Alcest to mój kolega, który jest bardzo gruby i który ciągle je. Koncept grubas w serii opowiadań o Mikołajku R. Goscinnego i J.J. Sempégo jako tekście kultury
Authors: Pazio-Wlazłowska Dorota 
Published: December 2024

The issue of the body – “thinness” and “thickness” − is socially topical and emotional, as the body is at the centre of our self-creation. Being thin is not only fashionable, it is a widely promoted value. Fat people are perceived as alien, inferior, uglier, incompatible with the ideal image of healthy, slim and successful people, and are positioned on the margins of what society considers “normal”. Situated on the borderline between axiolinguistics and fat studies, the article focuses on the stereotype of the fat person solidified in cultural texts, which, in our opinion, play a considerable role in the perception of grubas by contemporary users of Polish language. As exemplification material we use the series of stories about Mikołajek [Little Nicholas] by R. Goscinny and J.J. Sempé, and as a reference to the image reconstructed on this basis, we use the results of a survey conducted in spring 2021 among 171 adults between the ages of 19−81. Stories about Little Nicholas have been popular in Poland since the beginning, in other words, since 1964, when the first volume was published. They are part of the school reading canon. Therefore, it can be assumed that the image of grubas presented in them is important to the formation of a stereotype. The collected material has been analysed according to the methodology of the Lublin School of Ethnolinguistics. Its viewing proves the stability of the features forming the core of the concept. Fat people are characterised in the livelihood aspect as constantly eating, consuming large quantities of food, especially bread, cakes and sweets, addicted to food; in the physical aspect as being large, with greasy or sticky hands and chin, avoiding physical activity, breathless, wearing large clothing; in the psychological aspect as perceiving food as a significant value, subordinating the taking of any action to obsessive thoughts about food; in the social aspect as having good relations with colleagues, arousing dislike because of greasy hands; in the psychosocial aspect as kind, good, well-liked. The child readers of the stories to whom the text is addressed perceive the image presented as natural and obvious. The image formed in childhood − on the basis, among other things,of cultural texts − and present in the consciousness of adult language users is difficult to both revise and redefine; it seems to us to be true and indisputable, and we grant it the status of a universally accepted, indisputable right. This is evidenced by the juxtaposition of the reconstruction made on the material of Little Nicholas stories with the results of the 2021 survey. The numerous parallels prove the deep rooting of the image of the fat man in the consciousness of language users, confirm its durability, and also indirectly prove the universal nature of the concept. The similarity between the image reconstructed on the basis of the Little Nicholas stories and the image reconstructed on the basis of the survey indicates the identity of the core of the concept, which can be seen as an argument demonstrating the significant role of cultural texts in shaping and perpetuating the image of grubas.