Totalitarismens existensform. Textualitet och politik i tre verk av Imre Kertész

Abstract

This thesis explores the theoretical and political dimensions of textuality and self-reflexivity in the literature of Imre Kertész (1929–2016). Specifically, it investigates the relationship between textuality and reflexivity, and totalitarian experiences of the Holocaust and the communist dictatorship in post-war Hungary. The thesis argues that these experiences, particularly those centered around the post-war totalitarian situation, condition the narratives, and that the literary discourses, by way of self-reflexive and deconstructivist processes, manifest a general anti-essentialism and aversion to absolutist tendencies. Therefore, the study sheds light on the depictions of totalitarian realities in the texts, but the primary aim is to examine how the literary reflections on the level of discourse and expression hold theoretical and political implications that surpass the empirical references of the texts. To expose how the selected texts demonstrate and reflect upon their linguistic conditions and hence problematizes totalitarian and essentialist tendencies, the thesis draws on concepts of literary performativity and deconstruction. The study examines three literary works: Kaddis a meg nem született gyermekért (Kaddish for an Unborn Child) from 1990, Az angol lobogó (The Union Jack) from 1991, and A kudarc (Fiasco) from 1988. The analysis thus consists of three sections, and it lays out how the narrative structures and rhetorical and grammatical features of the texts work together to illustrate the concrete totalitarian situation and undermine absolutist and essentialist tendencies. In relation to the particular form of existence that shapes the fictional realities in Kertész’s works, the thesis examines how the texts highlight issues related to, for example, materiality (bodily and linguistic), language, aesthetics, and ideology. Thus, the study emphasizes the theoretical and political significance of literary discourse and self-reflexivity.