Pan/i Detektyw. Tożsamość protagonisty w grach typu Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure

Tematem artykułu jest sprawdzenie, w jaki sposób gry typu Hidden Objects Puzzle Adventure (HOPA, funkcjonujące w Polsce również jako „ukryte obiekty”) odpowiadają na kwestię ustalenia tożsamości protagonisty. Gry tego typu, angażujące gracza przede wszystkim poprzez koncentrowanie się na zabawach logicznych, nie pogłębiają zwykle przesadnie wątków psychologicznych czy socjologicznych. Tym istotniejsza jest rola grywalnego bohatera, którego oczami gracz patrzy na świat przedstawiony. Na podstawie omówienia dwóch serii gier, Mystery Case Files oraz Grim Tales, a także kontekstowego przywołania innych produkcji tego typu tekst ukazuje sposoby prezentowania (zwykle niedookreślonej) tożsamości protagonisty i wynikające z tego konsekwencje.Błaszkowska examines the way in which games such as Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure (HOPA) determine the protagonist’s identity. These games engage the player mostly through a focus on logistical problems, and rarely delve into psychological or sociological issues. This foregrounds the role of the game’s protagonist, through whose eyes the player sees the gameworld. Błaszkowska discusses two series – Mystery Case Files and Grim Tales – and contextualizes them with similar productions. This allows her to reveal how the protagonist’s usually vague identity is represented as well as the consequences of such representations

“You are that”. The Role of Second-Person Narrative in Paweł Paliński’s Novel Polaroids from Doom

Niniejszy artykuł jest rozszerzoną, poprawioną i uzupełnioną o głębsze rozważania na temat narracji drugoosobowej wersją rozdziału zawartego w mojej rozprawie doktorskiej "Porządki nierzeczywistości. Koherencja światów przedstawionych w polskiej fantastyce współczesnej" obronionej w roku 2020 na Uniwersytecie Jagiellońskim.This article is an analysis of Paweł Paliński’s novel Polaroidy z zagłady (Polaroids from Doom) in the context of its use of second-person narrative. Paliński’s work describes a post-apocalyptic world where people have turned into mindless, lethargic creatures. This is the reality in which the sole survivor of the apocalypse and the main heroine of the story, Teresa Szulc, struggles to persevere. The novel approaches the topics of returning to a normal life after a crisis and human solitude in a particularly interesting way. The main lens through which the novel is examined is through Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytical theory, whose application enables this interpretation of Polaroidy… as a story about the disintegration of the symbolic order. Themes that are crucial to understanding this aspect of the narrative include: the permanent absence of the other person, the lack of an external perspective on oneself, and the nonexistence of potential spectators. Teresa Szulc feels hauntingly lonely, because no one can see her — and those are the circumstances in which she has to ask herself who she actually is. Because of this, the use of the second-person narrative seems especially thought-provoking. The heroine is indeed alone in this world, and yet someone still speaks to her; the article is an attempt to answer not only the question of the speaker’s identity, but — even more importantly — of the role of such literary strategy and the way in which it affects both the main character and the reader

The theatre of summer in the Ice City and giant lunar composter : gardens in Jacek Dukaj’s Lód and Molly Brown’s The Selene Gardening Society

The Theatre of Summer in the Ice City and giant lunar composter - gardens in Jacek Dukaj’s Lód and Molly Brown’s The Selene Gardening Society This article compares two visions of gardens: in Lód, novel of Jacek Dukaj, and in The Selene Gardening Society, short story written by Molly Brown. These two visions are completely different; Dukaj presents the Ice City, which is eternal winter in. There is a giant greenhouse - Intiendantskij Sad - which is the place of beautiful, warm summer. In the Brown’s story citizens of small town want to build a special kind of a cannon to shoot all of the world’s garbage at the Moon. Both of texts are analysed especially through the categories of nature and culture and group identity

Boundaries of the symbolic in Polish fantastic literature

The aim of this article is to analyse examples of polish fantastic literature: Eden by Stanisław Lem, Gniazdo światów by Marek Huberath and Lód, Perfekcyjna niedoskonałość and Wroniec by Jacek Dukaj in the context of three terms created by Jacques Lacan: The Real, The Symbolic and The Imaginary. The main purpose of this paper is to show that borders between The Symbolic and two other registers are one of primary themes in this type of literature. This border can be indicated by various literary devices, pertaining to plots, settings, style etc. In aforementioned books - because of their genre affiliation - borders between The Symbolic and The Real/The Imaginary are suggested to the reader by presentation of such topics as: journey to new planets or new worlds, time travels, traumatic events; in these situations characters must recap theirs perceptions and well-known rules of the world

Życie po śmierci świata. Postapokalipsa w „Głowie Kasandry” Marka Baranieckiego i „Starości aksolotla” Jacka Dukaja

This is a critical reading of two Polish science-fiction novels of the post-Apocalypse subgenre, Cassandra’s Head by Marek Baraniecki and The Old Axolotl by Jacek Dukaj, with the help of concepts borrowed from the philosophical toolkit of Jacques Lacan. Each of the two books envisages an apocalyptic catastrophe and its consequences as well as the subsequent attempts to rebuild human civilization. The action in either novel is shaped by tensions between the Symbolic and the Real. The latter, though suppressed and shut out, keeps resurfacing, usually when it is least expected, leaving an indelible marks in the life of the survivors. An analysis of the handling of this conflict in the two novels offers a number of insights into the way these two fundamental modes (or, Lacanian orders) of human perception are integrated into the worlds of post-Apocalyptic fiction

The unbearable heaviness of contact : the communication with cosmic strangeness in science fiction

The aim of this paper is to present three Polish science fiction novels - Solaris (Stanisław Lem), Arsenał (Marek Oramus) and Światło cieni (Rafał Dębski) - with particular emphasis on one of the most important science fiction themes: contact with aliens. Presented interpretation of these texts (based on philosophical and anthropological theories of alienation) prove that sometimes the "first contact" may only be a metaphor for a contact with Strangeness itself

Vampirism - illness - metaphor

The purpose of this article is to link a vampire in literature and culture of the disease and its cultural connotations. The author first examines the medical context, and then compares the vampires with images of people suffering from tuberculosis, cancer and AIDS, and draws attention to the many similarities. The article analyzes the classic novel about vampires (e.g. Carmilla by J.S. Le Fanu, Dracula by M. Shelley) and books of the twentieth century

How long is it before the newspaper in the fantasy world blushes?

Strategies based on the use of fragments coming from books, newspapers or magazines seem to be something quite usual in fantastic literature. Their presence in eg. science fiction may be connected with the necessity to explain the rules governing a created world and to present this world to the characters (and readers) meticulously. The aim of this paper is to analyse the situations in which intertextual references relate to the texts being the elements of academic/scientific or popular science discourse and existing only in the created world, in his internal reality. Presented analysis, based on the examples from novels and short stories written by Jacek Dukaj, Marek S. Huberath and Andrzej Sapkowski, shows some possible function of these techniques