Carnival and Carnivorous Plants – Gender and Humor in the works of Ruth Landshoff-Yorck

My article focuses on the connection of gender and humour in some works of the German-American author Ruth Landshoff-Yorck. My analysis will show that, while both topics are important, their connection changes over the course of Landshoff’s work: it is light and easygoing in the early works, full of joyful transgression in aspects of gender and sexuality, like in her novel Die Vielen und der Eine (1930), but carnal and sometimes disgusting in the later ones, like in the short story The Opening Night (1959) and its German version, Durch die Blume (1957) – especially in the omnivorous (and omnisexual) plant appearing in these stories. The theoretical foundation for the analyses carried out in this article is provided by Mikhail Bakhtin’s theories of the Grotesque and Carnivalesque. Bringing together Bakhtin and Landshoff and investigating their parallels and contrasts can not only illuminate Landshoff’s works, but also widen the understanding of Bakhtin’s theory of humor, in order to demonstrate the extent to which these ideas are helpful in relation to aspects of gender.