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

allegory he shocks others with writing true facts in his newspaper or at another time, on board of his luxurious ship he drags the passengers out of their 'artificial fog' with violent slogans and happenings. In my view the fluctuation and splitting change in between these unconscious and conscious, passive and aggressive/revolting behaviors is the very topic of several novels: the process of rising to awareness of its impossibility; the decision one always have to make whether to slip back to ignorance and ready-cut comforts of life or to try to change them. This is not the messianism of the previous ages and especially European cultures. American postmodernists accept modern living conditions, as Vajda observes (199), and try to create something meaningful with relatively small compromise (194). Comparing and contrasting American and European postmodern tendencies D. Davis enlists the distinctive features of American Black Humor Fiction, and probably the same can be said about Western postmodern philosophy as well: Liberalism has a central role along with "a wit more ribald than that found in Existentialism, less dour than that which infused Dada (16)." Well-being, disillusionment, rage and affection stand in the background, as he sees, and these features provoke violent anger again characteristic of this literature and literary philosophy, too. As for European modernists like Orwell, they have presented their 'generous anger' with the satirical aspect of reality. However, postmodern writers seem to experience anger from a less superior position. The subject of their fear is first difficult to define, like in Richardson's dramas, they realized that among the many bad choices 'healthy fear' is the best one when we take the responsibility and point of seeing clear. Federman applied the term 'healthy novel' to postmodern ones (6) with an essentially purifying overtone at their core. It is like a religious revelation in the sense I described previously when mentioning the process of rising into consciousness. The common characteristic feature that most critics observed examining the effect of postmodern fiction is that though it applies modern/ist methods, the deconstructive tendencies are liberating, while energy derives from the stinging laughter and also tends towards the destruction of entropy and it raises the level of openness and tolerance in the reader. Abádi-Nagy emphasized the lifeaffirmativeness of its final effect and added that the novel is the "ironic affirmation of the very absurdity it seems to deny ("Black 54