Stasiland Fantasy vs Reality Breaking the text down

Stasiland Fantasy vs Reality

Breaking the text down O The whole text can be broken down into the binary oppositions ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’ O “Adventures in Stasiland” vs “Alice in wonderland” O Any discussion of the text in this way should acknowledge ‘shades of grey’ – trauma, ostalgie, memory

FACT AND FICTION IN STASILAND O Character’s stories O Lies, perception, fabrication, O Anna Funder’s narrative style O The ‘literary’ and the ‘journalistic’. She is documenting the lives of others while inserting herself into the narrative O Ideology O Socialism as ‘theory’ or fantasy vs Communism as reality or fact; propaganda vs actuality O Memory O The effects of psychological trauma/pain and tricks of memory

Characters O In many of the characters, there exists a duality O Lies and Truth–what they have been told and what they know/think/understand to be true O Fabricated or romanticised notions of reality O Perception of oneself vs actual character

Characters Many of the characters have “fallen into the gap between reality and fiction” Fact O Herr Winz O O O “paunchy and jowly as a hound dog” p. 81 On the Insiderkomitee – a group of Stasi men putting forward their side of the story. “Too underconfident and unconvincing” p. 85 Funder want to discuss the realities of life in the GDR “he wrote procedural manuals” (this is Funder’s assumption and should be treated as a grey area and part of her subjectivity as an author) Fiction O Herr Winz’s perception of himself. O He speaks in “authoritative barks” and yet we as an audience assume that his bark is indeed much worse than his bite. P. 81 O Renamed Insiderkonitee - “Society for the Protection of Civil Rights and Dignity of Man” p. 84 “spy play acting” p. 85 O O Winz constantly “returns to the beauties of socialist theory” p. 85 O “there is an art, a deeply political art, of taking circumstances as they arise and attributing them to your side or the opposition, in a constant tallying of reality towards the ends of which it is innocent” (rewriting of history). P. 86 Ostalgie

Characters “fallen into the gap between reality and fiction” Fact O Herr Koch – the personal cartographer to Honecker O his father Heinz Koch was a O O Nazi prisoner of war “my story comes directly out of my father’s story” p. 158 History of Germany Legitimisation of the Stasi The “ruining of a marriage, the destruction of a career, the imprisonment of a wife, the abandonment of a child” p. 175 Fiction O Herr Koch O “Musterknabe”, a “poster boy for socialism” O Process of reworking your past “the grit that rubs in you, until it is shiny and smooth as a pearl” p. 157 O GDR was “like a religion” p. 157 O “almost overnight the Germans in the eastern states were made, or made themselves, innocent of Nazism” p. 161 O Being a “good socialist” p. 172

Characters “fallen into the gap between GDR reality and fiction” Fact O Julia – has no story O Frau Paul- political activism O Miriam & Charlie – suffering at the hands of the Stasi Fiction O Julia – has an incredible story O Frau Paul – criminal O Miriam & Charlie – Miriam’s experience in jail giving the Stasi a fictional tale in order to be allowed to sleep – she gives them what they wants. “it was utterly absurd” p. 27

Funder’s Narrative Style: Literary Journalism O The way Funder switches from journalistic reporting to personal observations – this is stylistically significant O From literary to historical commentary O Personal involvement and judgement underpins much of her ‘reporting’ O Connections with victims and horror at the actions of some of the supporters of the regime O Narrator/Hero vs Investigative Journalist

Narrative style “what was said wasn’t real and what was real wasn’t allowed” Fact O “Adventures in Stasiland” O GDR O The ‘Cardigans’ – Cardigan One and Cardigan Two working on the counter at the TV archive O Frau Anderson Fiction O “Alice in Wonderland” O “rabbit hole” O Fantasy element O Tweedledee and Tweedledum O The Red Queen

Narrative style “what was said wasn’t real and what was real wasn’t allowed” Fact O Journalism – Funder as narrator O O O Historical detail Look at the Stasi HQ chapter for examples of her more detached reporting style. Her description of the puzzlers Third person omniscient narrator facts and figures – an attempt to separate the narrative present from the past that informs it Reportage and research Fiction O Literary – Funder as protagonist/hero O O O O O Acknowledgement of the portion of the past “cannot be pinned down with facts” (on Koch’s story) p. 160 Funder inserts herself into the narrative Shifts between reportage and narrator/hero/protagonist Motif of children’s stories Complex narrative time frame Figurative, descriptive, evocative, sensory, vivid She adopts the role of the literary puzzler First person active voice Her vulnerability, fallibility and subjectivity are present in the writing

Ideology O The contrast between theory of socialism and the reality of communism O The fantasy of equality for all that underpins Socialism and the reality of a Communist dictatorship O Propaganda – fantasy compared to actual life in the GDR O Inhumanity vs humanity

Ideology “bend fact to fiction and fiction to fact” Fact O Communism O Dictatorship O Life in the GDR O “von schni. . ” benign, “most hated man in the GDR” O Inhumanity O Unemployment O Klaus Renft Combo Fiction O Socialism O Theoretical framework for the GDR – equality for all O Propaganda O The Black Channel O The Lipsi O Humanity O “there is no unemployment in the GDR” O Karussell “The Stasi satisfied the needs of the people but with a band it could control” p. 191

Ideology cont’d “Society was built on lies” Fact O Post GDR O Capitalism O All sorts of difficulties arise as a result; homelessness, public drunkenness O Mauer im kopf – ‘Wall in the head’ Victims and Perpetrators Victims live with trauma, memory O Perpetrators wait for “the second coming of Socialism” O Fiction O Post GDR O Funder’s romantic depiction of the “Winter King” and “Professor Mushroom” -Romantic notion of the perils of capitalism p. 250 O Complete liberation from Communism and Stasi rule after the Wall comes down

Memory O Memory and the importance of remembering and sharing one’s story is central to the text O The way different people remember O Victims and perpetrators have different versions of history O Fact and fiction can be warped and bent depending on one’s psychological scars O Ideology informs memory

Memory “to remember or forget which is healthier? ” Fact O Professor Mushroom - one of the homeless men in the park neighbouring Funder’s apartment O For him, “it was much better before…it’s all stupid now” O “we can’t sleep here anymore or we’d get robbed” p. 252 O “a world where there was nothing to buy, nowhere to go and anyone who wanted to do anything with their lives other than serve the Party risked persecution”p. 251 -252 Fiction O Ostalgie – nostalgia for the former GDR O “coloured a cheap and nasty world golden” (According to Funder) p. 251 O “an ache for a lost time when things were more secure” p. 252

Key quotes – Fact and Fiction O Julia’s father, Dieter Behrend : “he would come hollow…. Ignoring those realities in order to stay sane” O Klaus Renft Combo “We are here to inform you today, that you don’t exist anymore” O Propaganda distanced people as it was “in such stark contrast to reality” O Von Schnitzler – shootings at the Wall were “humane” O History was “quickly remade” after WW 2 O Miriam’s story, told to the Stasi, in exchange for sleep. “Eventually, they break you. Just like fiction. ” O History is “made of personal stories” O “This society was built on lies. Lie after lie”

Key Quotes - memory O “The Wall persists in Stasi men’s minds as something they hope might one day come again, and in their victim’s minds too, as a terrifying possibility” O As a continuation of the hangover metaphor – Funder writes about Klaus bringing up her drunken exploits from a previous night – “In my view one of the conventions among decent drinking partners is that where there isn’t amnesia it should be simulated” p. 79 this comes just before she receives a call from Herr Winz O Does telling your story mean you are free of it? Or that you go, unfettered, into your future. ” p. 87 O “There are some things…I don’t think I’ll be able to remember this. I haven’t remembered this” Julia p. 106