A "Daughter of the Occident" Travels to the "Orient": Ida von Hahn-Hahn's The Countess Faustina and Letters From the Orient

Abstract

This article analyzes the relationship between feminist content and racializing discourse in two works by Ida von Hahn-Hahn (1805-80). Susanne Zantop's exploration of race and gender in Germany's "colonial fantasies" provides an important point of departure. However, this article argues that the masculinist boundaries of such fantasies must be reexamined to include an author such as Hahn-Hahn. In Countess Faustina (Gräfin Faustine , 1841), Hahn-Hahn connects female development with the Orient through the metaphor of slavery and a fictional trip to the Orient that appropriates the site for her heroine. In Letters From the Orient (Orientalische Briefe , 1844), the author-traveler continues to advocate female development, but her racially charged descriptions of the people she encounters leave no doubt that they are not included in her progressive worldview. Her works serve as a reminder that relationships of domination and notions of power are not limited to men or masculine fantasies. (TSO)