Fascism vs. Utopia in Ingeborg Bachmann's Malina

In my paper I analyze the novel Malina (1971) by the Austrian fiction writer and poet Ingeborg Bachmann. The protagonist of the novel is a victim of fascism, as is vividly illustrated by a variety of references to the holocaust and assassinations, and, most of all, by the so-called private fascism—her intimate relationships. Her identity is reduced and subjected to her three masculine Doppelgängers who eventually drive her to extinction. The disintegration of the victimized protagonist affects the narrative of the novel immensely, which results in the decomposition of its elements. I show that the problem of the protagonist’s identity is connected to an insufficiency of the language. This general decay of the protagonist’s world is juxtaposed against elements of utopia, which re-occur throughout the novel as visions of hope, representing joy and unity.

I furthermore investigate the compositional techniques that amalgamate these colliding elements. Although the novel is complex in structure and ambiguous in its themes, it shows a clear distinction between fascism and utopia. Both concepts have already been studied separately, however, to my knowledge, they have not been studied in their correspondence. I describe elements of the two and compare them in their semantic functions and interacting resonances. The dichotomy proves to be crucial for Bachmann’s poetics in her magnum opus. Since there are many allusions and references that supplement the dichotomy, I give possible interpretations of what they suggest and show how the novel blends the Austrian tradition and the wider space with intertextual references.