DIE HEILIGE RITA DES WAGGONBAUWERKS. ALTGERMANISTISCHE ÜBERLEGUNGEN ZU CHRISTA WOLFS DER GETEILTE HIMMEL

Abstract

In this article the author analyses the progression of the protagonist, Rita Seidel, in Christa Wolf's Der geteilte Himmel. At the outset of the work Rita Seidel is inexperienced in both love and politics; however, at the end of the novel she has become a convinced socialist, able to overcome the loss of her first love Manfred. This development, typical of the “Ankunftsroman”, is however not like that of the “Bildungsroman”; for Wolf's protagonist reason does not appear to be of primary importance, since the contradictory nature of socialist society, as it is presented in the novel, does not lead her change her socialist outlook, but paradoxically it seems to confirm her beliefs in those ideals. The author concludes by arguing that the structure underlying the progression of the heroine in this novel is like that which is to be found in medieval legends of saints; the function of the socialist Rita Seidel in Wolf's novel, not unlike that of the medieval holy figure of the sinner-pope in Hartmann's Gregorius, is to serve as an imitatio to believers.