Agenda

Vortrag: Donnerstag, 04.06.2026

Zeit/Ort: 10:30–12:00, Universität Aarhus; Room 9: Auditorium 3, 1441-113

In 1859, H.C. Andersen wrote one of his most sinister fairy tales, "Pigen som traadte paa Brødet," about Inger and her punishments. As a child, she tortured bugs and is tortured in turn. During petrification, she must move her eyes inward and backward to gain insight. According to Bakhtin, one gains insight by "stepping outside of oneself" and seeing the world through other eyes — "relative exotopy." Inger cannot achieve this. Her hypermobile eyes expose rather than extend her view. The petrification, by contrast, manifests as inflexibility and unwillingness to change, defining her through absolute exotopy: looking behind one's own eyes, preventing any progress. Exotopy thus functions as a metaleptic optical device for describing not only the character's point of view but the narrator's. We observe a narrator observing a character observing herself — perpetual looking that makes us scrutinize the narrator's evaluations and notice unreliable, visually manipulative narration.