Ester Nelly Abuter Ananías - Fachbereich Philosophie und ...

Jennifer Croft ( Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, u sa )
Th e Organization of Aggression in Gombrowicz’s Accounts of the Emigre
Experience and in the Stories of a Local Counterpart, Jorge Luis Borges
My paper is an examination of the ways in which Witold Gombrowicz organized his
experience of the rift between his culture of origin ( that is, Poland ) and his adopted
culture ( that is, Argentina ) in staging in his novels scenes of ritual violence, most
especially duels. Of key importance is the duel between the embodiment of Polish
tradition and the embodiment of youthful South American debauchery in Trans-
Atlantyk, Gombrowicz’s semi-autobiographical novel about his partly forced stay in
Buenos Aires. As context for Gombrowicz’s particular expression of aggression and
self-defense, I provide in my paper a supplemental account of duels in the stories of
Gombrowicz’s local counterpart and arch-nemesis, Jorge Luis Borges, a fi ctionalized
version of whom appears in an earlier duel of Trans-Atlantyk. Keeping in mind the
central role played in Gombrowicz’s work by the fact of his being ( and in many ways
wishing to remain ) an outsider in the Americas, I contrast the approach of each writer
to ritual and the fi gure of the self as expressed in the process of pitt ing one character
against another. What constitutes “honorable” in an immediately post-World War ii
society ? What does “tradition” even matt er in a society so seemingly separate from
continental Europe ? I argue that for all their diff erences, each author is struggling in
these scenes of one-to-one violence with much more than just nostalgia for customs
lost and enthusiasm for trends to come.
Email jennifer-croft @northwestern.edu
Section Traveling in Dictatorships : Colonialism, Caudillismo, Fascism, Communism
Panel 25
Date July 28
Time 16 :45
Location k l 29/208