Download Marlena Gruda

Marlena Gruda
The protagonist in the Slovene novel after 1991
Summary
The aim of my dissertation is to examine the model of the literary protagonist, the
changes in the construction of the literary protagonist and its way of existing in the Slovene
novel after 1991. The starting point of my writing is the theory of Slovenian literary theorist
Janko Kos, who set a thesis which states that there is a palpable change in Slovenian literary
protagonists after the country gained independence. To test the accuracy of his thesis,
a comparison was drawn between the protagonist model created by Ivan Cankar, the author of
the prevailing type of literary protagonist (in effect since the beginning of the 20th century) as
well as the model alternative to Cankar, created by Vladimir Bartol.
In the first three chapters of part one, theories of the novel and of a literary character
are examined, as well as both Cankar’s and Bartol’s model of a protagonist. Part two contains
the historical background of the novel after the year 1945 and the analysis of the four types of
the Slovene protagonist: the rhizomatic, the repeated, the schizoid and the multiplied hero.
The analysis was done on the basis of fifteen novels, all published between the years 1991 and
2013.
The paper does not only take into account the prevailing criterion of the Slovene
literary theorists, i.e. the criterion of the active-passive protagonist in the depicted world, but
rather also several other factors which all influence the identity of the character as a person as
well as a literary subject. Among these factors are the Slovene literary tradition, the spiritual
culture of Slovenes and the socio-historical circumstances which enable a holistic view of the
character of the Slovene literary protagonist, taking into account the differing contexts,
including the philosophical and the psychological.