Anxiety Comes After Dark. Topics of the Night in the Prose of Sylwia Chutnik

Abstract

This article is devoted to the theme of night in the prose of Sylwia Chutnik. The author focuses on discussing three variants of night landscapes. In the first one, the falling dusk is a catalyst for traumatic memories from the past. In the second variant, the theme of night accompanies an alternative life in which the characters' true "self" comes to the fore. Chutnik uses the day-night opposition here in the context of normative patterns that impose specific roles and behaviors on the characters. Night turns out to be the only time when the characters, far from public opinion, can live their lives to the fullest without fear of ostracism or social exclusion. In the third variant, night and the accompanying smoking of cigarettes on balconies becomes an experience that unites all the female characters; it is a moment when fears and concerns repressed during the day come to the fore. In this variant, the first-person narrator ("we") comes to the fore, identical with the entire female community. The narration is symbolically transformed into the internal landscape of the characters. These images, under the influence of the changing intensity of the moonlight and stars, as well as the rising fog, take on dreamlike shapes. This unreal industrial landscape also corresponds to the "dark" side of existence, which is exemplified by the "inner demons" that the heroines struggle with. The night at Chutnik's prose is conducive not only to searching for melancholic traces of life, but also to wandering along the pathless paths of human existence.