The Aesthetics of Survival. Cabins as Experimental Contact Scenes in Novels by Marlen Haushofer, Laura Beatty and Céline Minard

Abstract

The cabin is a modern symbol for the dream of an ›alternative‹ life. It offers simplification and deceleration to those who are free to limit themselves. Fictional cabins therefore speak of the things a society deems actually superfluous. Moreover, during the industrial revolution cabins became a laboratory for ways of relating to humans and non-humans alike. Beginning with the paradigms of the history of cabin-imaginaries, this article reads three novels which use cabins to conduct experimental contact scenes. By displacing crucial generic conventions, the novels disrupt and challenge the equally sentimental cultural criticism of more typical cabin-dreams. Thus, Marlen Haushofer’s Die Wand, Laura Beatty’s Pollard und Céline Minard’s Le grand jeu produce knowledge that reflects its own conditions as the effect of an epistemological and cultural mise-en-scène.