Illness or Modern Women

Illness or Modern Women (German: Krankheit oder Moderne Frauen) is a play by the Austrian playwright Elfriede Jelinek. It was written in 1984 and published by Prometh Verlag in 1987 with an afterword by Regine Friedrich.

The play deals with Jelinek's usual play on sexual power-politics by focusing attention on a couple and what happens to the dynamics of their relationship when change occurs. The change, in this case, is when Carmilla, a housewife, becomes a vampire through her friend Emily. This only occurs after the birth of her daughter. She then leaves her husband, Dr. Benno Hundekoffer, and establishes a lesbian relationship with Emily. Like the rest of Jelinek's body of work, Krankheit offers a vitriolic and satirical view of the falsity and susceptibility concerning relationships.

For an analysis of the lesbianism and gender play in the piece, see Leanne Dawson's article, ‘The Transe Femme in Elfriede Jelinek’s Krankheit oder Moderne Frauen’, in: Smith-Prei, Carrie, and Politis, Cordula (eds.) Germanistik in Ireland: Sexual-Textual Border Crossings: Lesbian Identity in German Literature, Film and Culture, November 2010.

Works by Elfriede Jelinek
Novels
  • Wonderful, Wonderful Times
  • The Piano Teacher
  • Lust
  • Greed
  • Women as Lovers
Plays
  • What Happened after Nora Left Her Husband; or Pillars of Society
  • Clara S.
  • Burgtheater
  • Desire and Permission To Drive – Pornography
  • Illness or Modern Women
  • A Sport Play
  • Silence
  • Death and the Maiden II
  • The Works
  • Bambiland
  • Die Kontrakte des Kaufmanns. Eine Wirtschaftskomödie

Famous quotes containing the words illness or, illness, modern and/or women:

    “The more I read and the more I talked to other parents of children with disabilities and normal children, the more I found that feelings and emotions about children are very much the same in all families. The accident of illness or disability serves only to intensify feelings and emotions, not to change them.”
    —Judith Weatherly (20th century)

    “Men have their own questions, and they differ from those of mothers. New mothers are more interested in nutrition and vulnerability to illness while fathers tend to ask about when they can take their babies out of the house or how much sleep babies really need.”
    —Kyle D. Pruett (20th century)

    “A more problematic example is the parallel between the increasingly abstract and insubstantial picture of the physical universe which modern physics has given us and the popularity of abstract and non-representational forms of art and poetry. In each case the representation of reality is increasingly removed from the picture which is immediately presented to us by our senses.”
    —Harvey Brooks (b. 1915)

    “Elyot: It doesn’t suit women to be promiscuous.
    Amanda: It doesn’t suit men for women to be promiscuous.”
    —Noël Coward (1899–1973)