Mur jako granica symboliczna. Funkcje przekształceń semantycznych we wspomnieniach o getcie warszawskim – próba refleksji

Abstract

Within the literary theory the category of comparison is used to describe a given phenomenon by referring it to another. It does not explain it in detail but builds on the general knowledge of one event by collating it with the other. Therefore, the main function of comparison is to create a non-existing link between what is unknown and what is well known. This stylistic device enables the author to describe one event through another, making the first one comprehensible. The author explore the process of development and fortification of the symbolic border between the “Aryan side” and the Warsaw Ghetto, which finds its linguistic expression in the style of wartime women memoires. Besides being a material and architectural border, delineated in the middle of the city, the Warsaw Ghetto wall indisputably constituted a figurative boundary. Constructed with the use of institutionalized violence, this particular barrier was symbolically strengthened by the deeply rooted dominance of the non-Jewish inhabitants of the city.