Gender and Technology in Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach's "Ein Original"

This interpretation of Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach's story "Ein Original" (1898) highlights the positive portrayal of the title character's daughter, a girl genius in the male-dominated field of technology, and her role in transforming her emotionally indifferent father into a man capable of love. Parallels to Ebner's own relationships to her husband and her father are reflected in her attempt to resolve fictionally the conflict between creative work and love. The daughter's death suggests that the resolution is unattainable, but in the metaphor of the precision motor driven by a powerful energy, Ebner thematizes her own writing as itself an "original."