Między kobietą, andreidą a Bogiem. "Ewa jutra" Villiersa de l’Isle-Adama

Abstract

The aim of the article is to present various interpretations of the novel written by Auguste Villiers d’Isle-Adam Tomorrow’s Eve, especially those related to its main character – andreid (fr.andréide) in other words an ideal woman. The first part of the discussion reconstructs the history of the possibility of creating an animated female being – This thinking goes back to the roots of European culture, in particular the myth of Pygmalionand Galatea, is associated with the legend of a mechanical girl created by Descartes, and came to be especially popular in the nineteenth-century literature, best illustrated byTomorrow’s Eve, Philosophy, especially the mechanicism of Julien Offray de la Mettrie, was also important in the development of the concept of the artificial man. However, the article points out that the title of his main work, Man a Machine, is often taken too literally. In the analytical discussion that follows, the important fractures revealedin Villiers d’Isle-Adam’s vision of the andreid are pointed out, includingin particular the problem of whether the act was accomplished solely by means of the forces of science or whether it was supernaturalin nature, as well as the significance, in the plot as a whole and especially in the ending, of the presence or absence of God and his justice.