Women in Wheelchairs: Space, Performance and Hysteria in Libuše Moníková’s Pavane für eine verstorbenen Infantin and Ines Eck’s Steppenwolfidyllen

Libuše Moníková’s Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin and Ines Eck’s Steppenwolfidyllen both have as their first‐person narrator a woman who chooses to present herself as wheelchair‐bound. This article examines how the notion of a female identity and voice is played out in two modes of discourse which converge on the image of the wheelchair, namely the spatial and the performative. The wheelchair demarcates personal space and acts as a prop for a performance of disability. This article shows how the texts in question reflect these two aspects in a network of spatial representations and topographical metaphors, and in their concern with imitation and role‐playing. Moreover, the wheelchair is also a ‘room of one’s own’, a precondition of writing for the two women narrators. They develop narrative strategies based on mimicry and mutism, which are the strategies of the hysteric according to Luce Irigaray. It is shown how the notion of hysteria underlies Moníkova´’s use of quotation and Eck’s conspicuously unconventional typography. The hysteric’s performance focuses on the body even while denying it authenticity. Ultimately, then, the image of the wheelchair offers new perspectives on feminist concerns with the body and with women’s writing, particularly the notion of ‘Körper‐Sprache’.