Doors and Windows in László Krasznahorkai’s First Two Novels

Abstract This study examines the motif of doors—and, to a lesser extent, windows—in László Krasznahorkai’s novels Satantango and The Melancholy of Resistance, situating them within the broader framework of media theory and relational philosophy. Doors, understood as physical thresholds, symbolic interfaces, power machines, and dramaturgical devices, reveal how spatial, social, metaphysical and even stylistic dimensions interconnect in these works. By analyzing their multiple functions—as operative mechanisms regulating passage, establishing differences and as metaphors of poor existential situation of characters—the paper offers a new interpretation of Krasznahorkai’s novels: it conceptualizes doors as active participants in the network of human and non-human relations that constitute the author’s fictional universe. Furthermore, drawing on Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory rather than Object-Oriented Ontology, the study argues that a narratology of objects should be grounded in relational rather than essentialist premises.