A Study on Mythic Motifes in Olga Tokarczuk’s Primeval and Other Times

Abstract

Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk’s Primeval and Other Times(1996), the most representative novel from the early period of her work, is widely considered to beautifully embody a mythological imagination. Consisting of eighty-four episodes, the novel is a unique work in that it integrates events which actually occurred in Poland into a fictional story set against the background of an imaginary village called ‘Primeval’. Notably, the word ‘primeval’, which means ‘the earliest time in history’, is used to name a place. Through the imaginary village of Primeval, Tokarczuk has created a new and distinctive world in which reality and supernatural phenomena co-exist, and unfolded mythic time with the characteristics of ‘circularity’ and ‘roundness’ within a special space. Tokarczuk reveals the robustness of the literary archetype originating from universal human sentiment through the various mythical motifs embedded in the novel. As such, Primeval is a microcosm in which reality and myth co-exist. With this novel Tokarczuk sought to emphasize the everlasting presence of myth, proving that all great novels are grounded in some kind of myth.