Abstract:

The novel “Ein Kind” written by the Austrian author Thomas Bernhard, one of the most well-known authors in German literature, is the fifth and last book of his autobiographical series. The novel, in which Bernhard’s childhood is the subject, was written from a child narrator’s point of view. Moreover, with the spread of Nazism in Germany and Austria, the atmosphere of the Second World War years is reflected from a child’s point of view in the novel. The author’s contradictory life story carrying autobiographical traces is ironically re-included in his works. In Bernhard’s autobiographical works, the truth and fiction are so intertwined to be distinguished. His autobiography is also considered in this context as an autobiographical process of reference to the reality itself rather than the real-life of an author. The child narrator, notable in literary texts, tells the events from a child’s point of view. The language and expression of the child narrator reflect the spirit of the child. The child hero/narrator adventure starting with Mark Twain’s Die Abenteuer des Huckleberry Finn as the first child - I narrator example has developed with child heroes such as Tom Sawyer. In this study, Bernhard’s novel Ein Kind will be analyzed within the framework of a child narrative point of view.