"Disruptions" and "Intermediate Spaces": Memory Culture in Elfriede Jelinek's Die Kinder der Toten (1995)

Sociologist Bernhard Giesen (2010) describes disruptions and the insecurity brought about by intermediate spaces as being foundational to the construction of any social order according to its respective cultural frames of reference. Contrary to being only a destructive force, disruptions would also facilitate social order by exacting constructive and counterbalancing remedies in response. Intermediate states and various types of disruption play an important role in Elfriede Jelinek's 1995-novel, Die Kinder der Toten. Populated by the undead and set in a context where both time and space are unsettled in radical ways, the novel also performs disruptions of meaning, narrative and language. In this contribution an analysis is made of some of these disruptions in order to ascertain its meaning with reference to Jelinek's views on Austrian memory culture and its coming to terms with the trauma of WWII.