ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 analyzes the transformative potential for reader change in Witold Gombrowicz’s novels and short stories. Gombrowicz’s fictions are deliberately provocative. They attack our established ideas, particularly those pertaining to our notions of maturity and immaturity. Gombrowicz shares with Kundera the goal of repelling absolute values, apodictic convictions, and the drive for closure. But whereas Kundera’s fictions inspect, compare, and relativize, Gombrowicz’s narratives disrupt and agitate. They are about conformism and ways of subverting it. Their narrative style is more confrontational and sarcastic than Kundera’s, with plenty of absurdities and paradoxes. Unlike Kundera, whose novels stimulate calm reflection and playful exploration of ideas, Gombrowicz’s fictions urge us to defy normative practices and ways of thinking. Their incendiary themes and biting style of writing are designed to unsettle our social conventions and unhinge our personal beliefs.
