Differences between the Two Periods’ Images of Normality

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to analyse differences in all the novels’ images of normality. Therefore, here I am concerned with the notion of normality as a historical concept. Although I am not using literature as primary sociological evidence, in order to benefit from the literary insight the novels’ portrayals cannot be dissociated from the prevailing cultural narratives, scientific conceptions, ideological stands and aesthetic doctrines and the novel’s hero must be understood as ‘being-in-the world’ (Kundera 1988: 42). Hence, the main differences in the novels’ representations of normality should be seen in the context of the socio-cultural realities of the analysed decades (the 1950s–1960s and 1990s–2000s), which are described in a compact way in Chapter 3.