From a subjective topography to the national mythology : an oneiric city in Wit Szostak’s Chochoły

The article analyses the role of fantasy and the dream in Wit Szostak’s Chochoły. These motifs recur in the novel on the plot level and as the elements of the world’s construction. Seen from the main characters perspective, Kraków undergoes a fantastical metamorphosis related to the events in the man’s life - the city’s image is therefore an example of the literary representation of a private urban topography. The primacy of the latter leads to the creation (both in character’s reality as well as in his dreams) of many different Krakóws, multitude of which can be interpreted as a tool for solving biographical problems and as a metaphorical expression of coping with one’s experience of living in a metropolis which overwhelms one with its multifaceted redundancy. Furthermore, in the novel Kraków functions as a metonymy of Poland, thus it becomes a lead to actuating another way to understanding of dreams/ lethargy: the mulch dance, setting the city in the sphere of national mythology