Body Images in Lion Feuchtwanger’s Success

Abstract

This paper is a part of research on the Bavaria trauma in Lion Feuchtwanger’s Success. The writer’s attitude to his native country is complex. It includes both love and revulsion. Body images in this novel are an important sphere expressing the negative aspect of Feuchtwanger’s attitude to Bavaria. The image of the Bavarians’ enormous (surplus) body shows his negative emotions. The analysis of Bavarians’ surplus physicality is based on cultural studies of the corporal. Data for study are the numerous images of the Bavarians in Success. Cases of Lorenz Matthäi, Josef Pfisterer, Anton von Messerschmidt, and Benno Lechner are considered as examples of how body image dynamics correlate with the character’s changing attitude to Bavaria. Moreover, the author analyses the images of “Landfremde” Siegbert Geyer and Kaspar Pröckl. The analysis shows surplus vs deficient physicality, increased vs reduced appetite, mental activity of high vs low intensity and various physiological processes as markers of value-based attitude to the Bavarian world. Surplus physicality is proved to be related to the Bavarian identity. The author also emphasises the axiological meanings of body images. Physicality is a crucial factor for determining Bavarians’ attitude to others. The author reveals two levels of social stigma, one in the attitude of Bavarians to foreigners and the other in the attitude of outsiders to Bavarians. It is concluded that surplus body images show Lion Feuchtwanger’s attitude to Bavaria.

Keywords

• лион фейхтвангер
• «успех»
• тело
• телесность
• потребление пищи
• физиология
• травма баварии
• стигма
• идентичность.