
Antonio Tabucchi’s novel, Pereira Declares, and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s film, The Lives of Others, both feature a stifling totalitarian government. Totalitarianism is a kind of political system where one person or a group of people have all of the power. The nation as a whole is thought to be more important than its individual citizens. This way of thinking is thought to justify a complete control the lives, public and private, of the people living under a totalitarian government; a control which extends to regulated education, extreme censorship, propaganda, and persecution. A totalitarian government can come to power when the previous government lacks strong leadership, the citizens are unhappy, and possibly when the country is in financial trouble. Strong singular leadership can make the people feel more secure and gives them a cause to support. (Totalitarianism) This kind of government often stifles artistic expression because of strict regulation. Plays, books, articles, paintings, or anything created that could be interpreted as a slight to the government was banned and the artist might be monitored, arrested, or even abducted. This lack of freedom made artists of all kinds feel stifled and afraid. Tabucchi and von Donnersmarck’s works each concentrate on the effects a dominating government has on its citizens though surveillance and censorship, along with how people react to a government so convoluted.

Surveillance plays an important role in both Pereira Declares and The Lives of Others. Pereira is an obituary writer in Salazarist Lisbon, Portugal in the 1930’s. The reader can see how the government influences Pereira by the careful way he speaks and writes. Pereira’s body demonstrates how uneasy he is when he is out on the streets of Lisbon, or in his workplace, when he is described as being “drenched in sweat.” (Tabucchi 20; Ch 5) Pereira also believes his housekeeper spies on him. There is a perceived threat that at all times the government is watching, or listening. The uncertainty and paranoia that comes with not knowing whether or not someone is being monitored keeps people acting their best at all times, and the surveillance was kept up by more than just law enforcers. In The Lives of Others, East German playwright Georg Dreyman was unknowingly monitored by Stasi Captain Gerd Weisler. The Stasi were an East German secret police force in power from around 1960-1990 whose goal was to “infiltrate every institution of society and every aspect of daily life, including even intimate personal and familial relationships” (Cameron). The Stasi had a “vast network of informants and unofficial collaborators (inoffizielle Mitarbeiter), who spied on and denounced colleagues, friends, neighbors, and even family members.” (Cameron) Citizens would report on one another in the hopes of being favored by the government themselves, or people were given the chance to get others in trouble to lessen their own sentence. At the end of the film Drayman’s lover, Christa-Maria, informs on him under pressure from the Stasi, specifically, Weisler. Many of Dreyman’s writer friends were under surveillance by the Stasi, which scared many of them into censoring their works.

Censoring, like surveillance, was important to the government systems demonstrated in Pereira Declares and The Lives of Others. If an artist in East Germany were to get in trouble with the Stasi, the government could strongly censor him or her. They could make it so the artist never performed their art for the public again. A blacklisted artist in The Lives of Others named Jerska points out how effective this method is when he asks “what is a director if he can’t direct? He is a projectionist without a film, a miler without corn. He is nothing. Nothing at all.” Forbidding an artist to do their work is effective because it takes away his or her life’s ambition, their dream, their motivation. Without it most become compliant and depressed, or when it is threatened to be taken away, like in Christa-Maria’s case, they become very willing to assist the Stasi. Another example of a threatening government is when the Stasi break into Drayman’s house while he is away and the neighbor walks in on them. The frightened neighbor is threatened into not telling Drayman what happened or her daughter’s place in college could be in trouble. for the Stasi, intimidating in order to ensure silence was a popular method of censorship. Pereira does not believe in the government, but when he is approached to publish a piece that stands against it he declares it “unpublishable, completely unpublishable,” because he does not want to risk his safety for his beliefs at the beginning of the novel. (22; Ch. 5) The government is completely in control when they have taken away the right to, or have frightened people so they will not try to, criticize the state. The resemblances between these two works go beyond similar government styles.  

Effects of government on artists. Bring in periera and Georg Dreyman. Similarities about being in good standings with the government themselves, but not believing in the government. Raids on homes. Spys. Articles that get them in trouble Comparison between periera and Capt. Gerd Weisler. They didn’t seek benefits. Began to act out against the government. Their thoughts were carefully guarded and only shown through unconventional messages. Ie camera’s lingering, the outfits, and body language.


“Pereira’s quest ends in the discovery of personal freedom, in carrying out an act of protest, and at that moment a heroic character is engilded: through self- revelation, he discovers the society that is all around him.” (Salas/Elorza)
