The Symbolic Function of Clothing in Goran Petrović’s Novel Prose

Abstract

This paper tackles semantic and narratological variations of the motif of clothing in contemporary Serbian writer Goran Petrović’s novels Siege of the Church of St. Salvation (1997), At the Lucky Hand (2000), Beneath the Peeling Ceiling (2010), Watermarked Paper (2022) and The Palace of Nine Views (2024). Considering that, in this author’s thematically and motifically diverse oeuvre, clothing, as a motif, narrative element or supporting segment of a developed, independent description, carries a certain potential on both motivational, characterological and symbolic levels,  the paper points out the importance of clothing both on the level of Petrović’s poetic fantasy and of his immanent poetic symbology. from the perspective of literary costume design, fashion studies, narratological and poetic research. Clothing, footwear, ornaments, embroidery, or even the color and type of fabric, depicted in concise and rich statements, and sometimes in more developed descriptions, are an integral part of the narrative imagination and self-awareness of the text, regardless of the chronotope of the story itself in the long span from the Middle Ages to modern times. Therefore, this research pays analytical attention to how the aforementioned motif influences the plot of larger or smaller narratives, that is, how it mediates the formulation of the writer’s implicit axiological stance that objects, such as clothing, should be viewed as a value, but also as a code preserving individual cultural identity and improving overall cultural memory. For the sake of the culturization of that memory and the improvement of collective cultural memory, Petrović, a prisoner of the idea of measures and a diligent advocate of awareness of the historical vertical, invests an extraordinary creative effort to scale and build his fictional depot of civilizational achievements and a grandiose archive of memories.