Emotions in Narratives of Holocaust. The Example of "The Journey" by Ida Fink

Abstract

The author of this article analyses I. Fink’s novel The Journey, using the methodology of cultural analysis, to be precise: one of its subfield – emotion research by A. Wierzbicka. This literary interpretation was inspired by cultural linguistic research, which shows that the way people express emotions depends on one’s cultural as well as language background. Those research gave the author of this article an idea to see how to interpret certain emotional situations in Fink’s novels: how they are articulated and what are the consequences of some “games” in life-threatening situations during the time of Holocaust. The article leads to the conclusion that there is a necessity of teaching students (starting from the primary school to higher levels of education) that the way emotions are expressed and experienced depends on one’s culture, language, and culturally-shaped existential experience.