Searching for self-identity: A challenge and a task. Fuga of Wit Szostak

Abstract

Wit Szostak’s fugue is built of eight stories about the fate of Bartłomiej Chochoł. Each of the scenes of the characters’ fate is presented in a separate chapter or two. The chapters are numbered with Roman numerals, sometimes also with letters (a, b). This work deals with the issue of identity and we get to know different faces of Bartłomiej Chochoł: the last king of Poland (Fugue I), a companion (Fuga II), an observer and chronicler (Fuga IIIa and Fuga IIIb), a melancholic (Fuga IV), a pensioner (Fuga Va and Fuga Vb), a successful man (Fuga VI), a loner and an old man (Fugue VII and Fuga VIII-unfinished). Based on the types of identity specified by Katarzyna Waszyńska (individual, national, social, group and cultural identities), the character of the protagonist-narrator is discussed