Dzieckiem podszyci. O niedojrzałych bohaterach Hrabala
Child-Lined: Hrabal’s Immature Characters

Summary/Abstract: This essay deals with the category of ‘immaturity’ in Bohumil Hrabal’s prose works, as juxtaposed with the corresponding aspect in the philosophy and artistic practice of Witold Gombrowicz. ‘Immature’ characters of the Czech author’s novels – including, among others: Johnny Child from I Served the King of England; Mr. Kakra and Mr. Leli from Snowdrops Festival; Miloš Pipka, grandpa Lukaš and Mr. Smacker from Closely Watched Trains – envy the mature characters, much in the manner inhabitants of central-European countries envy some ‘older’ nations. These characters usually strive for simulating to their longed-for model but eventually start to understand that one ‘ought to feel s/he is a great person’. Immaturity is a category which – in Hrabal’s concept, similar in this respect to Gombrowicz’s – a counterbalance to communistic enslavement of minds, immaturity is freedom from any convention, coercion; it is a ‘chink in the mind’, its function resembling that of humour, ironic distance.

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