Loneliness, Nature, and Technology: Questions of Embodiment in Haushofer's Die Wand and von Steinaecker's Die Verteidigung des Paradieses

Abstract: This article re-reads Marlen Haushofer's seminal novel Die Wand (1963) through the lenses of Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzshe, and her 21st-century successor Thomas von Steinaecker. On the basis of Freud's Das Unbehagen in der Kultur (1930) and Nietzsche's notion of homo natura as elaborated in Jenseits von Gut und Böse (1886), the article first interrogates notions of loneliness depicted in Haushofer's novel, then questions the Cartesian emphasis on the mind rather than the body as creator of knowledge, and exposes the tensions created by the human drive to control nature through technology. Finally, the article undertakes a critical comparative reading of Die Wand and von Steinaecker's Die Verteidigung des Paradieses (2016). Demonstrating the influence of Haushofer on von Steinaecker's novel will reveal how crucial developments in discourses around loneliness, nature, and technology from the second half of the 20th century are reworked and reimagined for our highly technologized contemporary age.