Historia pokuty. O »Solaris« Stanisława Lema
History of penance. About »Solaris« by Stanislaw Lem

Author(s): Feliks Netz
Subject(s): Polish Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: Stanisław Lem;
Summary/Abstract: The author of the article asks a following question: why did Harey, a nineteen-year-old woman, the wife [or lover] of Kris Kelvin - the astronaut-psychologist and the main hero of Solaris, a novel, which is considered a masterpiece of the science-fiction genre, committed suicide? This question includes two important aspects: psychological and structural. // The first one demands a research into the participation of Kris in the suicidal death of Harey. The second orders an analysis of the consequences of this fact for the plot course and behavior of the narrator. The above procedures will enable a statement that a moral dimension of life, the order of being decent, which is not eliminated by the great civilization leap, are the central problem of the discussed piece. In other words - the arduous search for responsibility and self-knowledge of Kris Kelvin may mean that the burden of his own guilt can be measured only in his own conscience with Harey’s suffering. This is the true sense of this intergalactic parable. // The intergalactic scenery and outfit of an astronaut mean the same as the journey up the river Congo or the fragile armor of Don Quixote. An adventure story, yes, but the very adventure is a spiritual experience here. Solaris is a novel deeply rooted in the remembrance of the Mediterranean culture, in ancient eposes, in myths (Argonauts, Orpheus and Eurydice), in the Bible (creation of Eve-Harey from the rib (consciousness, conscience) of Adam-Kris), in Immanuel Kant and Cervantes, in picarean and gothic novel, in Moby Dick by Herman Melville, in Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Sonia and Rodion), in the Freud’s psychoanalysis of a dream, in the Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim. // Solaris is based on the spirit of Joseph Conrad, as many books written by Lem are, and its basic question is: In the name of what are we supposed to be humane?

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