Korale „z kropel krwi nanizane”
Necklace “z kropel krwi nanizane [Strung from Blood Drops]”

Władysław Reymont’s “Chłopi” (“Peasants”) as a Study of Passion

Summary/Abstract: The foreground of the paper is occupied by female figures. The lives of the novel’s women most vividly mirror the oppressive character of primeval community and ruthlessness of nature. As early as on the first pages of the tetralogy we read about old Agata’s leaving the village to beg her bread and get a picture of the collective scenes on the field—either of them presenting human cruelty and the bond between a man and natural world. Jagna, a changeling woman, is the central figure in the story. In this character Reymont in an innovative way mingles sexuality with apathy, egocentrism with the lack of will to survive. All that, linked to the colour symbolism used in theatrology, lead the author of the present paper to an interesting trope, namely the thesis that the figure of Jagna features Young Poland’s echo of the meanings included into Lucas Carnach the Elder’s „Melancholy I” that interpreters refer to as ‘red melancholy.’ Carnach allegorised desire. Jagna is most handsome, wealthy and dissolute. The novel sublimates and objectifies this heroine. Her marriage to an old widower, most propertied peasant in the village, becomes for her a tomb, and for the Boryna family a situation that destabilises the fixed order. Jagna, after his husband’s death, seen as a temptress, once again becomes a threat to the life of the group. She unknowingly lures suitors and remains indifferent to jealous women. She becomes a bait-woman. The villagers punish her for her individualism. The novel’s order—cyclicity and life rhythm—allows to presume that Jagna will regain her place in the group and its rules as a young woman in a patriarchal society cannot belong to anyone. Anyone’s woman body will always be a subject of conquest, and adaptation is a condition of survival. The author of the paper stresses the fact that women are most determined guardians of patriarchal order, and their cruel actions towards Jagna clearly stick to supraethical order of nature.

• Details
• Contents