Hunger trauma in Herta Müller’s "The hunger angel"

Abstract

The article attempts to look at how hunger can be treated as a traumatic experience (trauma) and how this trauma is represented in fiction. The analysis focuses on Herta Müller’s The Hunger Angel (2012, originally published in Germany in 2009) in which the discussion of various excerpts from the novel shows that hunger trauma is represented as having effect on both the body and the mind although the psychological effect seems to be emphasised more than the bodily one. The effect on the body is expressed only through some references to diseases that the deportees in the sick barrack are down with and short descriptions of human beings as genderless objects or shells (skin and bones) that are left after continuous starvation. The psychological effect is revealed through more varied means of representation of hunger. The hunger angel is used as a recurrent image and an evil figure who is to blame for the hunger experienced by Leopold, the protagonist, in the labour camp. The use of eating/hunger words, imaginary eating of smoke and mind tricking are the main strategies to overcome trauma for Leopold. A long lasting traumatic effect is represend through repetitive dreams about re-deportation after sixty years since Leopold’s return home.