Date Approved
2025
Degree Type
Open Access Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department or School
World Languages
Committee Member
Carla Damiano, PhD
Committee Member
Elisabeth Däumer, PhD
Abstract
This study is a sociohistorical analysis of East German writer Christa Wolf’s use of fairy tale tropes in her novel Patterns of Childhood, first published in German in 1976 in East Germany as Kindheitsmuster. Wolf uses fairy tale tropes to explore themes that she could not write about openly under East German censorship, which prohibited East German authors from exposing their culpability for prior acts committed under the Nazi Regime. Furthermore, Wolf introduces metamorphosis to explore the intrinsic evil and subsequent guilt of her child protagonist, and she uses the child’s capacity for evil to illustrate the German people’s similar capacity to treat their fellow citizens as “other” during their nation’s transition to National Socialism and their ensuing guilt as perpetrators of the Holocaust. Expanding on Elizabeth Wanning Harries’s proposal that fairy tale tropes function as a “broken mirror” literary device within Wolf’s novel, I identify instances of metamorphosis and fairy tale tropes that reflect Wolf’s multifaceted depiction of working through the past.
Recommended Citation
Lara, B. E., "Metamorphosis and fairy tale tropes in Christa Wolf’s Patterns of Childhood" (2025). Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations. 1298.
https://commons.emich.edu/theses/1298
