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11 - The Lady in White or the Laws of the Ghost in Theodor Fontane's Vor dem Sturm

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2013

Matthias Bickenbach
Affiliation:
University of Cologne
Andrew Cusack
Affiliation:
Humboldt-Universität Berlin
Barry Murnane
Affiliation:
Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany
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Summary

Der Aberglaube ist nie mit sich selbst einig. Man darf sich also nicht wundern, daß uns außer der Böhmischen Gräfin Perchta von Rosenberg noch andere Frauenzimmer genannt werden, die nach ihrem Tode die Rolle der weißen Frau zu spielen übernommen.

[Superstition is never in agreement with itself. For that reason we should not be surprised that, apart from the Bohemian Countess Perchta von Rosenberg, one hears of other ladies who assumed the role of the Lady in White after her death.]

— Friedrich Gedike, “Nachtrag zu der Legende von der weißen Frau”

To begin with a caveat, Theodor Fontane is not a gothic novelist. References to the gothic and the uncanny are central to many of his works, however; indeed perhaps the most famous revenant of all, the ghost, appears over and over again. Actually, it is the ghost of a ghost that materializes in Fontane's texts. In terms of a functional analysis of German gothic writing, this re-apparition marks an historical modification of the topos of the ghost. The following essay will trace this functional modification by focusing on the theme of the woman in white in Fontane's first novel. It is interesting to note that her apparition in Vor dem Sturm (Before the Storm, 1878) was not her first appearance in Fontane's oeuvre, nor would it be her last. She never appears on her own, however, for Fontane always portrayed the lady in white as part of a discourse, that is to say, as the subject of stories, images, and folklore.

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Popular Revenants
The German Gothic and its International Reception, 1800–2000
, pp. 200 - 221
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2012

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