The work analyzes female destinies in the literature of GDR authors using the approaches of the sociological text examination method. Through selected prose texts, it demonstrates the transformation of female life concepts over the four decades of the GDR's existence, while constantly keeping in mind the relationship between the individual development of the heroines and their social and societal consciousness. As diverse as the political, social, and cultural background is, so varied is the representation of women's issues in the texts and their focal points. The depiction and self-representation of women are explained here within the continuum of literature with a socialist claim, not with the intention of creating models for a theory and practice of emancipation, but to make the situation of women in the GDR tangible and to situate it historically based on literary sources.