Człowiek zamknięty w ciele – intymność i wstręt w powieściach Elfriede Jelinek

Abstract

Restrained in a body – intimacy and repulsion in Elfriede Jelinek’s novels. The essay focuses on the work of Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek and it is an attempt to analyse how is her writing associated both with the concept of “repulsion” and specific gender experiences. Jelinek’s characters are usually women who tend to get involved into extremely abusive relationships, focus on the sexual aspect. This tendency can be viewed as a result of social processes connected with gender such as reducing women to their bodies and refusing them subjectivity – as a result, a physical abuse becomes the only possible way to achieve intimacy. To explain why are the relationships described by Jelinek so extremely repulsive for the reader, the essay refers to regard Julia Kristeva’s theory of abject, basing on primary experience of being absorbed by mother and manifesting itself only through the feeling of repulsion. Women described by Jelinek are repulsive, as they are unable to achieve autonomy and therefore remind us of the fragility of our own individuality.