Między „swoim” a „obcym”: figura pośrednika w powieściach „Świat Rocannona” Ursuli K. Le Guin i „Pan Lodowego Ogrodu” Jarosława Grzędowicza
Between the “self” and the “other:” The figure of the middleman in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Rocannon’s World and Jarosław Grzędowicz’s The Lord of the Ice Garden

Summary/Abstract: The article presents an analysis of Stephen Greenblatt’s figure of the middleman read through the lenses of Bernhard Waldenfels’s notion of “the third” and attributed to a comparative reading of two science fantasy novels: Ursula K. Le Guin’s Rocannon’s World, considered a hallmark of the genre, and Jarosław Grzędowicz’s tetralogy The Lord of the Ice Garden. In both these works the protagonist engages in the role of a middleman, which allows for pointing at specific similarities in the storytelling, creation of the two worlds, and a symbolic “gate” between them. Nevertheless, it is the identity created within the sphere of the intermundium that remains here the most prominent issue, as it belongs neither to the world abandoned by “the third,” nor to the one where “the third” finally finds him/herself.

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