Obraz ekonomiczny wsi w powieści W. Orkana Komornicy

Abstract

The economic image of the world presented by W. Orkan in Komornicy (The Tenants) was analysed from the holistic perspective (the notion of the whole, its structure, interrelations among its component parts) inspired by the literary text. “Górska wioszczyzna” (mountain rurality) was depicted in it with its isolation from the outer world by the mountains and with the social structure composed of tenants, cottage-workers and the Tatra mountains farmers. The position within that structure was a direct consequence of the accumulated property whose shortage caused the fall to the lowest rank and whose excess determined a high status in the community. The social and economic stratification was connected with the necessity to co-operate of those who needed to work in order to survive with those who imposed their own conditions of work and pay. Both groups depended on weather and the cycle of agricultural jobs: soil cultivation, timber collection, flax production, etc. Economic conditions played an important role in the lives of literary characters by creating a context for the plot, serving as criteria of evaluation of the type “to have means to be” (marked text). The presentation of this micro-world was done with the implementation of thematic vocabulary taken from the dialect.