The Role and Significance of Silence in Władysław Reymont’s "Pilgrimage to Jasna Góra"

Abstract

This article discusses the role and significance of silence in Władysław Reymont’s Pilgrimage to Jasna Góra. Silence holds an important position in the Nobel laureate’s work, with these motifs being present as early as in the artist’s first major text. In Pilgrimage, silence is primarily characterized in a positive light, conveying a sense of importance and stability. It is an integral part of the sacred and the natural world. In opposition to silence, we find human and civilizational sounds. Importantly, the destruction of this positive state of the world is always caused by human beings and their actions. Reymont also uses silence to characterize the pilgrims themselves. Here, the semantic connotation shifts: sounds become an expression of authenticity, while quietness and silence signify secrecy and distrust. The article also analyzes the circumstances of the text’s creation, including the censorship in force in the Congress Kingdom of Poland, as well as elements that point to the writer’s deliberate strategy, such as self-censorship and the omission of certain experiences and facts.