44 pages • 1 hour read
Tomasz JedrowskiSwimming in the Dark
Fiction | Memoir in Verse | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Antagonism of Cold War Politics
Throughout Swimming in the Dark, the looming shadow of communism plays an important and influential role in the relationship between Ludwik and Janusz. The two men represent opposing viewpoints of communist life, with Janusz hoping to find a place in the Party and build a life in Poland, while Ludwik questions Janusz’s faith in the system, constantly craving more political and personal freedom. The divide between Ludwik and Janusz’s beliefs not only represents the more serious division between the USSR and the West but also the personal pain and grief that the Cold War inflicted upon the people of the time. Both crave better lives, but, because of their values and upbringings, they see different ways to achieve them. Because of the ideological polarization fostered by the Cold War, they cannot find a compromise, and their relationship fractures.
Even early on in their relationship, as they begin to know each other, Ludwik’s and Janusz’s ideological differences begin pulling them apart. During a debate over whether capitalism or communism allows for greater freedom, Janusz questions if the supposed freedom that comes with capitalism in the West is truly worth it. He believes that this freedom is a sham and that people in the West work for no actual personal benefit. Ludwik counters: “But don’t you care that we are not really free? They tell us what they want us to know, and that’s all. We’re not even allowed to leave the country when we want to. We’re being kept” (55). Ludwik sees freedom of choice as the ultimate freedom and cites the restrictive nature of the Party’s control over the people as a negative of living in Poland. As the novel progresses, the divide between Ludwik and Janusz when it comes to Cold War politics only widens as they each hew closer and closer to the viewpoints of their chosen side in the competition between the USSR and the capitalist West.
The ideological differences between Ludwik and Janusz soon come to represent major differences in their plans for the future. When Ludwik finally decides to leave Poland, having had enough of the repressive society, he does so not only to be free of communism but also of Janusz’s beliefs. Janusz commits to staying, however, citing personal and career-oriented reasons: “‘I belong here. And I will make it, one way or another.’ […] ‘I met Hania’s parents. I got on with her dad. He will help me move up. I’m sure of it.’ There was hope in your voice. You almost sounded as if you wanted me to be proud of you. I said nothing” (178). Janusz wants to stay because he believes in the system and the Party and sees a way to advance and improve his life, even if it circumvents rules and fairness, through Hania and her family. Ludwik, however, cannot ignore the inequalities and hypocrisies of Soviet Poland, having concluded that the other side of the Cold War conflict, for all its faults, offers a better, fairer, more honest way of life. Because the nature of Cold War politics does not allow for compromise, Ludwik and Janusz are torn apart.
The Impact of Repressive Society on Personal Identity
Ludwik’s experiences in Poland demonstrate how a society that demands ideological conformity forces its citizens to live a double life. Soviet Polish society forces Ludwik to conceal major aspects of his beliefs and identity, including his sexuality and his political beliefs. This section will focus on the split political identity Ludwik must take on.
From an early age, Ludwik observes those around him concealing their true political beliefs to protect themselves from political punishment. He listens to Radio Free Europe with his mother, which instills beliefs in him oppositional to the system around him, and he quickly learns that he must hide them. When his friend Beniek’s family is abruptly exiled due to the Party’s antisemitism, Ludwik realizes that he must conceal his knowledge and disapproval of the Party’s actions for his own safety: “I pretended not to see the obvious truth: that we had never asked for this system. That it had been forced upon us. I sat through the lessons and endured it all, carrying Beniek’s banishment inside me, bile collecting in the pit of me” (72). Ludwik understands the restrictive and repressive nature of the USSR and knows that to speak out is to invite retaliation. Therefore, he lives a double life, internalizing dangerous beliefs while outwardly presenting himself as a faithful adherent to the political system. Living in this duality is difficult and represents a constant struggle.
The nature of this struggle is detrimental to the development of a stable personal identity. As Ludwik grows up, he recognizes the damage it does to others. He thinks specifically of his mother, who introduced him to parts of history that the Soviets sought to conceal from their citizens. She believed in a better world and opposed the Soviet Union in her mind, but she lived a double life by always outwardly appearing faithful. She never truly acted on her beliefs, and in Ludwik’s mind, never truly lived: “I thought of Mother, of her pointless life, her passivity. Of the years she’d spent listening to the radio, explaining her truths to me, and all of it for what? She’d died a submissive employee at the Electricity Office and had never dared to speak up or live out any of her ideas” (113). Ludwik sees a distinction between belief and action and struggles to reconcile how one can believe in something but not show it. As his relationship with Janusz becomes more strained by political differences, he becomes more and more uncomfortable with his double life and strives to unite the two by leaving Poland. His personal identity cannot bear the strain of living a double life, and he takes steps to shake that burden before it crushes him.
The Friction of Desire and Shame
Just as Ludwik leads a double life split by communism and his anti-communist beliefs, he also lives a double life split by desire and shame. As a gay man in a society with religious and cultural anti-gay bias, Ludwik slowly learns that, like his political beliefs, his sexuality cannot be openly lived. This results in Ludwik’s associating his identity as a gay man with shame. He links moments of desire with feelings of intense shame and self-loathing, as occurs when he tries to kiss Beniek: “We pulled apart. And though we continued to dance, I no longer heard the music. I was transported into a vision of my life that made me so dizzy my head began to spin. Shame, heavy and alive, had materialized, built from buried fears and desires” (12). When the lights go off at the dance, Ludwik has a physical response of desire for Beniek and acts on it, pulling him close, though they do not kiss. When the lights come on, Ludwik is aware of the people around him and realizes what he did. He immediately feels shame and links it to his attraction to Beniek.
Ludwik lives his entire life in Poland hiding his sexuality, struggling to live honestly as a gay man without feeling intense shame from feeling and acting on his desire for other men. However, as his relationship with Janusz progresses and eventually ends, he comes to find a new strength, and his relationship with shame changes. When he is confronted with accusations of being gay, he finds that the shame others try to force onto him pales in comparison to the shame he places on himself: “To my own surprise, I was unable to accept the shame he wanted me to feel. It was too familiar to be imposed: I had produced it myself for such a long time that, right then, I found I had no space left for it anymore” (173). Ludwik lives his entire life in shame of his sexuality, constantly trying to change himself or hide his true identity. When he realizes that this secret is no longer a secret and that others know, he is confronted with his worst nightmare and finds it not as severe as he always thought it may be. When the world does not collapse with this revelation, Ludwik realizes that he need not feel such shame and that if he ever does want to live honestly in his sexuality, shame for it cannot be involved. He finally embraces his desire, and in so doing, he sheds his shame for good.
