Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Contemporary English Language Studies, cilt.1, sa.2, ss.96-105, 2025 (Hakemli Dergi)
Theodor Fontane (1819-1898) is considered one of the most important representatives of the
realist novel in German literature. His late work Der Stechlin occupies a special place in his oeuvre as it raises
fundamental cultural, anthropological and pedagogical questions beyond the depiction of the Wilhelmine
aristocracy. In addition to thematising political and social conflicts, the novel also focuses on the position of
child characters in the field of tension between the social norm and individual deviance. A central feature of
Fontane's poetics is the differentiated description of space and nature, which plays an important role in
almost all of his works. In Der Stechlin, too, nature functions not merely as a backdrop, but as a poetically
imbued space that conveys moods, developments and symbolic meanings. This is particularly evident in the
character Lütt Agnes, whose relationship to nature, animals and alternative social spaces provides a counterimage to the standardised bourgeois order. Against this background, an ecocritical approach proves to be
particularly fruitful, as it enables the natural space to be understood not just as a decorative element, but as
an active space for action and experience, in which processes of becoming a subject, resistance and selflocalisation are shaped. Pedagogical concepts - especially those of Rousseau, which aim at a natural, noncoercive development of the child - also prove to be helpful in the context of the analysis in order to
systematically record alternative educational spaces and forms of child autonomy in the text. The aim of this
study is therefore to examine the figure of Agnes in terms of tension between nature, childhood and social
order from an ecocritical perspective and to analyse the role that spaces, animals and symbolic transitions
play in the representation of childhood autonomy.