Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2001. [Vol. 7.] Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 27)

Studies - Judit Ágnes Kádár: Histories, Truths, Fictions. Interdisciplinary Relations of Historiography and Philosophy in the Context of Recent Western Canadian Fiction

in the plural, within the frame of the novel, consequently degenerating any claim for one unifying or totalizing version. There is always a certain epistemological doubt involved in these texts. Narrative confidence is shaken and the reader may only rely on the narrator's assumptions regarding the subject of his/her story: whether it is reality, or at least, what s/he would like to believe. One always has to ask: who says that?, which indicates that the reader is expanded. He might even start wondering if he is an object or subject in/of telling the story (though in Canadian literature this doubt does not seem to lead up to panic or despair, rather to excitement); while the narrator's traditional omnipotence is restricted. The reader does not necessarily have to be told about details, for it is enough to remind him of what is in his memory. The discourse has a poliglossia nature, where the reader supplies the other side to language, creating his own version of alternative histories. The questions central to all participants of the discourse of the novel are: 1/ "Whose history survives?" (Hutcheon, Poetics 120); 2/ to what extent are we influenced by the official canon; 3/ what kind of power-relations control telling and the selection of events made facts. The latter draws further ideological issues of freedom versus totalitarianism and fundamentalism of any kinds analyzed first by Foucault, as well as the mistrust of the scientific world view and judgement. An overall implication of these literary works is pluralism and tolerance in terms of ideology as well as narratology. The reader is made aware of the extent to which he is influenced by the existing official narratives determining his concept of present and past life. He is also made to realize the method of those trying to impose certain ideas on others, narrowing the control and choice of the individual. However, by the same token, it also opens up new possibilities of further interpretations, or, at least, the claim for them. WORKS CITED Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. Toronto: McClelland and Bantam, 1985. Beard, Charles A. and A. Vagts. "Currents of Thought in Historiography." American Historical Review 42 (1973): 460-83. 34