“What I will take with me when I walk the Road of Beauty”. Female characters in Martha Hall Kelly’s novel “Lilac Girls”

Abstract

The article explores the female characters in the debut novel Lilac Girls by contemporary American writer Martha Hall Kelly. These characters create a polyphonic narrative voice, allowing the novel to depict the historical situation of war-torn Europe from different perspectives: from the viewpoint of a Nazi victim (Kasia Kuzmerick), a war criminal (Herta Oberheuser), and an American philanthropist (Caroline Ferriday). The article highlights the multidimensional nature of the female characters, constructed as a synthesis of historically accurate facts and the author’s imagination. It also examines the specificity of uniquely female experiences of existence in extreme situations (war, occupation, life in a concentration camps, torture, and medical experiments).

Kasia’s character is one of the most complex one in the novel, as she combines traits of real women who survived experiments at Ravensbrück with the author’s interpretation of a young woman’s coming of age, her search for identity, and her struggle to preserve her individuality and overcome the guilt that hinders her ability to build relationships with loved ones. Through the character of Herta, the author investigates the mechanisms (propaganda, intensified social frustration, the reinforcement of patriarchy in German society following the rise of the Nazis to power) that lead to the loss of ethical bearings and the complete moral degradation of an individual. The character of Caroline serves several important functions: she connects the plotlines of Kasia and Herta, helping to create a cohesive narrative; she accentuates the contrast between war-torn Europe and the United States, where citizens did not experience drastic changes following the outbreak of war; she vividly portrays the historical context by emphasizing political issues, and she embodies M. Hall Kelly’s idea of the power of human solidarity – the ability of a united community to stand up against evil.