1. The Beauty of woman as aesthetic adornment for sexual choice - Jelinek’s <What Happened After Nora Left Her Husband>: Nora’ use of her beauty to be chosen by a capitalist can be related to what is called sexual choice through aesthetic adornment in ...
1. The Beauty of woman as aesthetic adornment for sexual choice - Jelinek’s <What Happened After Nora Left Her Husband>: Nora’ use of her beauty to be chosen by a capitalist can be related to what is called sexual choice through aesthetic adornment in the theory of evolution. In the world of animals, females choose males through male adornment. In the civilized human world, however, the principle of sexual choice which gives priority to aesthetic standard has become invalid because sex is oppressed or sublimated. By nakedly showing the process in which woman’s body separated from her intellect becomes the object of sexual choice through aesthetic adornment, Jelinek makes the place of women visible, which is degenerated into the world of animals or distanced from cultural realm.
2. Standardized Beauty – Streeruwitz’ <Jessica, 30> and Dueffel’s <Ego>: These two works treat the beauty standardized as “corset in the head” and obsessive attachment to it, and the economization of body. <Jessica, 30> depicts the anxious psychology of woman who has internalized standardized body. Especially, the body of woman which has become an object conflicts with woman’s self-consciousness. Even though Jessica got higher education and is armed with feminist theories, she is put in marginal situation where she should use her outer beauty, that is, the beauty of her body for her objective. Through Jessica’s example, the author shows that even though outer beauty promises social success, material reward, love, etc, that is nothing but a mirage. By contrast, Dueffel’s <Ego> depicts the process in which a male ego actively constitutes his own ego through his body. Here body is rationally measured and formed through self-control. So the ego of a person is constituted on the axises of technology of self, the design of body, personal relationships and business market. By exaggerating the process in which having a healthy and beautiful body is considered being a subject of a typical civic manliness, the author satirizes the obsession. These two works show how bodies are related to the formation of the self in the post industrial society which stresses achievement, and how the realization of femininity and manliness through their bodies is related with anxious egos.
3. Style and identity- Genazino’s <The Happiness of the unhappy days> and Kracht’s <1979>: In these two works, specifying the characters of persons and depicting specific situations, clothes have symbolic meanings. While depressed inner side which is not integrated into outer life is projected into worn out clothes, hedonists’ dress codes play an important role in revealing the inner side of the characters and situations. In this study, I consider what signs the clothes function, and how body and bodiliness which are not mediated through clothes are depicted. Also I consider how weak and anxious those people are, who put importance on style and fashion and stand on the peak of consumer society.