Lost Honour Of Katharina Blum example essay topic

... n in parliament. The Government was so ultra conservative that the students began to turn to violence as a means of change. The Baader-Meinhorf group was formed and employed urban terrorism as a means of protests and harassment of the Government. This further increased the paranoia of the powerful and wealthy in society. This is evident in the excessive fear of Stra", who does not want his reputation smeared with connections to terrorist groups involving Gotten", 'The News', said Stra", 'is no threat, L"using's seen to that, but there are other papers, and I don't mind any kind of headline except this kind that associates me with outlaws". B"old was taken aback by the public hysteria that the mass media created over these isolated events and publicly protested about the Bild's exposure of events in a letter published in the Spiegel (the opposition newspaper), in 1972.

B"old accused the Bild of "naked fascism, incitement to violence, lies and dirt". By standing up and voicing his opinions, B"old was accused of being a threat greater than the terrorists and he received many threatening letters and calls. He and his family were also subjected to many searches by the police, just as Katharina is: "Beizmenne was beginning to lose both his patience and his nerve, and a detachment of 8 heavily armed police officers broke into the apartment, storming it with the most precautionary measures, searched it". . The police are represented as corrupt, colluding with other powerful institutions in society to protect their positions, and react to events in an exaggerated manner using unnecessary violence. On one occasion the search of his sons apartment in West Berlin was reported in a Springer newspaper before it occurred, demonstrating the corrupt relationship that the police have with the press.

This event in B"old's life can be seen to influence the collusion of power and information between the press and the police in The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum with Moldings advice, "Don't touch the phone, and don't look at the news tomorrow" which was "somewhat risky advice that might have cost him dearly and moreover, endangered the lives of himself and his colleagues". . This union of power can also be seen in the single phone call made to shift attention from Stra" to Blorna, "S. out, as of now B. in", and in the phone tapping used by the police. "Beizmenne would call up the appropriate superior and say: 'I need my little plugs again. Two of them this time. ' " B"old greatly criticizes the power structures within his society and their abuse of political and structural power through collusion and violence in The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum.

In 1972 Professor Bruckner was suspended from the University of Hanover and totally disparaged by the press for his alleged lodging of Ulrike Mein hof who spent the night at his house. This is clearly related to Katharina giving Gotten shelter for a night. Bruckner was totally vilified by the press and received countless phone calls and abusive letters by members of the public as a result. This is very similar to the way in which the News dismantles Katharina's reputation in The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum.

Katharina is described as. ".. intelligent, cool and level headed" by her good friends the Blorna's and this is translated into "ice cold and calculating" by the News. Katharina too receives many letters and phone calls that are just as threatening as Bruckner's, "her mailbox, which so far had played a very insignificant role in her life... was full to overflowing, and in a manner far from delighting Katharina". I saw myself in a situation in which I became a victim, subject to general disdain whenever an article about me appeared in the newspapers... A new Bruckner was being produced whose image no longer corresponded to the image the victim had of himself". Bruckner says this of his experience in 1972 and it is also especially evident that due to the encroaching reporting of the press Katharina too begins to lose her former sense of order as her meticulous life and the values it is founded upon get turned upside down. "They watched Katharina walk to the little bar in her living room, take out one bottle each of sherry, whiskey and red wine and a half empty bottle of cherry syrup and, with no visible sign of emotion throw them against the immaculate walls, where they smashed and spewed their contents".

This is a clear change in Katharina's character which is becoming more destructive and illogical in destroying all that she has worked so hard for by momentarily venting her anger. Parallels are drawn between the negative effects that the sensationalist reporting of the press had on the lives of Professor Bruckner and Katharina Blum. Following the Second World War the German economy was on the verge of collapse and post war reconstruction was beginning to take place. B"old too experienced his own economic crisis when his father lost his business and life savings, B"old "became acutely aware that even in hard economic times people seeking work were exploited as cheap labor for those who were in a position to benefit financially from their misfortune". This led B"old to understand the hierarchical structure within society and how power and status is achieved through the possession of large amounts of money. This is clearly represented in The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum by the powerful industrialists L"using and Stra", the unseen face of international industrialism.

The rise of international financiers and global corporations, for example " 'Lustra' (L^Using & STR " Aub leder Investments". , is imperative in revealing the manipulation these bodies can have on governments and their policies and the press. This is related to the economic cycle of money within the text in which capital is at the centre and is the driving force of all actions. The governments rely on the financial support of big businesses and are therefore obliged to pass legislation in their favour. Their support for one another is seen in Katharina's comment, "Only now did Katharina take the two issues of the News from her handbag and ask whether the government-as she put it-could not do something to protect her from this filth and to restore her lost honour". Everything is done in the text with the purpose of protecting money and capital with no altruism existing in society.

Katharina is merely seen as a play toy of the powerful monopoly and if the sacrifice of her reputation and honour will give the press the headlines they desire then so be it in their eyes. B"old greatly disapproved of money as the driving force in society and it is a major theme of his writing, "basic humanity threatened by materialism". Those who are money-oriented in the text such as L"using and Stra" are portrayed as powerful yet superficial and those who do not value money so highly are aligned with B"old's views and presented as genuine, down to earth characters. "He was constantly inspired by a utopian vision of society in which each individual could fulfill his or her spiritual, emotional and physical potential. B"old placed himself decisively on the side of the oppressed and the weak". Through the examination of the historical, social, political and economic context that shaped Heinrich B"old, it becomes apparent to the reader that these conditions have greatly shaped the themes and ideas discussed in B"old's, The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum.

Main issues such as the corruption and collusion of powerful institutions in society, especially the police, press and industrialists have come through, with emphasis being placed on the misogynistic and patriarchal society and the effects this has on the treatment of woman, shown by Katharina. B"old brings his awareness of they way in which power and status are connected to wealth into the text and greatly condemns the abuse of power by the dominant groups in society, "B"old had little faith in any moral renewal coming from political or ecclesiastical hierarchies". . B"old believed that "the function of literature is to challenge the arrogant claims to totality made by all ideological systems". By incorporating his own context into his work, The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, B"old leads the reader to a greater understanding of this time period in West Germany, at the same time undermining the dominant systems and causing the reader to question and carefully examine power structures in society.