FENITSCHKA, published in 1898 together with Eine Ausschweifung, has undoubtedly received the most critical attention of any of Lou Andreas-Salomé's fictional works, perhaps because it offers such an interesting window into the debates of the turn-of-the-century women's movement. That the environment in which Fenitschka lives presents her with an unsolvable dilemma — she wants love and passion but not marriage, and she wants a career as a teacher — has been analyzed lucidly and thoroughly in a number of publications that focus exclusively on the novella, from Brigid Haines's “Fenitschka: A Feminist Reading” (1990) to Raleigh Whitinger's “Lou Andreas-Salomé's Fenitschka and the Tradition of the Bildungsroman” (1999). From a variety of compelling perspectives, the essays focus on how Andreas-Salomé treats aspects of the turn-of-the-century emancipation debate and undermines the antifeminist position by demonstrating, in the figure of Max Werner, how limiting and imbalanced it is. In addition, Whitinger tackles the character of Max in detail, arguing that he represents the confinement that traditional, male-authored narratives and artworks exercise on women. He highlights how Max continuously seeks to steer Fenitschka toward more conventional women's choices and how he nevertheless achieves some level of insight and growth over the course of his relationship with Fenitschka that bodes well for the future of feminism.