Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2000. [Vol. 6.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)

Studies - Judit Ágnes Kádár: A Possible Application of Philosophy in the Study of Recent American Fiction

literature, especially novels by John Barth as an example. For another example, Wittgenstein's concept of language as a game had many overtones among critics and writers, too, each trying to define the function of language of a literary work. A lot of artists have experienced the alienation of literature from life, as for instance Richard Suckenick claims in his essay entitled "Digression": "The more intensely the novel was 'about' life the less it was part of it (Suckenick 6)." He also adds that the most virtual American tradition is the poetics of experience and the act of writing today is not just about life but a part of it. His ideas follow Olson's Open Composition Theory and seem to have a continuation in Federman's notion of surfiction. Since uncertainty and relativity overwhelm all spheres of reality, the author is no longer a controlling agent; the literary heroes become viewpoint characters, as Davis claims (Davis 25). Just like in today's philosophy where we are not told, taught or instructed but forced to question everything, even the worth of such questions, contemporary fiction does not deduct either. One can feel the force of such violent and sometimes arrogant pressure to question our everyday values and responsibilities especially in the Absurd Drama and the Black Humor Diction of the 1960s' America. Regarding contemporary writers, Max Schulz holds the view that "Heirs of this centuries national tensions and philosophical uncertainties, their stories are parodies of man's mistaken faith historically and philosophically in cultural continuity and ideational permanence (14-5)." These parodies of man have two basic subjects: death, and the meaninglessness of the universe. AbádiNagy called attention to the fact that while the characters of Bellow and Updike's works were hypersensitive to death, they were able "to cany out daily moral responsibilities." On the other hand, those whose main concern became meaninglessness of life are unable to focus on daily morals, rather on morality ("Black Humor versus Satire" 32). His expression: 'philosophical irony' has two social, psychological and philosophical roots: helplessness of man and indifference of the universe ("Black Humor versus Satire" 28). This threefold conditioning is presented with roughly equal emphases in the novels. I am sure that each reader finds different dominance in postmodern novels. For the first reading I was able to point out these dominances clearer than now, since the interwoven references and allusions 52