Faust/ina. In Radiance by Artur Pałyga

Abstract

In his essay, author deals with the interpretation of a very original, new monodrama by Artur Pałyga, entitled In Radiance (2016), whose heroine is Maria Skłodowska-Curie. The author is interested in a poetic and performative dimension of Maria’s dozen monologues, which the author described as completely unknown letters’ of the scientist. These monologues reveal the process of Maria’s spiritual development from the moment Faust/ina of attaining maturity, until her death due to excessive irradiation. Author focuses on the aspects of Maria’s consciousness that Pałyga has brought forth from the myth of Faust, which comprises the foundation of the scientific world-view. In this monodrama, Skłodowska-Curie is the Polish Faust who is ready to break the moral rules and pay the price of her and others’ life for sheer possibility of revealing the mystery of the universe. Kopciński confronts this original literary image of a scientist with the history of her life and highlights the moments in her biography that can be read as the execution of the ‘Faustian arrangement’. At the end of his work, he compares the character of Skłodowska-Curie, who calls herself Faustina, with the figure of another extraordinary woman who has also adopted this name − Maria Faustina Kowalska. The comparison of the scientist and the mystic woman allows us to see many similarities in the characters of both, their way of life and their relationships with other people, but it also describes fundamental differences in the world-views they represent. Finally, two Faustinas are two different symbols. The figure of the scientist symbolises desire for the intellectual control of the world, which constantly changes like elements discovered by Maria Skłodowska. On the other hand, the figure of the mysticist symbolises desire for an inner union with loving God, which involves the sacrifice of one’s ‘self’ to gain the eternal life of the immortal soul.