The Image of the Family and Family Home in Małgorzata Musierowicz’s Series of Novels, and the Stereotype of the Family in Contemporary Polish Society

Abstract

The article discusses the image of the family and the family home in a series of novels for young people by the popular Polish writer Małgorzata Musierowicz in the context of literary conventions and stereotypes about the family in contemporary Polish society. The novels, which cover a period of over 40 years, generally fit contemporary Polish realities; however, the didactic function of the novels results in the author creating an idealized image of the Polish intellectual family, filling the readers with optimism. The picture created by the writer, on the one hand, fits perfectly into the stereotype of the family, which is one of the values highly esteemed by Poles. On the other hand, it adapts to the conventions of novels for girls. In this article, the stereotype of the family is reconstructed on the basis of language data and surveys. We present the meanings and contexts of family as a noun and family as an adjective. We also present the results of our survey, the aim of which was to determine an essence of a stereotypical family and how the traditional family model is comprehended by respondents coming from various groups. We also present the respondents’ attitude to the patriarchal family model and the division of roles into male and female. In our opinion, the correspondence between the family picture created in the novels and the image of the family operating in social consciousness is the reason for the popularity of the series.