ABSTRACT
In the fi nal chapter of Verena Stefan’s feminist novel Shedding (Häutungen, 1977[1975]), the emancipation of the fi gure Cloe is linked to the process of expressing her experiences2:
I have to work out where I am at, she thought, no; fi rst I have to be able to say more exactly how I got here. I don’t know how all of these things got into my head . . . I have to send the things out of my head. I have to remember when and how they got into me. Concerning the breach itself nothing can be said. As soon as the impressions and thoughts ramble about and I think about the pathways into my head, they are already estranged. I have to guide them into my head, so that I can release them from my mouth in familiar signals, so that others can understand something of it. The many processes of assimilation and alienation have to happen in such a way that the signals, in another form, come as close as possible to the original experience.
