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.
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