About Heroes "Imbued with life" in the Works of Julia Fiedorczuk and Daina Opolskaitė

Abstract

This article is devoted to the work of Julia Fiedorczuk and Daina Opolskaitė, in particular to two collections of short stories: Bliskie kraje (2016) and Piramidy dni (2019). Both authors favor short narrative forms, implementing the classic genre pattern of the short story with a dominant concise plot, often with a surprising ending. Both authors look at everyday life, recording the changes that their characters struggle with, often experiencing a sense of the world falling apart. Their works are immersed in everyday life, and the characters resemble contemporary everymen. In this essay, I will be interested in one motif that seems to be common to Fiedorczuk’s and Opolskaitė’s short stories, namely the phenomenon of imbuement with life. This problem in culture was often identified with a group of seniors who, after many years of work, sometimes not reconciled with their own old age. Interestingly, this problem in the workm of the aforementioned authors affects increasingly younger generations. In the prose of Fiedorczuk and Opolskaitė, the characters experience a sense of stagnation and emptiness, accompanied by a loss of interest in life and emotional depression. The experience of being imbued with life is combined with a loss of a sense of meaning in one’s own existence. Both authors emphasize that in the modern world it is extremely difficult to build lasting bonds, which is undoubtedly influenced by the dynamic pace of existence, which is accompanied by deepening social isolation. It is therefore not surprising that the authors are interested in the inner lives of the characters, subconsciously longing for closer relationships with other people.