Cathartic Paths of the Gothic in Ciemno, prawie noc by Joanna Bator

Agnieszka Łowczanin

doi:10.18778/2083-2931.14.06

Authors

Agnieszka Łowczanin University of Lodz https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6994-4593

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-2931.14.06

Keywords:

Joanna Bator, the Gothic, new urban Gothic, trauma, catharsis

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate how the Gothic is employed in Joanna Bator’s novel Ciemno, prawie noc [Dark, Almost Night]. I frame my analysis on the author’s assertion that “Poland is a horror,” exploring firstly how the Gothic serves as an aesthetic framework that intertwines different time periods and family histories within the narrative. Secondly, I examine its role in grounding these temporal layers within the specific geographical location of Wałbrzych, which itself assumes a villain-like presence in the novel. I argue that Bator adapts the Gothic tradition for cathartic purposes, particularly in narrating transgenerational traumas. This approach enables the expression and understanding of a fractured past, potentially fostering a process of healing.

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Author Biography

Agnieszka Łowczanin, University of Lodz

Agnieszka Łowczanin is Associate Professor in the Department of British Literature and Culture at the University of Lodz, Poland. She has written on novelists of the 18^th and early 19^th centuries, focusing especially on the politics and poetics of the Gothic. She co-edited two volumes of essays: All that Gothic (2014) and Gothic Peregrinations: The Unexplored and Re-explored Territories (2019) and is the author of A Dark Transfusion: The Polish Literary Response to Early English Gothic. Anna Mostowska Reads Ann Radcliffe (2018). Her current project is an edited collection on Polish Gothic.

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