‘KEINE ZEIT ZU VERLIEREN’: TIME AND CARE IN INGEBORG BACHMANN'S ‘DAS GEBELL’ AND DAS BUCH FRANZA

Abstract

This article explores the handling of time and care in two works by Ingeborg Bachmann: the short story ‘Das Gebell’ and the uncompleted novel Das Buch Franza. It argues that care and time are linked in the works, in a manner that echoes the thinking of Lisa Baraitser (Enduring Time). ‘Das Gebell’ offers a critique of masculinist models of time and puts forward a feminist ethics of care. Das Buch Franza points up the difficulty and ambivalence involved in care, as it traces the complex dynamic between a brother and a sister. Both texts explore the fascism that lurks beneath heterosexual relationships, in line with Karen R. Achberger's view that one theme runs throughout Bachmann's works: ‘the constant state of war’. This war is gendered in complex ways. Through her works, Bachmann complicates and enhances theories of submission and domination such as that developed by Jessica Benjamin (The Bonds of Love), the texts themselves forming sites of protest and transformation.