Architectures of a fragmented memory: imprisonment and liberation in W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz

Abstract

Austerlitz (2001), written by the German author Sebald, presents a fragmented narrative with various levels of relations and symbolic plans outlined by the story of Jacques Austerlitz. This form of literary construction is in perfect harmony with the fragmentation of the past and the oblivion that shape Austerlitz. As the character’s investigations and self-discovery process advance, we find that he was one of the Jewish children brought to London by the Kindertransports on the eve of World War II. In this study, we investigate a kind of dividing line in Austerlitz’s story, establishing itself as an ‘in-between’ that evokes two considerably distinct moments of the narrative. These moments sometimes evoke imprisonment and relate to imprisoned memories, and sometimes evoke liberation and relate to freed memory. First, we track images and descriptions that refer to imprisonment when Austerlitz feels trapped, isolated, without past or memories. Subsequently, we map descriptions of this kind of liberation that begins when the character starts to redraw his past, in a process of self-discovery and reconstruction of his story and his identity. In this work, both Austerlitz and Sebald evoke the need to remember the traumatic past and witness it, despite all the pain and incomprehension while facing it.