Historical Analysis Of Jerzy Kosinskis The Painted Bird
An obscure village in Poland, sheltered from ideas and
industrialization, seemed a safe place to store one¹s most precious
valuable: a 6-year-old boy. Or so it seemed to the parents who
abandoned their only son to protect him from the Nazis in the
beginning of Jerzy Kosinski¹s provocative 1965 novel The Painted Bird.
After his guardian Marta dies and her decaying corpse and hut are
accidentally engulfed in flames, the innocent young dark-haired,
dark-eyed outcast is obliged to trek from village to village in search
of food, shelter, and companionship. Beaten and caressed, chastised
and ignored, the unnamed protagonist survives the abuse inflicted by
men, women, children and beasts to be reclaimed by his parents 7 years
later--a cold, indifferent, and callous individual.
The protagonist¹s experiences and observations demonstrate that the
Holocaust was far too encompassing to be contained within the capsule
of Germany with its sordid concentration camps and sociopolitical
upheaval. Even remote and ³backward² villages of Poland were exposed
and sucked into the maelstrom of conflict. The significance of this
point is that it leads to another logical progression: Reaching
further than the Polish villages of 1939, the novel¹s implications
extend to all of us. Not only did Hitler¹s stain seep into even the
smallest crannies of the world at that time, it also spread beyond
limits of time and culture. Modern readers, likewise, are implicated
because of our humanity. The conscientious reader feels a sense of
shame at what we, as humans, are capable of through our cultural
mentalities. That is one of the more profound aspects of Kosinski¹s
work.
It is this sense of connectedness between cultures, people, and ideas
that runs through the book continuously. While the ³backward²
nonindustrialized villages of Poland seem at first glance to contrast
sharply with ³civilized² Nazi Germany, Kosinski shows that the two...
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