The Betrayal of Childhood in a Socio-Cultural Context

Abstract

In my article, I focus on the relationship between a child and adult in socio-cultural perspective in order to demonstrate how the representations of childhood are used by Polish authors of children’s literature in critical descriptions of war and other forms of violence. At first, I relate to the crucial moment in the European history in which there appeared a discourse of senility and youthfulness. Next, I present the main consequences of the “production” and “distribution” of images of childhood in pop culture. In the last part of my discussion, I analyse novels by Joanna Rudniańska, Jacek Dukaj, Grzegorz Gortat and Dorota Combrzyńska-Nogala, who, in their works about the Holocaust, the martial law in Poland and the war in Syria create the world in which young characters possess certain features belonging to the adult. My analyses demonstrate the sources of betrayal of childhood which appears in these novels like a sublime sign reflecting primarily adults’ fantasies about the child. As I show, this sign contains very few real issues referring to contemporary childhood.