„kivel beszélhet egy öregasszony?”

Az öregség mint minoritástapasztalat a Kádár-kor magyar irodalmában 2.

Absztrakt

The present study is part of a series of analyses that attempt to chart a new field of minority studies through the interpretation of works that depict old age as a vulnerable condition. It therefore begins by addressing the question of which specific theoretical domains are engaged when old age is presented as a minor experience. The theoretical inquiry is followed by four analyses of texts by Magda Szabó, Tibor Déry, Iván Mándy, and Miklós Mészöly, of which the latter two are included here. These four works come from representative authors of the Kádár era—writers with very different social backgrounds and worldviews—who, through their portrayals of old age as a minority experience, also respond to their own age and its relation to the past. Even on this basis, it becomes clear that issues concerning socio-political relations, history, and memory will be particularly observable in these writings. At the same time, the comparison proves promising because the four authors, in terms of their artistic methods, span a wide spectrum—from traditional psychological realism to variants of late modern prose poetics—leading to very different strategies in narrating the experience of old age.