Abstrakt: | The aim of the article has been to present Tamara Mortus – the
protagonist of Nocne Zwierzęta by Patrycja Pustkowiak – who exhibits
autodestructive behaviour, struggles with addiction to psychoactive substances
and with animalism manifesting itself in the lack of possibility to
fix a boundary between what is human and what is feral. In consequence,
Tamara represents a type of person who is excluded from society, called
homo sacer, devoid of human values, therefore a human-reject. Probably,
in Nocne Zwierzęta, the boundary between the human and the feral is
overstepped due to the fact that –just like an animal – Tamara was able
to pounce on her prey and kill it, but –like a human being – loses herself
in melancholic reclaimings, unceasingly experiencing loss (from the
most earthbound things to existential values, which in general cultural
opinion are elusive). Moreover, in Tamara’s life, a non-trivial role is
played by the feeling of unremitting emptiness connected mainly with
her alcoholism, and also by very strongly exposed corporeality, as well
as the impossibility of finding herself in the contemporary consumptive
world. All the above-mentioned factors make us think of Tamara as of
an empty and worthless woman, or, to put it colloquially, a “blown egg”. |