An Animal-Centered Perspective on Colonial Oppression: Animal Representations and the Narrating Ox in Uwe Timm’s Morenga (1978)

verfasst von

Steffen Röhrs

Abstract

Because of its topic and its narrative style, Uwe Timm’s novel Morenga (1978) marks an important step in the development of postcolonial German literature. The main theme of the book is the bloody suppression of the Herero and Nama uprisings through the German army in South-West Africa at the beginning of the 20th century. With recourse to historical and fictional documents, and by using different narrative perspectives, the text achieves a plurality of voices to destabilize a one-dimensional view on colonialism. The present article discusses the functions of the nonhuman animals appearing in Morenga. It is assumed that the animal representations are an essential part of the plot and underscore the criticism of the colonial rule in a narrative manner, too. On the one hand, there are several descriptions of suffering animals which are linked to the harm of the Herero and Nama to point out the ruthlessness of the colonists. On the other hand, the book features a story-telling ox which initiates a reflection process about possible ways of narrating colonial history. The ox adds a specific animal-centered perspective on colonial oppression to raise questions about emancipation, self-determination, and agency of the nonhuman ‘other’.

Organisationseinheit(en)

Deutsches Seminar

Typ

Artikel

Journal

Humanities

Band

6

Anzahl der Seiten

13

ISSN

2076-0787

Publikationsdatum

10.02.2017

Publikationsstatus

Veröffentlicht

Peer-reviewed

Ja

Elektronische Version(en)

https://doi.org/10.3390/h6010003 (Zugang: Offen)