"Now I am here and growing wild." Nature as a Space of Female Subject Formation in Marlen Haushofer's Die Wand and Katharina Köller's Wild wuchern.

Abstract

This thesis examines nature as a space of female subject formation in Marlen Haushofer’s Die Wand (1963) and Katharina Köller’s Wild wuchern (2025). Drawing on ecofeminist theory, particularly Val Plumwood’s critique of dualistic thinking and her concept of the relational self, as well as Donna Haraway’s relational understanding of subjectivity and Stacy Alaimo’s concept of trans-corporeality, the thesis develops a theoretical framework that connects the hierarchical oppositions of nature/culture, human/non-human, and man/woman. This framework is complemented by literary spatial theory and approaches to gendered embodiment in order to examine how experiences of natural space and the body contribute to processes of female subject formation. The analysis shows that in both novels, nature functions as an ambivalent space in which patriarchal and anthropocentric structures become visible and contestable. In Die Wand, the nameless protagonist’s isolation dissolves the autonomous, anthropocentric subject model in favor of a relational self grounded in interdependence with the natural world, while her body is reconceived from an aesthetic, inferior object into a functional tool of survival. In Wild wuchern, the protagonist’s confrontation with the wilderness and her cousin, who embodies a non-normative, nature-connected identity, enables her to challenge her internalized feminine ideal and patterns of patriarchal violence and control. The comparative reading demonstrates that both novels construct nature as a relational and embodied space that enables the protagonists to renegotiate gendered identities and established forms of human-nature relations, rather than returning to an essentialist female nature.