The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum Literary Elements

A novel

The actions take place on the Carnival Eve of 1974, in Germany. Sometimes the narrator takes a reader to other locations, but the largest number of the main events happen in Frankfurt. Due to the fact that the events unfold extremely quickly, the story is full of dates. This gives the reader a chance to follow a story of Katharina Blum’s life from her childhood to adulthood. The author uses nonlinear narrative.

Third-person

The story is told in a disjointed manner and in an emotional tension tone.

Katharina Blum is the protagonist; Werner Tötges is the antagonist.

The major conflict stands in the ways the yellow press works and the consequences one should face because of false accusations.

The climax of the novel happens when Katharina kills Werner Tötges, the reporter who is responsible for destruction of Katharina’s life and career.

From the very beginning of the novel, it is perfectly clear that there is not going to be any happy end. A reader gets a chance to meet Katharina Blum for the very first time when she comes to a police officer in order to confess to the murder of Werner Tötges.

The novel depicts all the prejudices the majority of that time society has against communists. It seems that people react more aggressively when the press states that Katharina is the communist, than when articles say that she helps a wanted murderer.

Katharina Blum takes a biography of Queen Christina of Sweden to the police office when she finds out that she has to spend sometime there. This choice is especially interesting, because Katharina Blum and Queen Christina of Sweden have pretty much in common. They both value their independence highly and both are extremely proud. Queen Christina of Sweden is also famous because of her reluctance to get married. In a case of Katharina Blum, her own marriage proves to be a complete disaster and she doesn’t regret a divorce.

The author uses imager a lot, so that a reader could get a complete picture. The story reminds of a police report or an investigation. But the narrator also describes emotions, feelings, atmosphere and styles of lives in order to offer a reader an insight into the tragedy.

Despite the fact that Katharina Blum’s reputation is flawless and many of her friends even call her the “nun”, the press manages to convince not only readers, but her acquaintances also that Katharina is a kind of gold digger who destroys other people’s marriages.

The novel contains parallelism which helps to make narration sound fluently.
“Seeing it was Carnival, I didn’t mind being asked to dance.”
“No, no, she was fine, of course she would rather be with him forever or at least for a long time, preferably forever and ever, of course, and she would rest up during the Carnival and never, never again dance with any other man but him, and never anything but Latin American, and only with him, and what were things like where he was?

“Let the excitement of the press be forgotten!”
The press refers to reporters and journalists who are extremely satisfied with themselves for managing to find such a scandalous case as Katharina’s one. The press is an example of metonymy.
“The News behaved somewhat oddly after the murder of two its journalists”.
The News is only a name of the newspaper, but in this case the author refers to the staff of the News. This is an example of synecdoche.

“Still celebrating city”
The city during the Carnival acquires qualities of a living being, representing celebrating people.