Sońka Ignacego Karpowicza jako antybaśń o traumie

Abstract

The trauma of Sońka Biała - the heroine of Ignacy Karpowicz's novel - is not a subject of gradation. Father rapes her, brothers mishandle her, she falls in love with the SS officer, her child is killed, her family is killed, neighbors are dead - splintings of the Second World War, reach even Podlasie countryside. None of these experiences can be considered as more or less traumatic. Emotions associated with them are inexpressible. Meanwhile, the emotions are all what was left for Sońka. Not processed and not experienced - they bedevil heroine in the eternal, anti-fairy tale that she has made herself. Multilevel personal story - Sońka's words, the memory of Igor, who listened to Sońka and told her life again, his tory revival of the art of theater; finally: closure in the frames of novels - saves and kills the emotions associated with traumatic experiences. Karpowicz makes the novel similar to a fairy tale, its determinants are obvious: talking animals or "wonder" rescuing the heroine. Using the findings made by Bruno Bettelheim concerning fairy tales and its importance for solving emotional conflicts, the author asks and attempts to answer what is lost and what is rescued by a fairy tale - or rather anti-fairy tale.