Diseño del conjunto de pruebas estadísticas

The conflation woman/ house replaces to some extent the standard woman/ nature image in the H eimat discourse. The reassignment o f women to a space over which the man has charge is symptomatic of the male desire to maintain control.

Male desire to control women is coupled with a fear o f their sexual power. Windisch’s fear is particularly acute; he feels vulnerable and is afraid o f his wife’s potential agency. His fear inflates to the extent that he feels threatened by the women’s domestic abilities. A further domestic image, sewing, connects the two housed and bedded women who are the objects o f Windisch’s gaze, itself both fearing and desiring, at the beginning o f the story. The carpenter’s wife is busy sewing with a needle and grey thread when the carpenter begins his advances: “Sie hat ein gestreifres Nachthemd an. Sie hâlt einen Nadel in der Hand. An der Nadel hângt ein grauer Faden” (11). The sewing theme resurfaces in Windisch’s musings as he walks home and the repetition connotes his preoccupation with the scene on which he eavesdropped. The wind seems to be sewing a sack in the ground: “Der Wind klopft ans Holz. Er nâht. Der Wind nâht einen Sack in die Erde” (15). Having arrived home, he varies the metaphor and the groans of his wife are

“[w]ie eine Nfihmaschine” (17). The sack sewn by the wind reminds us of the sacks of flour which Windisch has been delivering to the mayor; in his imaginings it turns into a sack in the ground, an image of death. When the wind sews a sack of flour and buries it, women and the domestic realm connect in Windisch" s mind with hostile nature and assert power. Windisch"s thoughts reflect his fear o f women"s power. He perceives their sexuality as the source o f their power and relates this in his mind to his own powerlessness.

Later, we learn the reasons for his fear. Like the carpenter, Windisch wishes to emigrate and is dependent for the success of his venture on the favour o f certain men in positions of power. The carpenter" s wife"s willingness to submit to her husband's advances is associated in Windisch's mind with his deliveries o f flour since they both represent independent efforts to gain the authorities" favour and the two are connected textually through the image o f the needle. The needle sews the flour sack into the earth, making it a grave and seemingly leading to 'sein eigenes Ende" o f which Windisch is so fearful, and it is wielded by the carpenter"s wife who has a commodity more valuable in the corrupt provincial economy than Windisch" s flour, namely her sexuality. While Windisch tries to please the mayor by making him regular gifts o f flour, the carpenter"s wife has procured the necessary documents by sleeping with the pastor and the policanan. The sack o f flour turned into grave prefigures the failure o f Windisch"s modest bribe o f flour to help his family obtain passports and the success o f female sexuality as the only effective commodity for exchange. The idea o f the wind sewing the miller" s sack of flour into a death sack intimates a conspiracy between nature and the women - who with their needles are accomplices to the wind - to confound his hope o f more or less 'earning" his passport through honest work (symbolised by the sack of flour). Indeed, it is the women who successAiUy rob him of this avenue with their more valuable exchange commodity. When he imagines the wind to be the agent sewing his deathsack, Windisch projects this threat onto nature.

Windisch" s fear o f female sexuality is best illustrated by his preoccupation with his wife"s finger. Ever since the night o f the th u n d ^ to rm when she did not hear him come home and he saw her masturbating, the image o f her sticky finger will not leave him. When on one occasion he comes home after staying out till five o"clock in the morning, he looks at her finger for signs o f sexual activity: “Windisch schaut ihren Finger an. Er ist nicht schleimig"" (49). When she licks the salty water from her Enga-s which Amalie's glass tear has cried, he is reminded o f that stormy night: “Windisch schaute, wie sie an dem Finger leckte, den sie in der Gewittemacht schleimig aus dem Haar gezogen hatte. Er spOrte den

Schleim im Mund. In seinem Hals drückte der Knoten des Erbrechens” (26). Windisch’s disgust expresses an anxiety about his wife’s sexuality which no longer responds to his own, but rather exists beyond and despite his own desires. Until the night o f the thunderstorm, Windisch had probably believed his wife’s stoiy that in refusing to sleep with him, she was only following doctor’s ordo-s. What he discovers makes him believe she has deceived him. He sees that she has a sexual desire which is not directed at him and which has evaded his control. Her sexual independence represents a threat to his agency. He responds with increased degradation and dominance. When she starts to assert herself, he hits her in order to put her in her place: “Windisch geht auf sie zu. Windisch schlâgt ihr ins Gesicht. Sie schweigt. Sie senkt den Kopf” (49).