Familiar spaces of absurdity Cover Image

Swojskie przestrzenie absurdu
Familiar spaces of absurdity

Author(s): Brygida Pawłowska-Jądrzyk
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: Franz Kafka; The Metamorphosis; grotesque prose; absurdity; artistic imagination; depicted space; parabola; symbol

Summary/Abstract: The subject of analysis in the article is The Metamorphosis (1915) of Franz Kafka. The author attempts to capture various aspects of the Kafka space phenomenon in the context of the functioning of the wall / ceiling motif in this probably the most famous narrative of world literature. At the same time, the researcher treats Kafka’s work as an unsurpassed pattern of artistic scenery shaping: namely, which plasticity and concrete motifs and spatial relations make a kind of residuum of sublime, symbolic meanings, realizing fully only through the imagination of the recipient, in the course of contemplative reading and accompanying it aesthetic experience. The argument leads to the conclusion that in his parabolic, absurd, full of understatement (and yet surprisingly specific) piece of work, Kafka does not reveal the sense of the story of a hero transformed into an arthropod, but allows us to experience this sense and presage it – as the content of our own lives.

  • Issue Year: 59/2020
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 29-44
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Polish
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