Ben Redmond

Eastern European Literature and Cinema

April 5, 2012
Youll Become Invisible:
The Role of Identity in The Land of Green Plums

Herta Mller, in her novel The Land of Green Plums, presents a surreal world
Ceausescus Romaniathrough the eyes of a group of social outcasts. Central to the
power of the novel is the idea that these characters, specifically the narrator and her small
group of friends, try to find a sense of identity in a society where. They are ethnic
enemies of Ceausescus communist state, yet are also subversive to their own cultural
backgrounds. Through extreme estrangement and dislocation in literary technique and in
elements of her story, Mller is able to expose the superficiality of both the world the
characters find themselves in and the concept of identity as a whole.
It is obvious that in creating a character, readers will identify it via a name. A
name solidifies a character, realizes it. In The Land of Green Plums, the story is told in
the first-person, yet the narrator remains entirely unnamed. The voice through which we
enter the world of the story is unlabeledwe hear the voice, yet are unable to name who
is speaking except for narrator. In neglecting to utilize this basic element of
storytelling, Mller begins to assert that the narrator and people like herthe
persecutedcannot form a specific identity.
It may be argued that a persons identity can only be confirmed when there is
another to observe them, to formulate that identity, to validate it. Consider the narrators
group of friends. While they are namedas are other charactersthere is still a similar

affect. The group of men the narrator is close with is almost always presented at a list of
their names, Edgar, Kurt and Georgand it is almost always given in that order. They
become more of a unit than actual peoplethe consistency of the list speaks to a system
they fall into, rather than individuals. Their names, lumped together the same way
repeatedly, take on the feeling of a device rather than a list of people, making it
sometimes difficult for the reader to identify with them. When we learn that the group
loses their jobs, the narrator writes, While we were failures in the eyes of the people
whether we had work or not, now we became failures in our own lives as well. (Mller,
218) Here we can see the formulation of an identity via outside observation. Their
position in societyalready outcastshas taken on another levelthat of being
recognized as a failure. Here also we see how the gravity of this identity affects the
groupthey begin to see themselves as others see them. A part of them takes on the eye
of the anonymous masses and the status quo. Now their common bond is that they are
rejected. Not only this, but there is no place for them to be rejected to, no group they can
identify with neither inside Romania, nor outside of it. As a result, the friends turn to
flight to Germany.
The narrator and her friends have roots in Germany, however, these play no part
into the reasoning behind their escape. The narrator herself both German Catholic and a
descendant of the Banat Swabians, like her friends. When she speaks of her pastbe it
about her family or of a time before she existed, there is no such thing as nostalgia
present. There is not an explicit rejection of her home life, but a passive indifference. It is
easy to see why this disconnect exists. One of the novels most consistent devices is the
exchange of letters between the narrator and her mother. First we know them as letter

describing illnesses and the pains of getting old, but they become something more.
Mller writes: Our illnesses, our mothers thought to themselves, are a knot with which
to tie our children. Even though theyre far away they will remain tightly tied to us.
(Mller, 46.) The mothers invoke pathos in their writing, guilt-tripping their children to
feel something for their motherstheir homewith descriptions of their maladies.
Behind my mothers back-pains I read: [] God forbid that you appear on my doorstep
with some Romanian and say: This is my husband. (Mller, 165) Here we see the
mothers influence, her true agenda behind updating her daughter on her health. She
imposes these anti-Romanian sentiments, these deeply engrained cultural beliefs upon her
daughter, who feels no connection whatsoever to that past.
In speaking of her mother, we can also consider the fact that Germany is
commonly referred to as both the Motherland as well as the Fatherland. The former
relating to the land and country itself, while the latter deals with issues of the State.
Thoughas we knowthe narrator has German roots, escaping to Germany feels
nothing like a return when characters like Georg and the narrator herself eventually get
there. The Motherland invokes the memories of her family life at home, with which she is
completely unconcerned. The Fatherland invokes memories of her own father and
grandfather, both S.S. men under Hitler. While there are no direct relations between
Ceausescus reign and the Nazi regime, the narrator ties the two together in her
subconscious. The Nazi regime and her link to it has become her way of understanding
the Ceausescus government. She cannot escape that connection. Furthermore, her
mother, in a way, nourishes it. [Mother] said quietly: What time is it? On her wrist she
had one of my fathers dead wristwatches. (Mller, 177) First, naturally, the watch

inspires thoughts of the father and grandfather. Second, the fact that the watch is dead
suggest that time has stopped for the mother and for this world. She is stuck in the past,
and it is a past in which the narrator wants to part. She (the narrator) feels no affinity for
either side of her cultural background, and as a result, the arrival in Germany is met with
no fanfare. In fact, we barely notice it has happened.
Georg is the first to leave, unconsciously obsessed with the idea of flight. Captain
Pjele, a Romanian Securitateor secret policeofficer who has taken an interest in
these friends, has reinforced the idea of flight for Georg. He asks, Since you write in
German, why dont you move to Germany? Maybe youll feet at home in that mire.
(Mller, 187) From here, Georg shows signs of conforming to the way of the people,
becoming someone he is not.
When Georg retraced his steps from the point halfway to the
station [to leave for Germany], he came into the room out of breath. Hed
probably been running. Edgars mother asked him: Did you forget
something? George said: Myself.
(Mller, 220)
He then proceeds to cut his hair, transforming himself to fit into the mold in Germany, a
desperate attempt to become accepted in some way. The haircut is an exterior change, a
disguise, not an inner transformation. It is artificial, and to assert this point, Mller takes
a drastic yet effective measure. Ultimately, Georg kills himself. In this suicide, we see
that it becomes impossible for the narrator or her friends to not only form an identity, but
to even recognize with one they try to take on. Pjeles question holds no truth. The
characters exist in a cultural limbo, rejected here, exterminated there, labeled migrs
another place, and speaking the language of a place does not guarantee acceptance there.
One cannot overcome social and cultural divides simply by adopting their speech. Further

removed from a sense of belonging, these characters find themselves inescapably

unstable in forming a sense of self.
In one instance, the narrators friend Kurt asks, Has anyone chosen his own
father? In this question, we see more clearly how aspects of ones being, such as
ethnicity, are entirely without choice. (Mller, 175) These things are predestined and
perpetuated through years of indoctrinationa person born into a certain way of life is
conditioned, cast into a role determined by their family history. In this way we come to
learn that culture and identity are constructs. Here we can begin to deconstruct other
personalities. We can look to that of the masses, the faceless amoeba that lives under the
mindset of the cult of personality, living to serve Ceausescu. Within this society, this is
the goal, to serve the State. But it takes the narrators forced removal from that society to
be able to see its construction of the system, which, by now, is a self-perpetuating thing.
With the status of a pariah foisted upon them, from their social outpost we see how
constructed their world is.
Ultimately, the removal from identity serves to reveal that the narrator and her
friends are stripped of character in the novel and in society. Mller provides multiple
routes for exploring oneself, from family, to history to social interaction, and makes all of
them moot, dead ends. In order to critique an already alienated situation, Mller
intensifies the alienation and in doing so we are able to view this world with claritywe
are closer to the truth in our distance.