Utrata i żałoba w prozie Michaiła Szyszkina

Representations of loss, grief and mourning are have a prominent place in Mikhail Shiskhin's fiction. They coexist with other parathanatological themes such as funerals and reflections on life after death. As funerals provide the proper opening of periods of mourning, the first part of the article deals with the characters’ reactions to the scenes of death and burial. It is followed, in the second part, by a close examination of the internal life of selected female characters who experience grief after the loss of a person they love. On the whole, Shiskhin's characters seem to be less preoccupied with the funeral as a social institution, but rather tend to experience bereavement in a way which is typical of a melancholic. Drawing on Jacques Derrida's conceptualization of mourning, the article demonstrates how Shishkin's female characters conceal mourning by the act of incorporating the dead into their own bodies and allowing them their voice. At the same time, the activity of letter writing enables them to hinder or even deny bereavement, and in this way, hold off the admission of a complete loss.