The Mind of the Holocaust Perpetrator in Fiction and Nonfiction

The Mind of the Holocaust Perpetrator in Fiction and Nonfiction explores how texts portray the inner experience of Holocaust perpetrators, transforming them from archetypes of evil into complex psychological and moral subjects. Erin McGlothlin analyzes these unsettling depictions, which manifest a tension regarding the ethics of representation and identification. The book demonstrates a historical connection between nonfictional portrayals of real-life perpetrators and fictional exploration, as well as a structural and aesthetic one. It offers new modes of engagement with ethically fraught questions raised by our increasing willingness to consider the events of the Holocaust from the perspective of the perpetrator.

Format: Hardback
Length: 360 pages
Publication date: 04 May 2021
Publisher: Wayne State University Press

The Mind of the Holocaust Perpetrator in Fiction and Nonfiction delves into texts that portray the inner experiences of Holocaust perpetrators, transforming them from archetypal figures of evil into intricate psychological and moral subjects. Through the application of relevant narrative theory methodologies, Erin McGlothlin analyzes these unsettling depictions, which exhibit a certain tension regarding the ethics of representation and identification. Such works, she asserts, aim to shed light on the mindset of their violent subjects while simultaneously obscuring certain aspects of its unsettling nature.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on portraits of real-life perpetrators obtained through nonfictional interviews and analyses conducted in the 1960s and 1970s. These works offer a nuanced perspective on the mentality of the individuals responsible for implementing the Holocaust by leveraging the interventional role of the interviewer or interpreter in the perpetrators' self-disclosure performances.

In the second part, McGlothlin investigates more recent fictional texts that imagine the perspectives of their invented perpetrator-narrators. These works engage readers directly into the perpetrator's experience, while simultaneously hindering their access to the perpetrator's consciousness by delaying their emotional connection. By demonstrating that recent fiction featuring perpetrators as narrators employs strategies derived from earlier nonfictional portrayals, McGlothlin establishes not only a historical connection between these two groups of texts, where nonfictional engagement with real-life perpetrators gradually gives way to fictional exploration, but also a structural and aesthetic one.

The book offers innovative modes of engagement and sheds light on the complexities of understanding and portraying the minds of Holocaust perpetrators, challenging traditional narratives and promoting a deeper understanding of the human psyche.

Weight: 676g
Dimension: 159 x 236 x 31 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780814346143