Połknięty czas. Stare kobiety w dramatach Tadeusza Różewicza

• Authors: Guderian-Czaplińska Ewa

Title variants

EN

Swallowed-up Time. Old Women in Tadeusz Różewicz’s Dramas

Abstracts

EN

The article is an overview of old women portrayals in dramas by Tadeusz Różewicz with the intent of establishing how the image of the title character of "The Old Woman Broods", considered to be the turning point in the playwright’s oeuvre in respect of this motif, was shaped. In earlier plays, old women are mostly housewives, functioning as substitute mothers and feeders who affirmatively support other people’s lives. Gradually, however, images of old age systematically pushed away from the social field of vision begin to appear ("Gone Out" and "The Little Garden of Eden"), emphasised by their subversive variants that portray oldwomen as paradoxically powerful, as in "Metamorphoses". In his subsequent works, Różewicz abandons stereotypical images of womanhood in favour of the increasing independence of female characters, and the Old Woman constitutes their mostradical variant as she is, unexpectedly, the one most fiercely attached to the fullness of being. References to Gaia, the primal goddess, have been made clear byhow the inside and the outside, absorbing and discharging (giving birth), and the qualities of youth and old age are combined and mixed in her resulting in a vision of a peculiar monster who – for her exceptionality and ability to set her own rules against all established norms (which are abided by the other characters even in the face of the imminent end of the world) – is the hope for new life. Finally, however, the Old Woman’s body becomes a sign of degeneration, signifying the end of civilisation and culture: on Różewicz’s diagnosis, despair and death turn out to be stronger then the urge to live and breed.

Keywords

EN

Polish theatre; Polish drama; theatre studies; Tadeusz Różewicz

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Sztuki PAN
• Journal: Pamiętnik Teatralny
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 62
• Issue: 3-4(247-248)
• Pages: 105-118

Contributors

author

Guderian-Czaplińska Ewa

• Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu

References

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