Masculinity at an Impasse. Leopold Tyrmand’s Social and Emotional Life in the Context of Midlife Crisis

Abstract

The article proposes a new reading of Leopold Tyrmand’s Social and Emotional Life in the context of midlife crisis, which eluded interpreters who have focused mainly on the political and satirical aspects of the work. In this context, the author examines the novel from two perspectives: ,,workcentric” or ,,textcentric” and ,,psychocentric”, assuming that it is both an artistic illustration of the midlife crisis phenomenon diagnosed in 1965, as well as a product of a similar crisis occurring in the author’s own psyche. The author is interested in the external symptoms of the crisis and its manifestations in the internal lives of the characters, including their methods of coping with it, on the one hand, and in the work’s connections with Tyrmand’s biography, on the other. Therefore, Social and Emotional Life is interpreted as a text thematizing the writer’s struggles to translate the experienced crisis into a complete literary work. The main theoretical point of reference in the article is the concept of midlife crisis proposed by the Canadian psychoanalyst Elliott Jacques.