Fanny Lewald, Jüdin, Preussin, Schriftstellerin
Studien zum autobiographischem Werk und Kontext
Description:... Lewald (1811-1889) suffered from the same double discrimination as a Jew and a woman that she describes in her novel "Jenny" (1843). Analyzes the ideological, political, and social status of Jews and of women in Prussia, and particularly Königsberg (Lewald's home), in the late 18th-early 19th centuries. Discusses the causes of prejudice and compares discrimination of Jews and of women. As a child, Lewald became conscious of her Jewishness mainly through experiences of antisemitism. In her autobiography (1861) she criticizes antisemitism passionately but impersonally; she admires advocates of Jewish emancipation. Her descriptions of Jews (both positive and negative) are often stereotypical; sometimes she seems to have been infected by Jewish self-hatred, also in relation to her conversion. Her image of women is similarly stereotypical. Analyzes the interplay of these attitudes in "Jenny", in which the love between the heroine and a Christian theology student fails both because of her Jewishness and her independence, attributed to her Jewish upbringing. Later, she is engaged to a young aristocrat, but he is killed in a duel with a man who insulted her as a Jewess. In Jenny's brother, Eduard, Lewald portrays a champion of emancipation. Other characters exemplify a variety of attitudes to Jews and to women.
Show description