ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 discusses Witold Gombrowicz’s provocative attitude toward literary writing in his diaries, letters, and other personal and autobiographical texts. Although these are nominally nonfictional genres, Gombrowicz often transposes facts and introduces elements that are creative, even imaginary. Instead of clearly articulating his views and representing himself in a mimetic fashion by relaying who he is and what he did, he uses techniques of self-distancing and self-repositioning. He is concerned less with self-description and introspective self-analysis than with self-provocation and flagrant self-manipulation. His ambition is to stir passionate reactions because the very idea of settled ways, his own above all, is abhorrent to him. The way he writes about himself is meant to debunk his beliefs, draw out his artificialities, and so fuel change. These autobiographical texts are not a record of who Gombrowicz is, but a tool of shaping who he becomes. These provocative self-manipulations solicit transformative reactions from the reader as well. Since we are often direct addressees of Gombrowicz’s statements, we are encouraged to identify our own habits and artificialities.
