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Die Stimmen, die es unternehmen, zu sprechen 
Narrative Responsibility and the Free Indirect Mode 

in Christa Wolf’s Nachdenken über Christa T. 

Amanda Stewart 

Oxford University 

 
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3579-1047 

Abstract 
Christa Wolf’s work continues to hold a fascination as an exemplar of GDR writing and for its 
distinctive literary style. Within the existing literature, the narrative structure of Nachdenken über 
Christa T. (1968) is often described in terms of an ‘intermingling’ or ‘merging’ of narrative voices, 
but a detailed analysis of the significance of the Free Indirect Mode as a feature of Wolf’s style has 
yet to be undertaken. This paper examines Wolf’s experimental literary style through a narrative 
theory lens and considers how the Free Indirect Mode is used to articulate ‘subversive’ themes 
within Nachdenken. Through a close analysis of the narrator’s imagined conversation with her 
friend Gertrud, I explore the connections between Wolf’s experimental literary style and the process 
of writing in the GDR.  
 
Keywords: Christa Wolf; GDR; narrative theory; Free Indirect Discourse; East Germany 

 
Several scholars suggest that the regulations governing literary production in the GDR led 
authors to embrace ambiguous and non-linear modes of narration. Dieter Sevin states, for 
example, that East German literature is “durch eine offene Erzählweise gekennzeichnet” (Sevin 
12), as a broad response to governmental censorship. Patricia Herminghouse notes that the 
innovative aesthetic quality of GDR literature may have arisen as a challenge to the party’s 
authority (Herminghouse 363) and Curtis Swope argues that GDR authors developed a greater 
awareness of the capacity of language “both to constrict subjectivities and to shape new realities” 
(Swope 162).  

Wolf’s ‘distinctive’ literary style is often described in similar terms, particularly in relation 
to her 1968 novel Nachdenken über Christa T. Wolf herself has noted: “Bei Christa T. habe ich 
[diese Struktur] zum erstenmal angewendet und gemerkt, daß ich damit eigentlich zu mir selber 
finde” (Wolf "Schreiben im Zeitbezug: Gespräch mit Aafke Steenhuis" 149). Therese Hörnigk 
commends the “eigentümliche Erzählmelodie” of Nachdenken (Hörnigk "Nachdenken über 
Christa Wolf" 29), Heinz-Dieter Weber suggests that it is “die Schreibweise selbst, die 
exemplarisch sein will” (Weber 31) and Werner Krogmann characterizes Nachdenken as “ein 
Buch, das wirklich etwas bewegt hat: beim Leser, in der Gesellschaft, in der ästhetischen Theorie” 
(Krogmann 31). As Ulrike Wilson writes, though Wolf’s work “received praise for [its] 
exceptional literary quality, West German critics tended to focus primarily on the political 

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message of works by writers from the other Germany” (Wilson 15). Irmgard Nickel-Bacon, 
Renate Reschke, Myra Love, and Anna Kuhn all similarly suggest that the spotlight cast on the 
political themes of Wolf’s work has left aspects of her narrative style relatively under-examined1. 

Taking the suggestion that an ‘ambiguous’ narrative style arose in GDR literature partly in 
response to governmental regulation (Sevin 12; Herminghouse 363; Swope 162), this paper 
examines Wolf’s portrayal of the writing process in the GDR in Nachdenken über Christa T. The 
novel is framed as the unnamed narrator’s attempt to weave together the threads of her friend’s 
life, posthumously. She recounts Christa T.’s childhood during World War II, her time at 
university, her relationships, her marriage, her experience of motherhood, and, finally, her illness 
and untimely death. Wolf’s usage of the Free Indirect Mode throughout the novel allows multiple 
narrative voices to participate in telling Christa T.’s story, while also revealing the narrator’s own 
internal conflict during her writing process. The narrator is torn between her respect for how 
Christa T. challenged the existing social system and her own sense of conformity. A close 
narrative theory reading of her imagined conversation with Gertrud reveals the narrator’s 
temptation to frame the story in terms that hold Christa T. responsible for her own inability to 
find a place within society. By focusing on Wolf’s usage of the Free Indirect Mode in this key scene, 
I suggest that a close narrative theory reading of Nachdenken can shed new light on the 
relationship between Wolf’s prose style and the politically sensitive wording of the novel.  

 
The Free Indirect Mode and Wolf’s Experimental Style 

Before turning to a close analysis of Nachdenken, it is first necessary to clarify the 
‘distinctiveness’ of Wolf’s literary style and outline the literary theory that I will bring to bear on 
the text. Wolf describes her own style as a form of indirect speech or a style that “getragen von 
einer bestimmten Redeweise [ist], von der Redeweise des Autors, die überhaupt nicht verleugnet 
wird” (Wolf "Unruhe und Betroffenheit: Gespräch mit Joachim Walther" 768). Wolf further 
emphasizes the importance of the ‘authorial voice’ in her discussions of subjective authenticity 
(Wolf "Subjektive Authentizität: Gespräch mit Hans Kaufmann" 797). In Wolf’s well-known 
interview with Hans Kaufmann, in which the idea of writing “aus Erfahrung” is discussed at 
length, Kaufmann posits that this experimental concept is “dehnbar und verschwommen und 
deshalb philosophisch nicht viel wert” (Wolf "Subjektive Authentizität: Gespräch mit Hans 
Kaufmann" 781). Wolf counters that her intention was not to develop a consistent philosophical 
approach to literary style and she has elsewhere preferred to characterize her thoughts on 
poetics as a “Gewebe”: “Es gibt Einschüsse, die wie Fremdkörper wirken, Wiederholungen, nicht 
bis zu Ende bearbeitetes Material” (Wolf "Frankfurter Poetik-Vorlesung" 12).  

Wolf’s ambiguity when discussing her own prose style has led to widely varied 
interpretations of the concept of ‘authorial voice’ in her work. As Julia Hell notes, critics “do not 
agree on how to understand authenticity [...] or even voice” in Wolf’s work (Hell 68). Despite this 
ambiguity, the relationship between authorial and characters’ voices in Nachdenken has been 
identified as a key feature of the text. As Barbara Dröscher states, “der Schlüssel für die 
literaturwissenschaftliche Analyse der Erzählung liegt in der Konstellation der drei Personen: 
Autorin, Erzählerin und Christa T.” (Dröscher 78). Heinrich Mohr2, Birgitta Schuler3, Hörnigk4, 
Cheryl Dueck5, and Ulrike Wilson6, among others, all characterize Wolf’s distinctive style with 
reference to her method of ‘intermingling’ or ‘merging’ of narrative voices.  

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Narrative theory provides a more specific form of terminology to describe this key feature 
of Wolf’s narrative style. The Free Indirect Mode allows the voice of the story-teller, or the 
‘narratorial’ voice, to merge with characters’ voices, or ‘figural’ voices. Brian McHale defines the 
technique as a mode of narration that allows for fluidity across the boundary separating narrator 
from narrated, in which “the voice of the narrator is combined with that of the character [...] or 
superimposed on it” (McHale 818). Salvato distinguishes between narratorial and figural 
language to describe the ways in which a narratorial voice can serve to organize and structure 
the raw, disorganized thoughts of a character: 

Es handelt sich um eine harmonische Verbindung der inneren Rede mit der geordneten 
Wiedergabe des Autors, der in den ungeordneten inneren Fluß des Helden syntaktische 
Ordnung und stilistische Harmonie bringt (Salvato 151).  

 
Figural language contains a sense of immediacy and a heightened emotional or a 
psychological intensity, whereas narratorial language provides stylistic coherence by organizing 
characters’ immediate thoughts and feelings into a consistent and logical piece of writing. As Roy 
Pascal argues in his seminal work on the dual voice technique, however, narratorial and figural 
voices do not just overlap, but can also merge and fuse together in a ‘hybrid’ voice (Pascal 32). 
This distinction between figural and narratorial voices offers a more concrete framework for 
understanding how Wolf might integrate an authorial voice into her prose writing.  

The title of this paper is adapted from a line in Kindheitsmuster (1976), which reads “die 
Stimme, die es unternimmt, [...] zu sprechen” (Wolf Kindheitsmuster p. 12). A voice that ‘es 
unternimmt, zu sprechen’ controls the content of a story and directs the narrative towards 
certain themes. Although the inclusion of interweaving narrative voices ‘die es unternehmen, zu 
sprechen’ is part of Wolf’s broader project to develop a ‘new’ mode of writing based on the 
principle of subjective authenticity, a close reading of Nachdenken suggests that this feature of 
her style may have also been used to navigate politically sensitive phrasing. 

  
A Close Narrative Theory Reading of Wolf’s Nachdenken 

By framing Nachdenken über Christa T. as the unnamed narrator’s biographical project to 
rediscover Christa T., Wolf thematizes the process of attempting to represent ‘voice’ in a work of 
fiction. Writing allows the narrator to feel Christa T.’s presence again – it enables her to hear 
Christa T. speak, and to retrace her lines of thought. At the same time, the narrator’s own voice 
also participates actively in the story, often emerging to comment on the vagueness of a memory, 
to explain the source of her information, or to question the authenticity of her representation of 
Christa T. At one point, she expresses doubt that she will be able to convey the essence of Christa 
T. properly to her reader: “Denn sie ist schwer zu fangen” (N 138). Part of this difficulty is due to 
Christa T.’s ‘subversiveness’, in the sense that she does not fit easily into the molds provided by a 
socialist society. In a letter to her sister, Christa T. describes her struggle to feel a sense of 
belonging in the GDR:  

Ich taste die Steine ab, keine Lücke. Was soll ich es mir länger verbergen: Keine Lücke für 
mich. An mir liegt es. Ich bin es, der die notwendige Konsequenz fehlt. [...] Ich weiß nicht, 
wozu ich da bin (N 86). 
 

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To characterize Christa T., the narrator develops an experimental narrative style, which 
interweaves Christa T.’s own voice into the story by citing her letters, diaries entries, and sections 
from her thesis. By so doing, she allows Christa T.’s ‘own voice’ to become involved in the process 
of narration.  

Sylvia Schmitz-Burgard and Evelyn Asher suggest that Christa T. could be a manifestation of 
a suppressed aspect of the narrator’s own self7. Though this theory is contentious8 it does seem 
as though the process of narrating Christa T.’s life leads the narrator to confront her own, 
repressed feelings towards the society in which Christa T. struggled to locate herself. The 
narrator is conflicted between her own conformism and her sympathy for Christa T.’s 
‘subversive’ viewpoint. This tension, for the most part, plays out on a subconscious level. As 
Mechthild Quernheim notes, the narrator represses her envy of Christa T.’s autonomy, and “nur 
indirekt läßt sich dieses Gefühl erschließen” (Quernheim 28). The Free Indirect Mode serves to 
obliquely communicate these feelings to the reader.  

This usage of the Free Indirect Mode can be found in a scene in which the narrator and 
Christa T. learn of the Hungarian uprising. The narrator recounts that they were listening to 
reports of the uprising on a Western radio station: “[Wir hörten] kaum unterdrücktes 
Hohngelächter über das Scheitern dessen, was sie “Utopie” nannten” (N 156). At first, the reader 
is situated in the ‘narrative world’ with these characters. “Jetzt denkt die Cousine, sie hat recht 
behalten, sagte Christa T.” (N 156), referring to her husband’s cousin who lives in West Germany. 
In the following passage, however, a narratorial voice becomes discernible:  

Wir wußten ja selbst nicht, was das für eine Nacht war, wir haben Jahre gebraucht, es zu 
wissen. [...] Erst später fragten wir uns: Warum eigentlich nicht? In jener Nacht bei 
unserem Tee, der kalt wurde, als die vielen hämischen Stimmen sich in unserem Zimmer 
trafen, merkten wir nur die Verdunkelung der Welt und merkten nicht, daß bloß die 
Bühnenscheinwerfer gelöscht waren und wir uns daran gewöhnen mußten, in das 
nüchterne Licht wirklicher Tage und Nächte zu sehen (N 156).  
 

This passage remains connected to the ‘present-tense’ narrative moment (“das fühlten wir 
gleich”), in which ‘wir’ are aware of this “Verdunkelung der Welt” as the tea cools, but at the same 
time, there are clear signs of narratorial retrospection (such as “wir wußten ja selbst nicht” and 
“Erst später fragten wir uns”). Figural and narratorial perspectives are also folded into the same 
narrative moment; the “nur” in the passage “merkten wir nur die Verdunkelung der Welt” is 
suggestive of the presence of a more knowledgeable voice, who understands the greater 
historical significance of the uprising. There is an initial sense of confusion upon hearing these 
“hämischen Stimmen” claim that the uprising throws light on certain aspects of the ideological 
system (presumably, since this is a Western radio station, the complete failure of the socialist 
system). Yet these “Bühnenscheinwerfer” are revealed, by the narratorial voice, to be falsely 
staged, and as the narratorial voice suggests, ‘wir’, both in the room and in the broader socialist 
system, must adjust to the harsher impositions of the ‘real’ darkness and ‘real’ light. Here, the 
‘wir’ obscures the narrating voice and suggests a collective viewpoint when the politically-
sensitive theme of the Hungarian uprising comes into narrative focus.  

The narrator implies that Christa T. had some sense of foreknowledge of these ‘truths’ that 
are revealed in the aftermath of the Hungarian uprising. “Christa T. verstand, daß sie, daß wir 

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alle unseren Anteil an unseren Irrtümern annehmen mußten, weil wir sonst auch an unseren 
Wahrheiten keinen Anteil hätten” (N 157-8). Christa T. is positioned alongside, but distinct from, 
this collective ‘wir’. She had always been able to see the world in this way: “UÜ brigens hatte sie nie 
aufgehört, den Leuten in die Gesichter und in die Augen zu sehen, so wurde sie jetzt nicht von 
manchen Blicken überrumpelt” (N 158). It is implied that Christa T.’s inability to find her own 
place in a socialist society enables her to view the GDR with greater recognition of these realities, 
which only come to light for the narrator in the wake of the Hungarian uprising.  

While this retelling of the Hungarian uprising allows Christa T.’s own voice to be heard 
distinctly from that of a collective ‘wir’-narrator, the narrator often becomes concerned that she 
may be misrepresenting her protagonist. She questions the accuracy of her characterization of 
Christa T., reflecting: “Vielleicht sollte ich, wie die Dinge liegen, die Verantwortung nicht allein 
übernehmen” (N 56). She is aware of her role as ‘eine Stimme, die es unternimmt, zu sprechen’, 
and the responsibility she carries as a ‘narratorial voice’. In the context of the GDR, this 
responsibility is twofold; a narrating voice is held accountable not only to the narrative itself, but 
also the ways certain themes may be subject to censorship in the context of the GDR. As Simone 
Barck notes, many different bodies and actors were involved in censorship in the 1960s: “Das 
Zensursystem der DDR war ein kompliziertes Geflecht voneinander abgeschotteter und durch 
verschlungene Pfade verbundener bürokratischer Subsysteme, das auch den Kundigsten immer 
wieder Rätsel aufgab” (Barck, Langermann and Lokatis 432). As Manfred Jäger argues, self-
censorship often played an important role during the process of negotiation with a publisher, or 
even with the awareness that the text will be subject to this process: “Die Veränderungen im Text 
wurden den Autoren zwar abgerungen, aber sie waren doch ihrer Zustimmung bedürftig” (Jäger 
37). Although Wolf’s fictitious narrator claims to be concerned with the accuracy of her 
representation of Christa T., her hesitation could also arise from concerns that her 
characterization of such a ‘subversive’ figure may not be considered permissible for publication. 
This reflection on narrative responsibility implies that the narrator may be confronting the 
problem of her own capacity to ‘self-censor’.  

The narrator decides to verify her memory of Christa T. with a mutual friend. She thinks of 
Gertrud Born, now Dr Dölling, and imagines going to the city where they studied together, 
walking across the university square to Dr Dölling’s office and asking her to recount her own 
memory of Christa T. She becomes drawn into the thought experiment by imagining arriving at 
Gertrud’s office and noticing that she has attempted to reinvent herself since their time together 
at university, symbolized by an altered surname and new title. The narrator observes that Dr 
Dölling – “eine gut angezogene, gepflegte Frau” (N 58) – has worked hard to create a new persona 
to rid herself of “die blasse, unscheinbare Gertrud Born” (N 58). The narrator notes that she 
ought to respect Gertrud’s new persona and name: “Das würde ich [...] zu respektieren haben” 
(N 58). In contrast to Christa T., who struggles to find her ‘place’ within society, Gertrud is 
comfortably situated in a good position with a nice office. In seeking validation for her 
characterization of Christa T., the narrator thinks to consult someone who has found their place 
in society and may represent a conforming voice. Yet although the conversation unfolds in vivid 
and realistic detail, we remain within the narrator’s own mind; she is evoking a fictitious voice 
to assist in the process of narration and the reader’s attention is frequently re-directed to the fact 
that this conversation is an experiment in incorporating multiple narrative voices into the 
narrator’s story-telling.  

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The narrator utilizes the Free Indirect Mode by weaving together Gertrud’s viewpoint with 
her own narratorial voice. This effect is best observed in longer passages, since it is often the 
surrounding context of certain phrases that leads one to question whether it is Gertrud or the 
narrator who ‘speaks’: 

Sie war merkwürdig, würde Gertrud Dölling sagen. Und ich müßte sie lange auffordernd 
ansehen, bis sie das Wort herausrückte: Ich möchte sagen, sie war – gefährdet.  
Das Wort lasse ich sich zerstreuen, es gehört nicht in diesen Raum und vergeht schnell.  
Ich möchte sagen – das hast du schon immer gesagt, erinnere ich Gertrud Dölling. Sie lacht 
und legt die Fingerspitzen aneinander, das tat schon Gertrud Born, wenn sie verlegen war. 
Wodurch gefährdet? 
Doktor Dölling ist gewöhnt, schnell und genau nachzudenken und das Ergebnis ihres 
Denkens zu formulieren.  
Jetzt mag sie zögern. 
Durch ihre Vorstellungskraft. [...] Sie war – ausschweifend. Sie hat es nicht fertiggebracht, 
die Grenzen anzuerkennen, die jedem nun einmal gesetzt sind. Sie verlor sich in jede 
Sache, du konntest drauf warten. Manchmal konnte man denken, das ganze Studium, der 
ganze Bücherkram gingen sie eigentlich nichts an, sie war auf was andres aus. Und das, 
weißt du, war fast – verletzend (N 59).  

 
Gertrud’s description of Christa T. implicitly refers to her ‘subversiveness’ and the terms 
Gertrud deploys – “merkwürdig”, “gefährdet”, and “ausschweifend” – are accusatory and critical, 
implying that Christa T. is responsible for her own failure to find her ‘place’ in society. Gertrud 
hesitates (uncharacteristically) and pauses before deploying each accusatory adjective: “sie war 
– gefährdet”, “Sie war – ausschweifend” and “das, weißt du, war fast – verletzend” (N 59). The 
narrator’s description of Gertrud’s body language and her emphatic pauses implies that the topic 
under discussion is ‘sensitive’. The narrator distances herself from this language, but throughout 
the passage, she avoids using punctuation that would clearly distinguish her own reflections 
from those of Gertrud’s, and the scene is characterized by her usage of the Free Indirect Mode.  

At Gertrud’s suggestion that Christa T. is “gefährdet”, for example, the narrator shifts the 
focus of the (imagined) conversation: “Das Wort lasse ich sich zerstreuen, es gehört nicht in 
diesen Raum und vergeht schnell” (N 59). With this sentence, we lose track of our place in the 
narrative. Are we in Gertrud’s office, where a silence falls, and the narrator allows the word – 
spoken by Gertrud – to dissipate? Or have we returned to the narrator’s writing table, where she 
has penned a term that she immediately regrets? This duality accords with McHale and Salvato’s 
definitions of the Free Indirect Mode as an effect that sustains an ambiguity between narrated 
and narrative time (i.e. our position within Gertrud’s office and the narrator’s study).  

The words that follow also carry a certain ambiguity: “Ich möchte sagen – das hast du schon 
immer gesagt, erinnere ich Gertrud Dölling” (N 59). The reader might think, at first, that the 
narrator attempts to interject, or change the topic of conversation (“Ich möchte sagen –”), but 
after this dash, our attention is re-directed to the term “gefährdet” (“das hast du schon immer 
gesagt”), and the narrator goes on to press Gertrud for her precise meaning: “Wodurch 
gefährdet?” It is almost as though the narrator attempts to avoid the topic but is inadvertently 
compelled to press Gertrud further. Though Gertrud proceeds to describe Christa T. in her own 
words, the narrator establishes that this response is reluctantly given (“Jetzt mag sie zögern”). In 

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this sense, the narrative shifts between their voices and the responsibility for the narrative is 
shared.  

This mode of narration can also be used to describe the involvement of an additional, 
overarching narrative voice at work in this scene: that of the ‘authorial narrator’. Despite her 
emphasis on the concept in her theoretical writings, the existing literature often does not clearly 
outline how an ‘authorial voice’ can be identified in Wolf’s work. Antje Diesing notes that an 
authorial voice “immer wieder sichtbar wird” (Diesing 51) and Klaus Sauer emphasizes that Wolf 
“sich nicht zurückziehen hinter die Scheinobjektivität einer Erzählfigur [will]” (Sauer 96). Heinz-
Dieter Weber suggests that the “Subjekt des Schreibens” is “von der Person der Autorin nur 
undeutlich unterscheidbar” (Weber 30). Yet precisely how this ‘authorial’ voice can maintain a 
distinct presence, while also merging with other narrative voices in the text remains unclear. 
Within the literature on the Free Indirect Mode, the concept of the ‘authorial narrator’ has been 
deployed to describe the author as an overarching ‘narratorial voice’ that guides the content of 
the narrative. Suzanne Ferguson writes that the use of the Free Indirect Mode “in conjunction 
with the guarded, ambiguous intrusions of the authorial narrator consistently functions to create 
[a] kind of multiple perspective” (Ferguson 242). Laurel Brinton argues that the Free Indirect 
Mode allows for the presence of an authorial voice in the text and can be used to “reflect either 
an author’s sympathetic identification with the characters in the text or his ironic distancing 
from them” (Brinton 368). This ‘authorial’ presence is also referred to as an ‘implied’ authorial 
voice, following Wayne Booth’s well-known conception of the ‘implied’ author (Booth).  

In the Gertrud scene, an ‘authorial voice’ can be identified in specific passages that reveal 
the narrator’s own, suppressed feelings with regard to Christa T. In the same way that the 
narrator filters Gertrud’s wording through her own viewpoint, the ‘implied’ authorial voice 
positions the reader to understand the narrator’s internal conflict. It might be inferred that the 
narrator is divided between her sense of respect for Christa T. and her own, deep-seated 
conformism. Thus the example of the Hungarian uprising casts Christa T. in a position of 
authority and foreknowledge, the narrator is not always able to reconcile herself with this 
representation. She does not fully accept Gertrud’s harsh description of Christa T., but at the 
same time, she struggles against the temptation to view her protagonist through the same lens. 
Upon hearing Christa T. described as “gefährdet”, the narrator averts her gaze from Gertrud’s 
attention, “denn daß ich mein eigenes Empfinden ruhig von ihr ausgedrückt hören kann, ist nicht 
denkbar” (N 59). This is her most direct admission that Gertrud embodies her own ‘internal 
voice’, and she quickly becomes defensive, noting that Gertrud’s understanding of Christa T. is 
unfairly biased, because of the challenge Christa T. posed to her ‘way of life’: “Ich aber begreife 
endlich die Rolle, die Christa T. in ihrem Leben gespielt hat: Sie hat es in Frage gestellt. Und die 
blasse, schüchterne Gertrud Born hat das drei Jahre lang ausgehalten” (N 59). Here, the brief 
admission that Gertrud voices the narrator’s own suppressed viewpoint is being quickly and 
deliberately forgotten as the narrator attempts to distance herself from Gertrud’s perspective. In 
a rather transparent attempt to delegitimize Gertrud’s viewpoint, she begins to refer to her by 
her old name. This name is re-situated to evoke a past, where characters were placed alongside 
each other, or perhaps where the narrator felt superior to the “blasse, schüchterne Gertrud Born” 
(N 59). The old name also removes the sense of legitimacy carried by ‘Dr Dölling’ by erasing the 
marker of her professional success. 

Despite the narrator’s attempts to deny an alignment of her viewpoint with Gertrud’s, the 

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fact that the conversation takes place entirely in the narrator’s mind strengthens the impression 
that Gertrud speaks with the narrator’s own ‘inner’ voice. Yet these feelings are largely repressed; 
the narrator does not intend to direct the reader’s attention to her own deep-seated inability to 
accept Christa T.’s subversiveness. Therefore, we can infer that it is the higher narratorial voice 
of the ‘implied’ author that reveals these repressed feelings. This voice is not explicit or 
independent in the text; it remains behind or within the narrator’s own thoughts and expressions. 
Thus, the voice of the ‘implied’ author is manifested through the dual voice technique. It is 
contained, for instance, in the defensive tone in which “Gertrud Born” (N 63) is spoken, in the 
discussion of “die Rolle, die Christa T. in ihrem Leben gespielt hat” (N 63), and in the narrator’s 
repeated attempts to leave the conversation – “Warum sollte ich ihr weiter zuhören?” (N 60) and 
“Was bleibt mir übrig, als aufzustehen und mich still davonzumachen?” (N 63). In addition to the 
voices of Gertrud and the narrator, the ‘implied’ authorial voice plays an active role in the scene 
as ‘eine Stimme, die es unternimmt, zu sprechen’, or as a voice that carries responsibility for the 
narrative.  

While the narrator claims to be attempting to better understand Christa T., her dialogue with 
Gertrud represents a broader, internal conflict with the complex and ambiguous censorship 
systems within the GDR and, more specifically, the self-censorship that led authors to avoid 
topics and wording that might lead to publication delays (Jäger 37). As the co-narrated 
conversation continues, the narrator becomes increasingly uncomfortable with the Gertrud’s 
wording. It is implied that the conversation begins to push the narrator’s boundaries, both in the 
sense that the narrator’s inner, suppressed thoughts are being drawn into the light of the 
narrative, and that the discussion of Christa T.’s subversiveness is becoming increasingly direct. 
Gertrud begins to imply that Christa T.’s death was self-intentional, though up until this point the 
reader has understood her to have died of leukemia. To imply that Christa T. committed suicide 
is the ultimate accusation that she, herself, was responsible for the failings in her life. The 
narrator asks “oder denkst du, daß sie an dieser Krankheit gestorben ist?” (N 62). The response 
is blunt: “Nein”. This ‘nein’ is a key example of Wolf’s usage of the dual voice technique. Given the 
context of the preceding statement, we can attribute this ‘nein’ to Gertrud – i.e. no, Christa T.’s 
death was self-intended. This ‘nein’ is the final reinforcement of Gertrud’s view of Christa T. as 
‘gefährdet’ and, ultimately, responsible for her own death.  

In the proceeding statement, however, the narrator resolves not to visit Gertrud after all: “Ich 
werde nicht zu ihr gehen” (N 63). The ‘nein’ could be attributed to the narrator as she re-
establishes her control over the narrative and speaks over Gertrud, not wanting to hear her 
response. Her justification – “Warum soll ich Gertrud Dölling traurig machen?” (N 62) – sounds 
like the emotional displacement of an insincere excuse. She asserts that as to the question of 
Christa T.’s death, she will ask herself in her own time, “ohne in Zweifel zu ziehen, daß es die 
Krankheit war, Leukämie, mit der sie nicht fertig werden konnte” (N 62). Again, the narrator’s 
explanations ring false. Before concentrating on a different topic, the narrator even notes that 
“gewisse Fragen, die ich [Gertrud] stellen wollte, kann ich ebensogut – oder besser – mir selbst 
stellen” (N 62). The narrator’s intention is to excuse herself from making the trip (in any real 
sense), but the effect is ironic – an admittance of the correspondence between their perspectives. 
Indeed, later in the novel, the narrator echoes Gertrud’s assessment of Christa T.’s death: “Meine 
Abwehr ist nicht verschwunden, aber beiseite gerückt. [...] Von Krankheit kann man immer 
sprechen. Todeswunsch als Krankheit” (N 88). Here, the accusatory wording previously 
attributed to the imagined Gertrud begins to emerge in the narrator’s own phrasing.  

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In his study of multi-vocality in Wolf’s major works, Bernhard Greiner suggests that the 
narrator of Nachdenken confronts a suppressed part of her own self by narrating from Christa 
T.’s perspective: “Ziel des Durcharbeitens ist, unterdrückte Ich-Anteile, für die Christa T. steht, 
wiederzugewinnen und mit diesen auch die Fähigkeiten zu fühlen, zu erkennen und zu handeln 
[...]” (Greiner 133). From this study of the narrator’s conversation with Gertrud, however, we can 
see that Gertrud’s voice is also used to articulate the narrator’s own suppressed, conflicted 
feelings towards Christa T. While the scene shifts between Gertrud and the narrator’s 
perspectives, the narrative also operates on a higher, authorial level, which directs the reader’s 
attention towards the narrator’s internal struggle to narrate Christa T.’s life. Gertrud, the 
unnamed narrator, and an authorial voice are all involved in the process of narration. All three 
are ‘Stimmen, die es unternehmen, zu sprechen’ through the usage of the Free Indirect Mode.  

Viewed in relation to the idea of narrative responsibility, the scene can also be read as an 
implied portrayal of the process of writing in the GDR. The narrator’s struggle to represent 
Christa T. ‘authentically’ is in tension with her own internal voice that would, like Gertrud, simply 
label Christa T. as ‘gefährdet’. In her conversation with Gertrud, the narrator confronts her own 
role in ‘self-censoring’. Although she attempts to distance herself from Gertrud’s wording, later 
in the novel she begins to suggest that Christa T.’s death may, in fact, have been self-intended. 
Wolf’s usage of the Free Indirect Mode allows the narrative to shift between these internal 
viewpoints, laying bear the complicated, contradictory process of representing a ‘subversive’ 
persona in a work of GDR fiction. 

Wolf’s utilization of the Free Indirect Mode also creates an ambiguity surrounding precisely 
where the allegiances of the ‘authorial voice’ lie on the topic of Christa T.’s subversiveness. 
Gertrud is critical of Christa T.’s sensitivity, the narrator’s viewpoint is contradictory and 
changeable, and the ‘implied’ author’s perspective is difficult to ascertain. Narrative 
responsibility is shared between these narrating voices and, hence, obscured. In addition, the 
Free Indirect Mode serves as a challenge to the very notion of a ‘singular’ viewpoint. By allowing 
multiple voices to speak, and to share the responsibility for the narrative, the structure of Wolf’s 
novel presents a challenge to the kind of structure that would only allow one voice to narrate. 
These perspectives may contradict each other, but Wolf’s novel allows this space for complexity 
and ambiguity, rather than attempting to reconcile her characters’ various narratives into one, 
unified story.  

 
Conclusion 

Sevin, Herminghouse, and Swope suggest that a stylistic ambiguity emerged in GDR 
literature partly in response to governmental censorship (Sevin 12; Herminghouse 363; Swope 
162). Wolf’s usage of the Free Indirect Mode is a key feature of her distinctive literary style, 
allowing her to sustain a deliberate ambiguity between the novel’s multiple, overlapping 
narrative voices. Wolf places special emphasis on the concept of the authorial presence in her 
theoretical work, and I have argued that this presence is best conceptualized as an ‘authorial 
narrator’, who controls the directions of the narrative behind the voice of the narrator. In the 
imagined conversation with Gertrud, for example, this authorial narrator frames the narrator’s 
wording in ways that reveal her moments of self-censorship. 

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Stewart  

 
A narrative theory reading of Nachdenken also helps to clarify how voices ‘intermingle’ and 
‘merge’ in Wolf’s writing. Although this analysis has focused on Nachdenken, due to the close 
connection between this text and Wolf’s broader ‘aesthetic project’ articulated in her theoretical 
writing, it would be interesting to consider the ways in which her style has evolved over time and 
to apply these concepts to Wolf’s other texts. Kindheitsmuster (1976) and Kein Ort. Nirgends. 
(1979) come to mind as narratives in which the Free Indirect Mode features prominently. 
Broader still, a comprehensive exploration of the use of the Free Indirect Mode in the literature 
produced under the regulation of the GDR could provide detailed insights into the ways in which 
more ‘controversial’ themes are perhaps narrated with heightened stylistic ambiguity. 

1 See (Nickel-Bacon 12-13), (Reschke 169), (Love 32), and (Kuhn 52). 

2 Mohr writes: “Die Struktur ist nicht monologisch, sondern dialogisch” (Mohr "Produktive Sehnsucht. Struktur, 
Thematik und politische Relevanz von Christa Wolfs Nachdenken über Christa T." 103-07). Mohr also lists the 
text’s modern stylistic features: “Die Erzählweise ist modern: zwei Zeitebenen, Rückblenden, inneren Monolog, 
erlebte Rede, Perspektivenwechsel und andere Erzählmittel werden selbstsicher” (Mohr "Die zeitgemäße 
Autorin – Christa Wolf in der DDR" 26). 

3 Schuler notes both the narrator and Christa T. “sind sowohl Subjekt als auch Objekt des Schreibens”, since Christa 
T.’s voice is often evoked to assist in telling the story and the narrator is also a character in the novel (Schuler 
118). 

4 Hörnigk discusses the “Doppelexistenz” of the narrator as subject and object of narration (Hörnigk Christa Wolf 
109). 

5 Dueck notes that Wolf “blurs the boundaries between author, narrator [and] protagonist” (Dueck 62). 

6 Wilson writes of an “intermingling” of the narrator’s and Christa T.’s voices (Wilson 49). 

7 Schmitz-Burgard notes that “Christa T. ein Mythos, ein Name für die Vergangenheit der Erzählerin, sein könnte” 
(Schmitz-Burgard 466). Asher also suggests that there are “clues that perhaps there is no character Christa T. 
separate from the narrator, but that both represent dual aspects of one personality” (Asher 220). 

8 Annette Firsching argues that although they are closely associated, the author, narrator and protagonist are 
clearly distinct personalities (Firsching p. 65). Ackrill notes that “die Annährung zwischen Figur und Erzählerin 
im Text zwar thematisiert [wird], bleibt aber ein unerreichbares Ideal” (Ackrill p. 25). 

                                                 
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