The Yellow Flower of Norway: Trauma and Repetition in Hans Henny Jahnn's Perrudja

In Hans Henny Jahnn's Perrudja (1929), the eponymous hero, who is the world's richest man and lives alone in the Norwegian mountains, is repeatedly thwarted in his attempts to pursue romantic absolution by what he describes as his predestination to romantic failure. He explains this predestination via the metaphor of the “gelbe Blume,” with which he identifies himself. In this essay, I argue that Perrudja's self‐identification as “gelbe Blume,” and his repeated, ritualized enactments of romantic failure, represent the performance of a repetition compulsion that has its roots in trauma. Perrudja compulsively repeats his alienation within a homosocial triangle, in which he always plays the role of vanquished rival. It is only with respect to his special relationship with animals that Perrudja is able to overcome the ritualized repetition of repressed trauma and to live authentically.