Akulturacja z perspektywy dziecka w powieści Giant Agi Maksimowskiej

Abstract

In the present article, the author considers the novel Giant (2012) by Aga Maksimowska, a story of a Polish teenage girl who emigrated with her family to Canada in the 1980s, through the lens of research on acculturation, developed by such psychologists as J.W. Berry and M.J. Bennett. Such a framework of reading enables one to perceive in this largely autobiographical story, narrated by an eleven-year-old girl, typical phenomena experienced by individuals subjected to immigration and exposed to cultural Otherness. Among these phenomena, it is possible to point out in the novel different immigration-related stressors, especially those affecting predominantly teenagers, successive stages of acculturation, ranging from defense to integration, as well as psychological mechanisms behind the protagonist’s final attitude towards her new country and her national and cultural identity. Confirming most of the research of cross-cultural psychologists, Giant presents a trajectory of acculturation that varies in certain aspects from the general scheme. Nevertheless, it appears as a novel characterized by psychological authenticity when it comes to depicting immigrant’s experience, which is likely due to the autobiographical context of the book.