Lost Honour Of Katharina Blum example essay topic

Due Date: 8th April 2005 The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum Long Essay Question 2: Knowing about the writer of a literary text can shape significantly the way that it is read. Consider the effect of the writer's context on your understanding of The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum. The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum is the product of a political and social genius: it is a comment on Germany and society in general and is, as its author, Heinrich Boll would have it described, "a pamphlet disguised as a novel". It was written, not just to entertain, but above all, to criticise the society in which it was produced. It is therefore impossible to fully understand the major ideas and themes of the text, and even, to and extent, the storyline itself without some knowledge of the milieu in which it was composed.

Being aware of the context in which The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum was produced intensifies the impact of the major issues which it explores (notably the detrimental effects of power abuse, language abuse, and discrimination on the basis of wealth and social standing) by forcing us to rethink the childish yet widely held belief that a novel is merely a story and inviting us to read the this text not as a fairy tale, but asa excruciatingly honest commentary on humanity and modern social values. Heinrich Boll was born towards the end of the First World War, and lived his childhood in its shadow. During this time he wrote many short stories with the background of economics and social consequences of the war. These reflected his experiences as a witness to Germany's defeat in World War One - national humiliation, international debt due to the Treaty of Versailles, which also encompassed loss of land and foreign occupation, the political instability of the Weimar Republic, and the almost inevitable collapse of the German economy resulting in hyperinflation, unemployment and later, Great Depression of the 1930's.

The shocking social, economic and political conditions in Germany eventually led to the rise of Hitler, Nazi Germany and later, to the Second World War. As a youth, Boll was conscripted into the army of the Third Reich, something to which he was strongly opposed. In 1944, he wrote in a letter, "I hate the war and all those who love it". His writing at the time consistently revolves around the futility of war. Boll's hatred of war and Nazism indicates, possibly, his opposition to dictatorial or nationalistic systems in which power is held by the elitist few and exercised abusively over the defenceless majority. It is also important to note that Boll was very aware of, and even more disgusted by, the role of language in the success of the Nazis.

He understood the power of propaganda and without a doubt developed a strong dislike for any organisation who abused language by using it to manipulate and deceive the public at this point in time. Up until this time, Boll's context had shaped him as a writer, impacted upon his values and attitudes and strongly influenced his writing both in terms of content and style, but it is not until the mid 1940's that we begin to see direct links from Bolls experiences and the society in which he lived to The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum. At the conclusion of the Second World War, in which Germany was once again defeated, the country fell back into economic, political and social disarray. However, this time it was not only in ruins, but was also divided up amongst the Allies into two regions. East Germany - controlled by the Soviet Republic - was rebuilt as a Communist regime which was modelled on the newly founded Bolshevik state of the USSR. West Germany (Boll's homeland) - controlled by the USA - was reconstructed as a capitalist state which used a similar system to the one employed by the United States.

It is the nature of this capitalist state which provides the basis for the corrupt, selfish regime which we see constructed and criticised in The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum. In order for the German economy to recover from the ravages of war, it needed rapid re industrialisation, rising standard of living, and overseas commercial enterprise. The very models of the men needed to promote this are present in the text under the names of Luding and Straubleder - two very wealthy, highly accomplished and extremely powerful industrialists. Boll uses these two characters to explore the failings of capitalism in the sense that it allows power fall into the hands of a small elite who are selected, not by any process of democracy or on the basis of their skills as leaders, but simply by their elevated financial, and thus social, positions. As German society recovered from war, riding for the most part on the backs of self-righteous, egotistical industrialists similar to those represented by Luding and Straubleder, it grew into an increasingly capitalist, power hungry society which operated purely on the basis of self-interest, profit and control.

By the 1960's and 1970's, it was dominated by towering power structures which abused their position of power and immorally colluded with one other in order to manipulate the powerless minority and keep a firm grip over their own place. In The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, these power structures are represented by such institutions as the press, the police, wealthy entrepreneurs, and to a lesser degree the government, the army, the police force, the press, the church and law firms. During the second half of the 1960's, left wing protest movements began to spring up across the USA and Western Europe, speaking out against issues such as American involvement in the Vietnam War and lobbying for civil rights. In West Germany, the acts of terrorism which sometimes accompanied these demonstrations were very minor in terms of the threat they posed as a result of acts of violence and menace, especially compared to what was happening in Cuba or Northern Ireland. However, anyone who was associated with these groups was dealt with very harshly by the police and press, not because they were a threat to the public, but because they were a threat to those in power. Their non-conformist and active approach to politics intimidated anybody who was in a position of power because it meant that their influence was threatened.

Proof that this was the reasoning behind the harsh measures came in 1968 when the protest movements in West Germany directed their sharp criticism directly at the government for their attempts to form a Grand Coalition - a combination of the two major parties - which, if successfully created, would eliminate any substantial opposition. This would give those in power an absolute monopoly over society as all opposition would be too insubstantial cause any great harm. The consequences of allowing a society to be monopolised by corrupt power systems is explored through the examination of the police, press and industrialists within The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum. Heinrich Boll was personally affected by the paranoid and extreme attitudes of the police towards suspected "terrorists" or, in other words, towards those who they felt threatened their power by challenging the legitimacy and even-handedness the social order.

Between the years of 1972 and 1977, Boll's home, or that of his family, was raided four times by police searching for weapons and wanted criminals, despite the fact that he had never shown any support for the violent or excessive acts carried out by groups of terrorists. A very similar situation occurs in The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum when "eight heavily armed police officers broke into the apartment, storming it with the most precautionary measures, searched it". Katharina is arrested, her possessions confiscated and her dignity lost: all because she allegedly allowed a petty the to stay a night with her. This, together with their unnecessarily harsh means of interrogation and immoral use of surveillance equipment ("little plugs"), serves to highlight the fact that the police use unethical and abusive techniques of physical, verbal and psychological intimidation in order to gain and maintain control over those whom they consider to be socially inferior. The actions of both the police, represented chiefly by Beizmenne, and the industrialists represented by Straubleder and Luding, show the way in which corrupt power structures are able to rule over the powerless majority. Here, Boll specifically questions the nature of the society in which he lives, and forces us as the readers to acknowledge the grave injustices which occur as a result of power being held by an elite few who are not constrained, it seems by any decent or ethical standards: What is to be done... with industrialists (who are professors and politicians on the side)... who want publicity, but only of a certain kind; with a whole raft of objects and people whom it is impossible to synchronize and who continually disturb the flow (i.e. the linear course of evens), because they are, shall we say, immune?

What is to be done with crime commissioners who continually, and successfully, demand "little plugs"? In a nutshell: it is all too full of holes... ". The press also come under inspection for their dissolute practices, perhaps even more so than the other moral offender because of Boll's incredible zeal for language and his strong belief in its appropriate and principled use. Heinrich Boll was an extremely passionate man who had aspired to become a writer from a very young age. His interest in language and the way in which it was used was surpassed perhaps only by his respect for it.

Boll believed adamantly in the power of the written word ("Words can prepare for war, cause it, it is not always words that bring about peace... words can kill"), and treated his career as an author not so much as a job, but as a way of life. Boll once said that "the function of literature is to challenge the arrogant claims to totality made by all ideological systems". He felt that it was both the responsibility and privilege of a writer to be able to observe and sincerely express their views on the workings of the world, and that as a writer; he had every right to challenge those workings. The continual need to defend the individual and the family fired both Boll's creative energy and his trenchant criticism of politicians and journalists who seemed to care for neither. Boll was strongly and publicly opposed to the sensationalized, dishonest manner of reporting typical of the right-wing popular press which was so influential at the time The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum was written. He uses this text as a way of (not so) indirectly criticising the German gutter press.

Note the original disclaimer, which was printed on the inside cover of the earlier additions but removed later for legal reasons: The characters and action in this story are purely fictitious. If the depiction of certain journalistic practices should have resulted in similarities with the practices of the Bild newspaper, these similarities are neither intended nor coincidental but inevitable. This opening statement makes it all too clear that one of the central purposes of The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum is to attack the conventions of the Bild and, more widely, all forms of yellow press, and to open the eyes of the reader to the ways in which the media are able to maliciously and self-seeking censor and distort the information which we all too unquestioningly accept. Additionally, the press (in this novel represented by the News) are, like the police force and wealthy entrepreneurs, attacked for their unethically scheming in association with other powerful organizations. It becomes clear to the reader that the press is in close contact with the police when officer Molding says to Katharina upon dropping her home, "Don't touch the phone and don't look at the news tomorrow", suggesting that he knows the intentions of the press and understands the plans will be very damaging to Katharina's public image and privacy. Similarly, Boll blatantly alerts us to the fact that the press are influenced by industrialists such as Luding and Straubleder when Straubleder says to B lorna, "The News is no threat, Luding has seen to that " Another technique which is used by the press as a means maintaining power over the public is to demonize an individual or group by publishing articles which manipulate, distort, corrupt or completely ignore the truth to create a common enemy against which society can unite.

Note the way sensationalized headlines such as Murderer's Moll Won't Talk and Katharina Blum, Outlaw's Sweetheart Refuses Information on Male Visitors misrepresent the truth by making Katharina seem promiscuous and improper when in actual fact she is quite the opposite, as is reinforced by the fact that her friends have nicknamed her "the nun.".. The press also takes advantage of the Red Scare - fear and hatred of communism - that was sweeping other Western Countries at the time, by using the term interchangeably with "terrorist" and hence uniting the community against communism. By distributing such untruthful information as this, the press is able to spread fear and paranoia of "the other" (anyone whose views differ from the norm, or does not support the generally accepted social system), hence unknowingly persuading the majority to oppress potential threats to their power and to support the current structure. To be able to draw on contextual understanding, and to be able to relate that understanding firstly to specific events and characters within The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, and finally to apply that knowledge to your final analysis of the text, is more than just helpful, it is essential. Only with a sound understanding of the characteristics and events which shaped West Germany and the world are we able to grasp the extent to which The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum is more like, as Boll once called it, a "political pamphlet" than a novel. Finally, when we are able to synchronize the two elements of influence (context) and product (text) we reach a point at which we can analyse the text and its messages regarding power, marginalization and manipulation and truly appreciate the roots of the text, broadening, deepening and stretching the limits imposed on us as a result of societal complacency and our archetypal notions of novels as stories.

The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum Long Essay

Bibliography

Boll, Heinrich, The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (2000), Vintage, London Used for quotes and textual support Butler, Michael, (N.
D.) The Conscience of a Nation: Heinrich Boll, [online], retrieved April 1, 2005, from web Helpful information on Bolls life and career as a writer Class Notes Useful background information on West Germany and Bolls experiences with the police and press Corin, Chris, Foehn, Terry, Communist Russia under Lenin and Stalin (2002), John Murray Publishers Ltd, London Background reading - helpful information on communism and western attitudes towards its rise in Russia Interwar Years - Economic Recovery, Spark Notes Online Study Guide [online], (2001), Retrieved April 3, 2005, from web brief overview of the years between the two World Wars - background information, useful for' filling in the gaps'Germany' (2003), Encyclopedia Britannica Online Reference Centre [online], Retrieved March 30, 2005 through MLC school intranet.