The Status of Anxiety (Angst) in Bolesław Prus’s The Doll: Figures of Speech, Metaphors and Places of Inderminacy

The article argues that anxiety (a form of existential Angst) is a basic mood that shapes the experiences of all the characters, including Stanisław Wokulski, in Bolesław Prus’s The Doll (1887–1889). The term occurs in the text of the novel itself both explicitly (most often as part of various phrases) and implicitly. The article focuses primarily on symbolic representations of anxiety and its suppression. This is done by means of metaphors, topoi and a system of cultural and social codes that make their appearance in the novel in a condensed form as dynamic fi gures (e.g. a stone, a shadow, or a mirror). They are also introduced by means of a juxtaposition between the experience of anxiety and attempts to cope with it, to enforce a ‘state of calm’, an illusory existential balance. In his reading of the novel the author of this article draws on Martin Heidegger’s concept of anxiety (Angst) and his distinction between authentic and inauthentic existence in Being and Time; he also draws on the latest developments in criticism, especially the so-called affective turn