„És ha rikoltanék, ki hallaná meg?” (Petrás Mária életútja Diószéntől Budapestig)
“If I Screamed, Who Would Hear Me?” (The Life Story of Mária Petrás from Diószén to Budapest)

Summary/Abstract: I make the life story interview with Mária Petrás, potter and folk singer of csángó origin, available for interpretation within the coordinate system of narrative identity theories. I have taken into consideration from the start that decoding means instant re-encoding and that my analysis cannot be traced back to some lively reality. Because of that I rather looked for the organizing principle of the narrative, that is the “message” instead of inves-tigating the compatibility or the incongruities between the stories experienced and told. I looked at the message as an idea constructing the coherence and the meaning of the life story. I saw the life story as a life drama, in which the character was an enunciator of the plot and the message embedded in the plot. As a result, the message acquired a cathartic value, while the character acquired a personality determined by the plot. This way the narrative identity could be assessed from the aspect of the plot, the morality as expressed in the ac-tion created a new layer for interpretation. That is, my starting point was that the bridge between narrative identity and the story is the same as the one between personality and the plot. I call this bridge the message. My analysis focuses on the message the character constructs by organizing the events of her life into a story. I managed to understand Mária's life story by seeing it as something more than just a self-exposing storytelling of a person: rather it is a creative effort that con-structs the dignity of death in the text.

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