The ironic anatomy of patriarchal oppression

Csilla Molnár

IN: Partitúra Irodalomtudományi folyóirat, Volume XIII. , Issue 2, 2018, p. 91-100., ISSN 1336-7307

DOI: 10.17846/PA.2018.13.2.91-100

Abstract:

The child narrator can be seen more often in the Hungarian narrative literature of the recent past. In my thesis, I set out to analyse the novel of Ferenc Barnás entitled A kilencedik [The ninth] from among the works belonging hereto, in which gender relations, the manner of the everyday operation of power can only be described by a complex narration technique. From the viewpoint of the little boy acting as the main character we can see a patriarchal society based on violence and oppression, of which the child is a victim with limited perspective,
but is also a reflexive narrator thereof. In my paper I aim to prove that this duality which seems as a paradox in the novel can be explained by the presence of postmodern irony. It is the ironic identity that makes the critical narration and interpretation of the demonic world of masculine dominance possible.

Keywords: narrator’s position, subjection, the metaphors of power, perception, postmodern irony

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Partitúra is a Hungarian literary journal published in Slovakia twice a year. The first edition was issued in 2006. From 2007 to 2014 its publishers were the Faculty of Central European Studies at The Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra in cooperation with Sambucus Literary Society. Since 2014 the Faculty of Central European Studies at the CPU in Nitra became the sole publisher.

The journal releases peer-reviewed scientific articles, literary studies and art reviews of both Hungarian as well as world literature. It is also a forum for essays on several other arts and intercultural relations. Furthermore, special attention is devoted to the Central European literature and literary studies; the magazine not only publishes the reviews of such studies, but also provides the arena for reflections about them. The journal aims to give an account of the contemporary Hungarian literature of the Hungarian minorities as well as to serve as a cluster for discourses.

As for the structure of the paper, it is usually divided into three main sections. The first part generally deals with the translation of an important foreign abstract literary study. It is followed by the heading of Scientific Studies and the Columns of Critical Analysis. Partitúra regularly publishes thematic abstracts by authors, genres, as well as a literary and artistic phenomenon in focus.