SECTION:
Narrations in Literature and in Writing History
Tibor Kovács (Károli Gáspár University of Reformed Church, Budapest)
The conflicts of behavioural norms in Antal Szerb: The Pendragon-legendMy essay is focused on how cultural differences in human behaviour lead to conflicts or how they generate situations without them. The narrator determines whether a situation becomes full of conflicts or not. The ways of conversation among people of different cultures and customs will be examined.
The main character, John Bátky is the foreigner in the English environment. He meets a different culture and he has to adapt himself to it. This foreign culture can be understood through his eyes and his comments. He is the narrator, as well. Bátky's descriptions about English people and their behaviour seem to be objective but in fact he is absurd and ironic most of the time which turns everything into a fiction. The relationship between the text of the novel and the English culture will be presented.
It can be seen that a real dialog between the protagonist and English people can not be realized. The behavioural norms of English people make this dialog impossible.
The characters of the novel are chategorized by stereotypes and not according to their behaviour. They acquire the foreign culture very easily because they have not got their own identity, they have only 'manias'. These characters are foreign for themselves, as well. They are connected to each other by cultural stereotypes and not by behavioural habits. The auther wants to make the characters look so unusual.
The cultural differences are recognized by the characters and they reflected by them and the mass of stereotypes of English people turns into a detective-story.
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