken.»
(105).
See Kolleth: «Trotzdem Frauen nie eine Minderheit darstellten, wurden sie immer also
solche behandelt. Das ‹Weibliche› wurde jahrhundertelang für unnütz und minderwertig erklärt, Männer mußten ihre weiblichen Anteile unterdrücken und negativ besetzen.
Gerade die Jahrhundertwende präsentiert sich als Blütezeit der Negativliteratur über
Frauen. Einerseits wurden ihnen ganz unfaßbare Fähigkeiten zugeschrieben, welche den
Männern nur Schaden und Unglück bringen konnten, andererseits versuchte man sie
intellektuell und charakterlich zu absolut minderwertigen Wesen zu stempeln. Die Fülle
an derartigen pseudowissenschaftlichen Abhandlungen über das ‹Wesen der Frauen›
mutet wie der letzte verzweifelte Versuch, die patriarchalische Gesellschaftsstruktur zu
retten, an» (147–48).
Claudia Honegger, commenting on the steady rise of a new discipline, namely «womanology,» observes, «Während um 1850 der Kosmos der Großen Anthropologie als integrierter Wissenschaft vom Menschen zerfällt, ‹der Mensch als Mann› von den unterschiedlichsten kognitiven Bemühungen erfaßt und in diversen akademischen Disziplinen verhandelt wird, verschwindet der ‹Mensch als Weib› (Lou Andreas-Salomé) aus
dem Thematisierungskanon der Human- und Geisteswissenschaften, um ganz von der
neuen psycho-physiologischen Frauenkunde umschlungen zu werden» (211).
The cultural critic Hannelore Bublitz remarks, «[D]ie anthropologisch-biologisch und
psychiatrisch-medizinisch gedachte Geschlechterdifferenz, eingebunden in eine Fortpflanzungsökonomie darwinistischer Prägung, [konstituiert] eine der zentralen binären
Machtstrukturen, auf die Herrschaftsverhältnisse moderner Gesellschaften gegründet
sind» (17).
In her interview with Ellie Kennedy, Faschinger explains, «Früher gab’s die Beichte, jetzt
gibt es eben die Psychoanalyse. Früher saß der Priester im Beichtstuhl und hörte sich an,
was der Beichtende oder die Beichtende zu sagen hat, und dann war es der Psychiater,
der ja auch wie ein Priester dasitzt und dessen wichtigste Funktion die des Zuhörens ist.
Ich finde, das ist wieder ein Fremdbestimmtsein.[…] Ich denke mir lieber, warum sollte
man eigentlich nicht Vertrauen haben in sein eigenes Arsenal an Fähigkeiten, an Intelligenz, an Intuition, an Inspiration. Warum sollte man sich von anderen Leuten sagen
Faschinger’s Aesthetic Analysis of Power Relations
19
20
21
22
183
lassen, was man zu tun hat? Im Grunde ist das alles auf soziale Gleichrichtung ausgerichtet» (26–27).
For the concept of «institutionally unbound» disciplines and their effects, see Bartky.
Depending on Kornhäusel’s mood, his inscriptions onto Rosa’s back are quite violent
and painful. Ultimately, Rosa contracts a major infection from this «artistic» bloodletting: «[Mein Gönner] betrieb seine Schreibtätigkeit noch gereizter und ritzte seine
Wörter noch tiefer in meine Haut, was zu zunehmendem Blutaustritt und schließlich zu
einer Sepsis mit hohem Fieber, Schüttelfrost, sehr raschem Puls und Atembeschleunigung führte, welche mich auf Wochen hinaus ans Krankenlager fesselte und als Beschriftungsobjekt untauglich machte, was wiederum seine Frustration verstärkte» (419).
Rosa is among the mistresses the Archduke tries to recruit for his suicide. It is Rosa’s
staunch religious conviction – namely, that suicide is a mortal sin – that prevents her
from yielding to her lover’s wishes. (Competing and incompatible «prescribed guiding
principles» here!). Her resistance leads Rudolph to comment derisively, «[E]r frage sich,
womit er es verdient habe, […] ständig von Weibspersonen umgeben zu sein, die ihn mit
ihrem sentimentalen Gewäsch, ihrem dümmlichen Gefasel auf die Nerven fielen und
denen sowohl die Courage wie auch das tiefere metaphysische Verständnis dafür abgingen, ihn, eine Natur, die in ihrer Zwiespältigkeit einerseits Faust, andererseits Hamlet
gliche, in den Tod zu begleiten» (430).
Havelka’s ever-increasing (ludicrous) demands are presented within the framework of
the social norms governing marital interactions. Any objection to the husband’s dictum is countered, as follows: «[E]r verstehe mich [Rosa] nicht ganz, eine junge Ehefrau
müsse ihrem Mann doch jeden Wunsch von den Augen ablesen und könne ihm eine so
geringfügige Bitte nicht abschlagen, ein Ersuchen, dem nachzukommen mich sicherlich
nicht gereuen werde …» (513).
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