Original scientific paper
JERKO SKRAČIĆ - CROATIAN WRITER IN THE SHADOW OF MEMORY (THE SHORT STORIES "THE SUNNY ISLANDS")
Tomislav Skračić
; Sveučilište u Zadru
Abstract
This paper presents a collection of short stories entitled "The Sunny Islands"
written by Jerko Skračić.
The author first deals with two short stories which preceded the collection
from 1943. The short stories "Braco" and "Kolporter" point out at two dominant
characteristics of Skračić's future literary work: the family theme and the dramatic
structure of the theme.
The collection "The Sunny Islands" consists of three parts. In the first part
("The Shadows of Memories" – "Sjene uspomena"), Skračić evokes his childhood
memories in the style of first-person narrative. In the second part ("The Sunny
Islands" – "Osunčani otoci"), in one-day short stories, J. Skračić describes the events
and writes about the crisis of consciousness of the lonely people on the Kornati
Islands. The third part ("The Worried Village" – "Selo u brizi") are romanesque,
moreover, dramatic stories from a family life in a closed village world. The short
stories in the latter two sections are written in the style of third person narrative.
One part of Skračić's short stories is structured in accordance with the main
theoretical postulates of this type of prose. Some of them, however, are composed
on a romanesque, time wise longer, matrix. The reason for this is the dramatic,
psychological situation of the characters, especially emphasised in the family
relationships and the family attitude to the rural surroundings.
J. Skračić as a writer, drawing on the great French and Russian novelists, remains
an impartial witness to the events. However, his empathy for the consciousness crisis
of the characters cannot remain unnoticed as well as his "sad and ironic" view of
the world in which they live.
Keywords
village; family; father; drama; short story theory
Hrčak ID:
49811
URI
Publication date:
5.3.2010.
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