Zmagania z pojęciem ofiary. Czarodziejka z Kastylii jako nowela wiktymologiczna
Struggling with the Concept of Victim. The Witch of Castille as the Victimological Long Short Story

Author(s): Karol Samsel
Subject(s): Cultural history, Studies of Literature, Pre-WW I & WW I (1900 -1919), Interwar Period (1920 - 1939), WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), Post-War period (1950 - 1989), Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Sholem Asch; The Witch of Castille; Quo vadis; Heart of Darkness; Paul IV; Girard; Jung; "axiological metabolism"
Summary/Abstract: In this study, discussing the previous state of research on The Witch of Castille, I give my own voice in the debate upon the theory of evil inscribed in Sholem Asch’s long short story. I express doubt about defining the text as "Jewish Quo vadis" and consider if the writer’s efforts to create the moral world of Paul IV’s Rome should not be compared (rather) with the effort of Joseph Conrad constructing the axiosphere of Heart of Darkness. To prove Asch’s distance towards the ethics of Sienkiewicz’s heroes and, on the contrary, closeness – towards Conrad’s characters, I analyze The Witch of Castille in the light of (1) the mysterial-sacrificial topic of René Girard, (2) the theory of symbols and archetypes of Carl Gustav Jung, (3) Tadeusz Kobierzycki’s "axiological metabolism", (4) Ernst Cassirer’s symbol-forming practices, (5) Shakespearean intertextuality of Asch’s long short story as well as (5) the theory of Kantean’s das radikal Böse, and among the other issues – (6) I also juxtapose the Conradian Leopold’s Kongo and Aschian Paul IV’s Piazzo di Judea.

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