Budak’s Anera as a Suppliant and a Hero Cover Image

Budakova Anera kao moliteljica i junakinja
Budak’s Anera as a Suppliant and a Hero

Author(s): Dean Slavić
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Croatian Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Katolički bogoslovni fakultet u Đakovu
Keywords: Mile Budak; The Hearth; Anera; tragedy; novel; suppliant; main protagonist;

Summary/Abstract: As a manifestly hybrid genre, the novel can contain also elements of tragedy. In tragedies and tragic narratives, a suppliant regularly fulfils four characteristics: a) she is a female or a person in a subordinate social position; b) she is threatened by violence and often death; c) she cannot speak or communicate her problems; and d) she is neither a protagonist nor an antagonist. Anera from Mile Budak’s Ognjište (The Hearth) presents all of the mentioned characteristics, with only a partial deviation from the fourth one. She is given a great amount of space in the novel and in intelligence is very close to the hero Lukan. Anera also fulfils, to a good degree, the conditions placed before a hero by Lynette Porter (an expert in English, rhetoric and composition), lacking, however, elements of victory over evil, which is achieved by Lukan. From Anera’s position Budak’s novel could be described as a tragedy of revenge, only that her characteristics do not determine the novel’s genre-defining whole.

  • Issue Year: 28/2020
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 361-384
  • Page Count: 24
  • Language: Croatian