The Narrator’s Identity and the Pursuit of Trespassing Boundaries in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

The article focuses on the problem of the narrator’s and the author’s identity in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. According to Charles Taylor’s philosophy of subjectivity in order to have an identity we have to know what kind of good we would like to fulfil in our life. Such an orientation to the good (an orientation in moral space) and an endeavour after realizing this main value defines us as ourselves. In the paper it is argued that the pursuit of trespassing boundaries is constitutive to the narrator’s identity in the novel as it is such kind of an aim without which they could not have been themselves. It is also the key to the author’s identity. Through the medium of the stories of her male story-tellers she confronts her own demons, explores the territories of the subconscious beyond the bounds of understanding and depicts her struggle with the limitations she overcame as a woman in a patriarchal society and as a person who invented a new literary genre – science-fiction literature

Myth and the Schellingian Notion of Mythological Consciousness as a Basis of Narrative and Narrative Identity

The paper concerns the problem of the mythological origins of narrative and narrative identity. Referring to works of such narrative researchers as D. Carr, B. Williams and K. Atkins and to F.W.J. Schelling’s conception of a mythological consciousness, I prove that 1. ina narration – personal as well as collective (in a tale which constitutes given culture) – the type of necessity is similar to that which occurs in nature as well as in mythology (its higher potential) and which is responsible for a perfect story coherence that is unavailable in normal life and characteristic rather of art than of a usual experience; 2. although our personal narratives are shaped on the basis of a collective myth, they assume a first-person, reflective perspective, and this is the reason why an individual may in spite of such to some extent “untrue” origins keep personal freedom and autonomy

Narracja i tekst literacki jako źródło samowiedzy i samopoznania

Der Artikel betrifft die Erkenntnisfunktion der Literatur. Es wird gezeigt, dass uns die literarischen Narrationen aufgrund ihrer erzählerischen mimetischen Funktion ermöglichen, uns mit fiktionalen Helden zu identifizieren. Auf diese Weise erweitern sie unseren Erkenntnishorizont und beeinflussen unsere eigenen biografischen Erzählungen. In diesem Prozess gewinnen wir die Möglichkeit, über unsere Autonarrationen nachzudenken, sie aufs Neue zu erzählen und uns zu erkundigen, wer wir wirklich sind und was unser Selbst ausmacht. Um den Beweis dafür zu erbringen, beziehe ich mich einerseits auf die ethische Kritik von Marta Nussbaum und Wayne C. Booth, andererseits auf den Entwurf der narrativen Identität von Paul Ricoeur, Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, Marya Schlechtman und David de Grazia. Ich argumentiere damit, dass ein solcher Austausch zwischen der Identität des Lesers und der Identität der fiktionalen Gestalt möglich ist, weil beide einen narrativen Charakter haben.The paper concerns the cognitive function of literature. I show that literary stories, because of their narrative and mimetic structure, enable us to identify with fictitious heroes, and thus become able to widen our cognitive as well as moral horizon, and to influence our own life-stories. In such a process, we receive the opportunity to re-tell and re-think our personal narration and in such a way learn who we really are and what it means to be ourselves. In order to demonstrate this, I refer to Martha Nussbaum‘s and Wayne C. Booth‘s ethical criticism on the one hand, and to Paul Ricoeur’s, Alasdair MacIntyre’s, Charles Taylor’s, Marya Schechtman’s and David DeGrazia’s theory of narrative identity on the other. I argue that such a mutual exchange between the reader’s identity and a fictional character is possible as both of them have a narrative structure and are sort of a story.Artykuł dotyczy poznawczej funkcji literatury. Pokazuję, że ze względu na swoją narracyjną, mimetyczną strukturę literackie narracje umożliwiają nam utożsamianie się z fikcyjnymi bohaterami, a w ten sposób poszerzają nasz horyzont poznawczy i wpływają na nasze własne opowieści biograficzne. W tym procesie zyskujemy możliwość przemyślenia i opowiedzenia na nowo naszych autonarracji i dowiedzenia się, kim naprawdę jesteśmy i co to znaczy być sobą. Aby to udowodnić, odwołuję się do krytyki etycznej Marty Nussbaum i Wayne`a C. Bootha z jednej strony oraz do koncepcji tożsamości narracyjnej Paula Ricoeura, Alasdair`a MacIntyre`a, Charlesa Taylora, Maryi Schechtman i Davida De Grazii z drugiej. Argumentuję, że taka wzajemna wymiana pomiędzy tożsamością czytelnika i tożsamością fikcyjnej postaci jest możliwa, ponieważ obydwie one mają charakter narracyjny