Kafkaesque Demeaning of the Individual in Post-War South Slavic Short Prose

In the context of fantastic short prose of South Slavic literatures in the decades after the WWII1, the paper centers around the motifs of bodily alternation. Under this umbrella category, we will explore the fantastic motif of physical shrinking and, especially, aspects of animalization, understood as the narrative strategy of attributing animal imagery and qualities to people and of ominously blurring the lines between the human and the animal. Through close reading of selected case studies, narratological analysis and, occasionally, comparative and intertextual approach, the paper argues that these narrative aspects serve as a means of modernist demeaning of the individual, often symbolically signalling the destabilization (or even loss) of identity. Shrinking and animalization are seen as two variations of liminal embodiment, where the protagonist occupies a threshold rather than a stable identity, challenging the integrity of the subject and idea of a coherent form – complete and autonomous individual.