: The City and the Limits of Semiosis in Hrabal's Svatby The City and the Limits of Semiosis in Hrabal's Svatby v domě (In-House Weddings)
Abstract
The article addresses the problem of the city as a semiotic space that is defined by its boundary. The first part of the paper presents some of the models of this semiotic boundary and then looks at the city in Bohumil Hrabal's novel In-House Weddings (1984).
Methodologically, the article draws on semiotic works of J. M.
Lotman and K. H.
Stierle. Hrabal's novel provides an image of the city in the period of political upheaval.
This can be seen as a recoding of the old arrangement of the city to a new one and is exemplified on the fates of several characters. Several borderline protagonists, namely the central protagonist - the narrator - and the character of the doctor come to the fore in this process.
These, rather than creating the outer limits of the city, form its inner boundaries. They share some features with the inhabitants of the city, but also occupy the position of strangers.
They belong neither to the old nor the new political establishment and attempt to flee the city or view it from the position that is different from both relatively static establishments. Further on, a key role in this respect is played by elements of disorder owing to which the city's semiosphere vanishes into unrestrained chaos.
In this respect, it is possible to relate Hrabal's text to the catastrophic model that exceeds the purely semiotic approach.