Kein Mensch ist ein Ich-Land. Metafora wyspy w refleksji o przyjaźni

In her essay, the author recalls literary contexts (including John Donne, Michel Houellebecq and Ernest Hemingway) and philosophical and anthropological contexts (including Aristotle, Thomas Merton, Maurice Blanchot, Jean-Paul Sartre and Gilles Deleuze) presenting the poetic “I’s” various ways of approaching friendship. The quotation from a German translation of John Donne’s poem used in the title of the article is in itself a meaningful phonetic wordplay: “Kein Mensch ist ein Ich-Land” (no man is an “I” land, no man is an island). The main part of the essay includes an interpretation of the television series Lost — Joanna Roszak investigates philosophical references in the series and indicates biblical contexts (“Am I my brother’s keeper?”). A very apt comment to many episodes in the series is, according to the author, the formula told by Z. Herbert’s Fortinbras: Ani nam witać się ani żegnać żyjemy na archipelagach/ A ta woda te słowa cóż mogą cóż mogą” [It is not for us to greet each other or bid farewell we live on archipelagos/ and that water these words what can they do what can they do prince]. It is a similar defencelessness in which the main characters of Lost try to struggle the reality, even if they live together, and die all alone. Collective memory has become a safeguard for the community in the world, which is to be destined for homelessness and forlornness. The other person though becomes a reference point — it is him or her that makes it possible to find the way home.