ABSTRACT
This Chapter deals with eighteen year-old Helen, protagonist of the novel Wetlands by Charlotte Roche, a 2008 bestseller. Helen seems the likely representation of a young, modern form of hysteria. With her licentious, permissive sexual life she is trying to solve her various problems. She looks for confirmation that she is desirable, tries to master her excitement resulting from her Oedipal phase and hopes to comfort her loneliness as a child of divorce. Moreover she wants to explore her body, to complete her body image and finally to restore the unity of the anatomic, visible body and the sensitive body (Leib), which was destroyed by her mother’s hygiene rituals. With a very painful self-mutilation she seeks to gain control over her parents. They should re-unite as a couple, so that Helen can feel herself as a child of love, which is required for her narcissistic balance.
