Chapter VIII: Sexual Doubles in Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften

Andrew Webber

From Sexuality and the Sense of Self in the Works of Georg Trakl and Robert Musil (1990), pp. 150-82, doi:10.59860/td.c2708c3

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Part of the book: Sexuality and the Sense of Self in the Works of Georg Trakl and Robert Musil

Andrew Webber

MHRA Texts and Dissertations 30

Bithell Series of Dissertations 15

Modern Humanities Research Association for the Institute of Germanic Studies

ModernGermanPoetryFictionPhilosophyopen


Abstract.  This chapter shows how the motifs of the double, the veil, the 'Vorwand' and so on, which play such a focal role in the sexual problematics of Musil's early prose works, are equally significant in the very different economy of Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften. The reading of this text concentrates on a small number of key passages, all concerned with scenes of sexual engagement of one kind or another, where the motifs in question are all at work. The function of these perverse preoccupations is in accordance with Musil's insistence (in 'Das Unanständige und Kranke in der Kunst') that the deviant, pathological or salacious can provide a unique perspective on experience in general, in so far as the writer of fiction is able to draw relations between the two.

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