Original scientific paper
Fever, Cough, Blood, Death. Representation of the Spanish Flu in Black Monastery By Aladár Kuncz
Kristina Peternai Andrić
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek
Abstract
In this paper, I deal with the discourse of epidemic, disease and imprisonment through the analysis of the 1931 novel Fekete kolostor (Black Monastery) by the Hungarian writer Aladár Kuncz. I will approach the epidemic as a medical phenomenon, but also as a phenomenon created by social and cultural processes, by analyzing the representation of the Spanish flu among Austro-Hungarian citizens interned on the island of Île d’Yeu in France during the First World War. The narrator, with whom the author identifies, tells the story in the first person singular. I will focus on the writing power of the marginalized, degraded, and sick subject and the representation of his or her endangered life in terms of self-representation and transgression of his or her identity. I will also talk about the effects of such writing on readers.
Keywords
epidemic; the Spanish flu; the First World War; the wounded narrator; Aladár Kuncz
Hrčak ID:
267361
URI
Publication date:
16.12.2021.
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