Etnolog w podróży... wirtualnej (7) Transgresja wobec tragedii, śmiech przeciwko śmierci
Transgression and Death, Laughter versus Death

Summary/Abstract: The author is working on a text about comical transgressions in culture, entitled Niepoważność; the published article is a fragment. One of the mourners attending a funeral of an English soldier is the deceased’s best friend, dressed in a bright yellow summer frock and pink knee socks. This costume is connected with a promise made by the two men on the battlefield: of one of them were to perish then the other would dress in this way for the funeral. The ethnologist places the event within a wider cultural context, not satisfied with a psychological explanation. It is precisely the anthropologist who can decipher in assorted ways the symbolic content of the funeral transgression: in an individual case he should perceive despair and rebellion, while a collective act should be interpreted as an expression of the state of death, its acceptance and overcoming.

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