Im Windschatten der Mutter

The overprotective mother packs the suitcase while Heinrich Lee roams in nature before going on a hike. With this symbolic scene, Gottfried Keller begins his autobiographical novel 'Der grüne Heinrich'. More compelling than in any psychological treatise, the reading reveals the impact that a close mother-son bond can have on one's ability to love and work. Time and again, Heinrich seeks freedom, encounters women and companions, yet drifts aimlessly and without grounding through the bourgeois cosmos. Keller, a master of introspection, narrates in his 'anti- Bildungsroman' the male attachment anxieties that hide behind dreams of freedom, and the psycho-social conditions that complicate identity formation. Christian Tanzmann expertly and illuminatingly analyzes these issues in his monograph. At the same time, he challenges the Keller research that sails in the wake of Freud's Oedipus complex. This work makes a substantial contribution to the psychoanalytic study of Keller and, insofar as it has become a model case for psychoanalytic literary studies, to the associated theoretical and methodological discussions.