Original scientific paper
The Literary Forming of Economic Problems in the Novel The Narrow Land by Mate Balota
Sanja Franković
orcid.org/0000-0002-2086-8419
; Trinity College Dublin
Abstract
The economic problems of Balota’s novel The Narrow Land are an integral part of life in the author’s native village in the last decades of the 19th century, when the natural exchange gives way to the money economy. The motifs of land, grapes and olives are not only the symbols of survival but also the durability of family generations. An individual who grew up with tradition identifies his being with work on the land – stingy, but only safe property. However, along with founding new families, the land becomes smaller and smaller, so tilling the land is complemented by other, in the peasants’ eyes, less reputable jobs: pottery, maritime affairs, and trade. Starting from the attitude that the novel is not a prose illustration of the writer’s scientific economic ideas, but an artistic text, the paper considers narrative techniques in literary forming of economic problems: the lyricised narrated monologues of adult characters on their plans of survival or enrichment; the narrator’s psycho-narration with a child-focaliser on folk beliefs and the rural way of work and life; the contrastive characterisation of the characters as an example of opposite attitudes towards work and gaining wealth; the narrator’s comments on the history of Rakalj’s settlers and the negative influences of money on the individual and rural collective ethics; the descriptions of nature as a well of life and dialogues as the indicators of interpersonal relationships and ways of life.
Keywords
Mate Balota; literary features; narrative techniques; a “peasant” novel
Hrčak ID:
218447
URI
Publication date:
28.2.2019.
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