HOW GOMBROWICZ PLAYS WITH SYMBOLS: 'WEDDING' FROM AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

• Authors: Kepinski M.
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The author analyzes the ways in which Witold Gombrowicz played with traditional culture in his play 'Wedding'. Gombrowicz polemizes with traditional culture, by using aspects of the grotesque, reversal of traditional meanings and depreciation of symbols, as well as with its symbolic spheres, such as home, king and marriage. Gombrowicz creates a world that is deprived of a center, the eternal 'axis mundi'. The king does not symbolize the embodiment of a cosmic tree, nor is he holy, nor powerful. His office is only a social and historical cultural convention. Home is not the foundation of a community. The fate that Gombrowicz prepared for his protagonist shows how man is helpless in the face of the reality that surrounds him, including the human one, and in the face of the void of a universe deprived of traditional (ethical and ontological) points of reference. For Gombrowicz, a literary drama - or more generally, art - is a place to search for cultural dimensions outside the traditional norms. This search is permeated with a sense of the tragedy of human existence, just as in all of this author's works.

Keywords

EN

GOMBROWICZ WITOLD; MODERN CULTURE; TRADITIONAL CULTURE

Discipline

• ANTHROPOLOGY: ANTHROPOLOGY

• Publisher: Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN
• Journal: Kultura i Społeczeństwo
• Year: 2005
• Volume: 49
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 43-67
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Kepinski M.

• M. Kepinski, Uniwersytet Lódzki, ul. Narutowicza 65, 90-131 Lódz, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

06PLAAAA01523353