Growing up in Molnar's novel The Paul Street Boys

Abstract

This paper explores the reading of a classic work of children's literature, Ferenc Molnár’s The Paul Street Boys (1906), focusing on the analysis and interpretation of the meanings embedded in its symbolic construction of childhood. The reading is informed by an effort to interrogate the positions and interpretative capacities of both child and adult readers, whose experiences and perspectives are layered within the text. Drawing on theoretical frameworks concerning the ambivalence of children's literature (as articulated by scholars such as Shavit and Nodelman), the study examines various forms of doubling within the novel’s system of narrative mediation. Particular attention is given to the narrative strategies, the portrayal of childhood, the characterization of the protagonist, and the spatial dynamics in which the narrative unfolds—elements that emerge as central to the analytical focus. The historical context of the novel’s publication in 1906—marked by social upheaval, shifting paradigms, and the looming shadow of the Great War further situates the narrative within a broader framework. Within this context, the novel's representation of childhood framed by themes of loss, sacrifice, and tragedy is analyzed in order to uncover its deeper implications.