The role of the outsider in Hrabal's novels.

Joseph Kotrie. Hrabal essay 1.

How are the male protagonists in Bohumil Hrabal’s major novels presented in their relationships with “the outside”?

Few would deny that many of Hrabal’s characters seem to possess a slightly weird yet appealing oddness about them. One might also contend that realism is employed in their illustration as players in front of a stark backdrop of wars, occupations and oppression. How do such seemingly necessarily opposed forces work together with reference to Hrabal’s distinctive male characters, for whom he is perhaps most obviously associated?

Certain of Hrabal’s protagonists can, at first glance, be grouped together when the fundamentals of their characteristics are considered. The single, male, largely solitary character, with a love life comically or tragically flawed (or of course given, we are dealing with Hrabal, both) and an insignificance in the workplace to which they each react in different ways.

In Too Loud a Solitude, we a...