The ethics of retelling: the moral extremity of forgiveness in Helga Schneider’s Let Me Go
Helga Schneider’s Let me go reveals the ethical burden that an author invariably feels in the retelling of private events. Often, literary representations of lacerating family dynamics expose the role of history in the rupture of intimate ties between their members. Narratives juxtapose the private...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | fra |
| Published: |
École Normale Supérieure de Lyon Editions
2020-06-01
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| Series: | Laboratoire Italien |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/laboratoireitalien/4641 |
| _version_ | 1818825953230454784 |
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| author | Stefania Lucamante |
| author_facet | Stefania Lucamante |
| author_sort | Stefania Lucamante |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Helga Schneider’s Let me go reveals the ethical burden that an author invariably feels in the retelling of private events. Often, literary representations of lacerating family dynamics expose the role of history in the rupture of intimate ties between their members. Narratives juxtapose the private aspects of the family story with the public events that partly shaped such dynamics. In Let me go, Schneider lays bare such intersections, and makes visible the impact of history upon her own existence. She is an indirect witness to the Holocaust, a position due to her own mother’s proactive participation in the project of Endlösung of the Jews of Europe. A larger sense of morality involving her role in the killing of innocent ones takes over any possible attempt the daughter might pursue at making amends for her old mother. As the memoir is a published body of writing, readers are involved as jury in the written stage of another public trial to an unapologetic war criminal, Traudi Schneider. The daughter Helga decrees the fate of her protagonist’s reception by probing her culpability with terrible evidences. In this trial, fiction is crueler than reality as facts are sustained by ineluctable proofs of her guilt for which there can’t be forgiveness. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-19T00:19:57Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-b1622ec5de88499e9610d05bc33b8249 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1627-9204 |
| language | fra |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-19T00:19:57Z |
| publishDate | 2020-06-01 |
| publisher | École Normale Supérieure de Lyon Editions |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Laboratoire Italien |
| spelling | doaj.art-b1622ec5de88499e9610d05bc33b82492022-12-21T20:45:35ZfraÉcole Normale Supérieure de Lyon EditionsLaboratoire Italien1627-92042020-06-012410.4000/laboratoireitalien.4641The ethics of retelling: the moral extremity of forgiveness in Helga Schneider’s Let Me GoStefania LucamanteHelga Schneider’s Let me go reveals the ethical burden that an author invariably feels in the retelling of private events. Often, literary representations of lacerating family dynamics expose the role of history in the rupture of intimate ties between their members. Narratives juxtapose the private aspects of the family story with the public events that partly shaped such dynamics. In Let me go, Schneider lays bare such intersections, and makes visible the impact of history upon her own existence. She is an indirect witness to the Holocaust, a position due to her own mother’s proactive participation in the project of Endlösung of the Jews of Europe. A larger sense of morality involving her role in the killing of innocent ones takes over any possible attempt the daughter might pursue at making amends for her old mother. As the memoir is a published body of writing, readers are involved as jury in the written stage of another public trial to an unapologetic war criminal, Traudi Schneider. The daughter Helga decrees the fate of her protagonist’s reception by probing her culpability with terrible evidences. In this trial, fiction is crueler than reality as facts are sustained by ineluctable proofs of her guilt for which there can’t be forgiveness.http://journals.openedition.org/laboratoireitalien/4641forgivenessshameguiltmother-daughterfeelingsLevi (Primo) |
| spellingShingle | Stefania Lucamante The ethics of retelling: the moral extremity of forgiveness in Helga Schneider’s Let Me Go Laboratoire Italien forgiveness shame guilt mother-daughter feelings Levi (Primo) |
| title | The ethics of retelling: the moral extremity of forgiveness in Helga Schneider’s Let Me Go |
| title_full | The ethics of retelling: the moral extremity of forgiveness in Helga Schneider’s Let Me Go |
| title_fullStr | The ethics of retelling: the moral extremity of forgiveness in Helga Schneider’s Let Me Go |
| title_full_unstemmed | The ethics of retelling: the moral extremity of forgiveness in Helga Schneider’s Let Me Go |
| title_short | The ethics of retelling: the moral extremity of forgiveness in Helga Schneider’s Let Me Go |
| title_sort | ethics of retelling the moral extremity of forgiveness in helga schneider s let me go |
| topic | forgiveness shame guilt mother-daughter feelings Levi (Primo) |
| url | http://journals.openedition.org/laboratoireitalien/4641 |
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