Katharina Blum

1. Debilitating Displacement

1.1. she is forced away from immediate family

2. Critical / Theory Perspectives

2.1. TOK

2.2. Liberals would see the story of Katharina Blum as an example of an infringement of human rights and how media should not be controlled.

2.3. The power of the media

2.4. Conservatives may view the story as a very biased left-wing portrayal of the media and government authority

3. What did it teach us ?

3.1. Katerina is not guilty

4. important quotes

4.1. "communist bitch"

4.2. "It'll never be the same, never. They'll destroy that girl. If not the police, then the news, and when the news has finished with her it'll be the public."

4.3. "The News behaved somewhat oddly after the murder of two of its journalists. Wild excitement! Headlines. Front Page. Special editions."

5. Context

5.1. Although fiction, its story rings true in that it reveals some of the basic structures of daily life and interaction in a highly industrialised society near the end of the 20th century. Due to its treatment of the theme of violence following the outbreak of severe violent acts in the west in the 1960s and 1970s, KB is often overused as a document of the period, and it is often read for its surface features alone. Yet Böll had much more in mind than a literal reading of the text as a direct reflection of an actual event. Böll distinguishes between the ‘topical’ and the ‘real’. ‘Real’ events, he argued in 1953, were events identified as having had significant impact upon our lives (an example would be WWII). ‘Topical’ events, by contrast, were more ordinary (in that they were forgotten and therefore seemingly inconsequential). But Böll’s mind, ‘topical’ events were the keys to reality.

6. Reader Response

7. Overview of the story

7.1. The beginnings of Katharina Blum go back to the winter of 1971/72 and its atmosphere of conservative backlash. Professor Peter Brückner of the Technische Hochschule Hannover was alsely accused of hiding members of the Baader-Meinhof Group. He was slandered by the Bild-Zeitung and subsequently suspended from the university. Böll himself was targeted by this newspaper when he published an article in Der Spiegel in January 1972.

8. Family / Character

8.1. Katerina Blum is distant to her immediate family

8.1.1. labelled a communist by the media due to her one night stand with Henrich Boll

8.1.1.1. she is therefore very independent and has worked all of her life to accomplish things she has achieved, such as the apartment

8.1.1.1.1. very enterprising