Can Love Be Learned? On Tibor Déry’s Short Story Love
Can Love Be Learned? On Tibor Déry’s Short Story Love

Summary/Abstract: The paper interprets Tibor Déry’s 1956 short story Love as a story of relearning emo¬tions. It examines the moments in the narrative of the text that reveal the continuous change in the narrator’s perception of B. In the course of the story, B. gradually re¬gains control over his senses, and in the last section of the short story, the reader follows the protagonist’s attempt to reactivate his feelings for his long-seen wife. We argue that there is a tension between the experience of emotions and their inexpress¬ibility. From this point of view, the short story does not give an optimistic picture of the future prospects of B. and his wife. Our approach can be considered unusual, since over the past decades interpreters have primarily emphasized the public-performative function of Love, with less attention paid to the sophisticated workings of the text’s narrative.

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