A Forcible Return to the Womb: Elfriede Jelinek's Lust (1989) and the Melodramatic Mode

Abstract

This article explores the interplay between the genre conventions of pornography and melodrama in Elfriede Jelinek's novel Lust. Moving beyond readings that focus on this text as a work of anti‐pornography, this article uses close readings of the novel's melodramatic narratorial techniques to argue that Jelinek's social critique involves more than an unmasking of sexual violence. Ultimately, Jelinek contends with the way literary modes restrict our ability to represent women as anything other than objectified victims. Jelinek reveals the limitations of both pornographic and melodramatic tropes by implicating her readers in the violence of the text and denying them access to the anticipated telos of both of these modes. When the protagonist unexpectedly kills her young son, it provides not a miraculous liberation from androcentric oppression, but rather a necessary pause for reflection and an opportunity for imagining a feminist political rebirth.