SWINGING OF THE BREATH: UNDECIDABILITY AND ZONES OF INDISTINCTION IN HERTA MÜLLER'S ATEMSCHAUKEL

Abstract

AbstractIn this essay I use Giorgio Agamben's concept of ‘zones of indistinction’ in an investigation of how undecidability functions in the generation of meaning in Herta Müller's Atemschaukel. I argue that, by evoking a number of oppositional pairs, Atemschaukel demarcates an area as a zone of indistinction. Within this zone the thinking and experience of the first‐person narrator, and, by extension, of the reader, oscillate between different modes, and tension is produced and sustained. Through this zone some of the most significant meanings of the narrative regarding the nature of representation, historic truth, and the truth of a specific witness are conveyed. While undecidability on the level of genre and the representation of reality is arguably the most obvious form in Atemschaukel, it is not the main focus of my analysis. Rather, my purpose is to shed light on the interrelation of oppositional pairs and their effect of meaning‐production without subsuming the various forms of undecidability under the obvious one of genre, as a categorisation of the work as ‘autofiction’ would probably do. Thus I challenge the generic categorisation of complex works of undecidability such as Atemschaukel and argue that in order to recognise certain meanings of the work, the reader must accept the unresolved nature of its undecidabilities.