At the Beginning There Was the Carnival. About Karnawał, czyli pierwsza żona Adama (The Carnival, or Adam’s First Wife) by Sławomir Mrożek

Abstract

The article is an attempt at an interpretation of Sławomir Mrożek’s last play entitled Karnawał, czyli pierwsza żona Adama. The author emphasizes that the play was written in exile, in Nice, although the idea of writing it was conceived much earlier – in the 1990’s, when the writer stayed in Mexico. Karnawał for her is another, perhaps the most obvious proof that Mrożek was liberated from his Polish obsessions and directed his attention to more universal issues. She focuses her interpretation on Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the carnival and carnivalization of the world. She shows that the picture of the world presented in Mrożek’s drama proves that the original nature of the carnival is distorted and she asks the question about the advisability of using such a device.