Yellow Rose

The Yellow Rose (1892) is an unrivaled piece of Jókai's ancient art. The short novel evokes non-historical, non-romantic times, drawing its theme and figures from the peasant world of the time. Its characters are not heroes - simple people. At the heart of the work is one of the most complex feelings that even puts heroes to the test, love and its possible, not infrequently inevitable problem - loyalty, infidelity, jealousy, competition. Jókai draws the world of the wilderness and the wilderness figures with a reality that already points in the direction of Móricz. The story is not extraordinary: Klári, the Hungarian Carmen, the beautiful, unfaithful and flirtatious girl is the lover of two lads at the same time. Even according to the laws of life, love, and sheer, such a relationship will sooner or later culminate in drama. The two lads, the goulash and the foal, compare their strength according to the customs of Hortobágy: a duel with a stick, on horseback ... The depiction of the love triangle is not new in world and Hungarian literature. Compared to the contemporary literature and Jókai's work, however, the Yellow Rose deals with the issue with surprising openness, and in its erotic aspect it comes into contact with naturalism. It is unusual for the writer to record a situation contemporaneous with humanity in this way. The moral justice of the short novel, however, is Jókai’s loyalty to himself. The Yellow Rose thus sums up a world of writers, and at the same time it contains a new aspiration of the 20th century: the depiction of aesthetically authentic bodily love, the complexity and ambivalence of emotional life.