"Das Schreckliche Ist Schon Schrecklich Genug": Predators, Power, and Patriarchy in Three Contemporary Austrian Works

Linda Stift's novel Kein einziger Tag and Markus Schleinzer's film Michael both emerged in 2011 with a common theme: the protagonist in each has a prisoner locked in his basement. Reviews of both works drew immediate parallels to the Austrian Kampusch and Fritzl cases. Meanwhile, Elfriede Jelinek's Im Verlassenen (2008) uses the Fritzl story to instigate a critique of power structures in Austrian society. Taken together, all three texts use the basement and the predator as devices to comment on the nature of evil, patriarchy in Austria, and the media and its audience.