Stan wojenny w doświadczeniu Anglika. Interpretacja opowiadania Profesor Andrews w Warszawie Olgi Tokarczuk

Abstract

The debut of Olga Tokarczuk fell at the end of the Polish People’s Republic when her artistic personality as a writer was shaping. Her first works, published in newspapers, were both short pieces of prose and pieces of poetry. Tokarczuk depicted martial law, which she spent in Warsaw studying and dealing with mentally disabled patients, in her short story Professor Andrews Goes to Warsaw. It shows in a grotesque way the unfortunate arrival of an English professor of psychology in Warsaw right on the eve of martial law. For the psychologist the streets of Warsaw become a hellish labyrinth he is unable to leave. The labyrinth-like quality of the totalitarian state is the feature reminding of Orwell’s Nineteen Nighty-Four and thus enables the analysis of Tokarczuk’s short story in the context of Orwell’s novel.