engleski

A New Home, A New Beginning, A New Identity: Old Age, Life Narrative and Self-Pressentation in the Novel The Real Captain´s Sea by Zvonko Todorovski

Care institutions for older persons in Croatia carry multiple meanings and connotations. In Croatia, these institutions were traditionally perceived as stigmatized, unfavourable places characterized by low status, but last two decades brought certain demographic, economic and socio-cultural changes which changed its old images. Recently, care institutions for older persons (or homes for older and infirm persons) have become more desirable and acceptable places for living of persons older than 65 years (Geiger Zeman et al 2014). As any other institution, a home for older persons operates as a specific micro-social universe conducted by sets of (in)formal rules and codes, arranged through everyday routines and social networks. Precisely because of its social complexity, architectonic characteristics and cultural significance these places produce analytically interesting situations and interactions. The plot of the novel Real Captain’s Sea (More pravog kapetana) by Zvonko Todorovski is situated in a public home for older and infirm persons located in Varaždin, medium sized town placed in continental Croatia. Franko, the pensioner from Split, the largest town on Croatia’s Adriatic Coast, moves into a home for older persons in Varaždin in order to get fresh start in his life. His decision to move into the home for older persons makes pivotal, turning point in his life’s trajectory. It enables multiple new beginnings by allowing him to re- create his personal biography and inventively create his new self-presentation. At the very start of his new life Franko meets Slavica, a retired librarian who has never been to seaside. Their acquaintance transforms to friendship based on mutual support, Franko’s vivid narratives about the sea from his captain’s career (which turns out to be completely imaginary) and Slavica’s fascination with the sea and exciting seamen’ lives. However, after a while the real captain moves into ‘their’ home for older persons and his arrival compels Franko to reveal to Slavica the truth about his imagined past. This sequence of events enable our analysis to focus on presentations of institutions of older persons, gender roles and images, by which, finally, the questions of identity, and dramaturgic, relational, emotional and ontological aspects of life narrative come into play.

old age, identity, life narrative, home for older persons, Zvonko Todorovski

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