"Wretched bondswomen" : Józef-Ignacy Kraszewski’s "Dziennik Serafiny" as a story on "trafficking in women"

Streszcz. po ang.

Dziennik Serafiny as a Story on "Trafficking in Women" This article interprets J.I. Kraszewski’s novel Dziennik Serafiny using the dominant category of "trafficking in women", elaborated by Claude Lévi-Strauss and Luce Irigaray. As it turns out, although he did not apply the category as such, the novelist masterly sensed that it did exist, and described it. A young woman, a nubile, becomes a subject of a matrimonial transaction entered into by the parents (especially, the male ones). The role of boarding school [pensja] and gossip has been described, among other factors, in the reinforcement of the rules of trading/trafficking - and thereby, in the normativisation of the female lives. The (notion of) "patriarchal mother" has an important function too. Kraszewski excellently characterises the "female lot" which, essentially, becomes a history of her ‘debasements.