Voluntary social marginalization as a survival strategy in Polish postcommunist accounts of childhood
Voluntary social marginalization as a survival strategy in Polish postcommunist accounts of childhood

Summary/Abstract: "Unlike the postmodern hero who programmatically denies a transcendent and unified self, the characters in the Polish novels under discussion desperately aim at achieving a coherent and autonomous subjectivity." "By depriving its citizens of private spaces and the possibility of developing decision-making and responsibility-taking skills, the communist state in fact destines them for perpetual immaturity." "Most of the juvenile characters physically survive communist reality, but they emerge from their personal and lonely battle with the regime with damaged psyches and fragmented identities." "By monopolizing the patriarchal role and turning motherhood into a state duty, the communist party legitimizes its intervention in the private sphere and “frees” men and women from their traditional obligations to one another so that they can fully devote themselves and their work to the communist idea."

• Details
• Contents