Csató, PéterBoros, Mariann2013-06-242013-06-242008-04-152013-06-24http://hdl.handle.net/2437/171227Authority is one of the strongest elements connecting the concepts and themes mentioned so far: history, truth, fiction, identity, love, possession, sexuality, desire, obsession. All these themes are built up of narratives, of stories. Of narratives that play around with the notion of authority as much as they play around with American culture and society of which they are born from. Through Roth’s novels it is possible to reconsider the automatic perspectives on life, to discover all the contingency there is to it. This paper attempts to show how two of his novels, The Human Stain and The Dying Animal achieve this, what tools and methods they operate with, and how all these different themes come together in the end to aid a global apprehension of contingency in culture, where authority is unstable so that it allows for the multiple interpretation of the themes Roth discusses in his work.38enAmerican fictionnarrativesdiplomamunkaDEENK Témalista::Irodalomtudományip