Postać Buki jako figura Obcego w wybranych powieściach o Muminkach autorstwa Tove Jansson
The Figure of Groke as the Other in Tove Jansson's Selected Moomin Novels

Author(s): Aleksandra Korczak
Subject(s): Philosophy, Social Sciences, Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Other Language Literature
Published by: Ośrodek Badawczy Facta Ficta
Keywords: xenology;tolerance;literature for children and young adults;otherness;ethics
Summary/Abstract: The moomin cycle is an unnusual prose. It is supposed to be read by children as well as the adults, however both groups will address it differently. Anna Kamienska, the first Polish moominologist, encouraged to read the Moomin books as a magnificent philosophical tractate. Many researchers define Moomin Valley as the utopia of freaks. Positive characters are tolerant, warm or at least understanding when they meet somebody different than themselves. Groke is the only exception, everybody are scared of her, and, for a long time, nobody wants to meet her—until the moment of confrontation in „Moominpappa and the Sea” that will be presented in this chapter. This special meeting with Groke displays all the signs of confronting the difference and foreignness that has been fuelled only by negative emotions of the experiencing subject. The foreigness is growing from the epistemological conditioning by fear and doubt, but it results in full understanding of the diversity that affects the image of the self as well. It appears to be the ritual which involves the process of ethical maturation and leads to create the adult identity of one of the characters, finally extracted from his family.

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