METAFORY PAMĚTI
METAPHERS OF MEMORY

Summary/Abstract: Many of the exiled authors seem to be obsessed with the phenomenon of memory: some of them retain a detached, ironic and independent attitude towards their past experience, some of them, which is typical of nostalgists, are prone to mistaking – even tragically – the past for the future. Sylvie Richterová is one of those who do not resist the attraction of the past: however, she finds it possible to cope with it by transforming it into a number of metaphers and images (especially spatial ones) expressing a variety of experience and recollection. In the episode “Věčná bedna” (“The Eternal Box”, a chapter of Slabikář otcovského jazyka) an antique piece of furniture that remains a part of the family history becomes a symbolic item as well, referring to a no more existing home-made transport box crafted in an elaborate way by the father of the exiled narrator. Thus the “eternal box” as a double metapher of love and memory establishes a connection between father and daughter, between two separated worlds, between the past and the present.

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