(Un)Bound: Contemporary Pop-Cultural Interpretations of Women in Miroslav Krleža’s Novels

The women Miroslav Krleža writes about are often divided into binary oppositions, and this division tends to be either a dismissal of their importance to Krleža’s narratives or a comment on his supposed inability to write believable female characters. While this type of (feminist) criticism was and is necessary to draw attention to positions women occupied within the Croatian literary canon, contemporary readings of Krleža should also be informed by the language and concepts used outside of the academic theoretical framework. This text relies on such concepts and tries to bridge the gap between a small, but significant part of the Croatian literary canon and contemporary pop-cultural dialogue which mostly takes place on the Internet. By borrowing terms coined online (Manic Pixie Dream Girl) and applying Audrey Wollen’s Sad Girl Theory in the analysis of Melanija Krvarić, Jadviga Jesenska and Ana Borongay, the text tries to affirm what is usually seen as mundane, trivial or too intense. Pop-cultural criticism offers new ways to articulate why these characters can be far more than femme fatales or “angels in the house”, as well as how their everyday activities can and must be read as crucial parts of their identities. Thus the text functions as a simple proposal – if popular culture has tools we can use to save Melanija Krvarić from being an intruder in her own story, why not use them