ABSTRACT
Irrungen, Wirrungen is certainly an appropriate starting point for the inquiry, because the text relies for its critical insight less on action than on an extended narrative examination of human communication. In a famous metaphor, Karl Marx argued that ideology is not the same as illusion, but a real if untrue reflection of actual experience. This cultural world also constructs its own opposite: the ideal of simple, unselfconscious inwardness which Botho sees in Lene and her family and which seems actually to be realized during the excursion to Hankels Ablage. In the ruling discourse of this culture, what is most purely imaginary is said to be most truly real. The level of Lene's insight, and the strength and consistency of her sense of self, are highlighted not least by the way Botho behaves in the following sequence, in which he receives the letter from his mother, outlining state of family finances, which he has been expecting for some time.
