Individual in “Black and White” Society (Keti Nizharadze’s “Self-Portrait”)

Abstract

From late of 70s of 20th century the palette of Georgian literature acquired even more colors. The new generation that came to the scene young women writers comprised significant power. They indeed said what they had to and made difference in Georgian prose of 80s. Among them, we would like to note Keti Nizharadze and her famous story “Self-Portrait” (1987).

“Self-Portrait” attracts the readers with amazing power, from the first page to the last paragraph. This is life of one individual, a woman told with the “sincerity exposed up to the wounds”. This is a fight of initially teenager girl and later the young woman for independence in the society where almost no one is free. Her pain is the universal pain. At the same time, the problem – unique nature of personality, depth of her feelings and emotions, sense of abandonment, senselessness of life and specific style of its expression is directly associated with literary existentialism, existentialist philosophy in the art. Soren Kierkegaard said that philosophy should turn to the little problems of individual, help him to find the way to the truth. These issues are placed on the main axis of Keti Nizharadze’s “Self-Portrait”. The story offers almost all issues stated and analyzed by literary existentialism: non-acceptance of the society by a person, absurd, death and suicide, seeking of god, directly linked with the internal personal crisis and seeking of one’s ego. All these are expressed extremely emotionally for the prose language in Keti Nizharadze’s “Self-Portrait”, narration from the first person and genre of the story – diary contribute to this.