Matka, Adela i inne… Kobiety w „Sklepach cynamonowych” i w sanatorium pod klepsydrą
Mother, Adela and Others… Women in “Sklepy cynamonowe” and “Sanatorium pod Klepsydrą”

Summary/Abstract: An attempt at an analysis of Schulz’s prose in a manner accepted in women’s studies and with the application of categories used in analyses of this sort. Such an approach calls for focusing on women, their experiences, and viewpoints. In addition, the analysis demonstrates primarily that in Schulzian stories women do not exist as independent subjects but are described exclusively from a man’s vantage point (the “male gaze” category) as well as from the perspective of their sexual attraction, clothes, and appearance (including a “fragmentarisation” of the female body). Such marginalisation of women and their experiences is the outcome of the then prevailing culture, while fragments of Wiosna (Spring) indicate that Schulz was aware of cultural violence present in women’s socialisation and experiences. A dominating part of his prose contains a reflection of the small-town patriarchal world in which women were not the partners of men but persons granted a subjective, subordinate, and marginal social position. Their absence as independent subjects points to “symbolic annihilation”, described in studies on gender inequality, which consists of ignoring or at the very least belittling not merely the role, experiences, and viewpoint of women but even their social presence.

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