The Mental Space of Game in “Our Mother is an Enchantress” by Joanna Papuzińska

The article is devoted to the mental space of game in polish fairy tale Our Mother is an Enchantress by Joanna Papuzinska. Modeled reality in Papuzińska’s book has a double-level structure consisting of the real world and fairy world, where children get involved with the help of their mother’s game. The plot of the tale is shaped by an imaginary act of creating a special mental space of game.


INTRODUCTION
The book "Our Mother is an Enchantress" by Polish writer Joanna Papuzinska is a set of short stories about unusual mother and three her children [1]. This mother plays with her children using enchanter force and thanks to this; their childhood is bright and alive, full of miracle and adventures.
The writer creates a mental space of game, which consists of usual and unusual markers. Nevertheless, children easily recognize all of them.
A mental space in literary works can be seen both as a special type of the writer's aesthetic idea that came true and as the author's vision of the world.
It connects two aspects. The first is the intention of the author, who, in creating his/her artistic fictional reality, is free to choose that piece of reality that will be represented in the text. The next aspect is to create the laws of a modeled world.
The mental space of literary text is the special type of realizing of writer's esthetic idea, his world outlook. It consists of: author's intention, who is free in creation of artistic virtual reality and selection of any part of reality; the law of artistic world which borders author freedom. In the book "Our Mother is an Enchantress" by Joanna Papuzińska we have special double reality, which on the one hand is opposed to real world (giant, crying moon, dragon, alive shadow) and on the other is correlated to it (real polish family from Morkovicy). Therefore, there is new original text reality (mother can save a giant or dragon, repair a moon, turn a toy car into real), mental space made by playing complex.
For studying mental space of literary text it will be correct to imagine the play as a form of newcreated thinking, which helps to model new subjects on the base of connection with something recognized [3]. This play depends on writer's world seeing. The mental space is always connected with the system of coordinates, which are the base for text modeling. In our case, the author uses special mental markers for recognizing: usual family from usual city in real country with unusual mother. The writer shows that the story will not be usual. It is shown in the title "Our Mother is an Enchantress" and the names of chapters: "How our mother disenchanted a giant", "How our mother repaired a moon", "How our mother protected boat from storm" and so on. It is reminds the beginning of phrase "How to play…" It becomes understandable that the story will be like a game.
The play is the most important for a child. He does not learn how to play but lives in it. Johan Huisinga said: 'In play there is something "at play" which transcends the immediate needs of life and imparts meaning to the action. All plays mean something. If we call the active principle that makes up the essence of play, "instinct", we explain nothing; if we call it "mind" or "will" we say too much' [4, p. 7].
Eric Berne showed the important role of the game in the childhood: "From the present point of view, child rearing may be regarded as an educational process in which the child is taught what games to play and how to play them. He is also taught procedures, rituals and pastimes appropriate to his position in the local social situation, but these are less significant. His knowledge and skill in procedures, rituals and pastimes determine what opportunities will be available for him, other things being equal; but his games determine the use he will make of those opportunities, and the outcomes of situations for which he is eligible. As elements of his script, or unconscious life-plan, his favored games also determine his ultimate destiny (again with other things being equal): the payoffs on his marriage and career, and the circumstances surrounding his death" [5, p. 24]. The childlike game determines adult life. In his play he can use whatever he likes.
The bricolage is the base of play in the analyzed text. And the main hero (mother) is the bricoleur. Jacques Derrida noted that bricoleur is someone who uses "the means at hand", that is, the instruments he finds at his disposition around him, those which are already there, which had not been especially conceived with an eye to the operation for which they are to be used and to which one tries by trial and error to adapt them, not hesitating to change them whenever it appears necessary, or to try several of them at once, even if their form and their origin are heterogenous' [6]. Claude Levi-Strauss used the term at first: 'In its old sense the verb "bricoler" applied to ball games and billiards, to hunting, shooting and riding. It was however always used with reference to some extraneous movement: a ball rebounding, a dog straying or a horse swerving from its direct course to avoid an obstacle. And in our own time the "bricoleur" is still someone who works with his hands and uses devious means compared to those of a craftsman' [7, p. 11]. In the text, such "the means at hand" are knitting, washing, baking, cooking. The real processes in the mental space of the play needs for enchanting are: cooking for repairing the moon or saving the dragon, knitting to save bell tower or washing to protect a boat from the storm.
The main function of mother is to help and save. In new space, she saves a giant, bell tower, people in the boat, and the shadow of the tree. In addition, it does not matter if it is alive or not. Such narrative strategy is close to the magical realism, whiсh characterized by the matter-of-fact inclusion of fantastic or mythical elements into seemingly realistic fiction [8]. Nobody is surprised at the magic in the text. Just in one episode -when children try to make a present to their mother. The present is a trip on flying pillows. It is the last story in the book -"The miracle for mum", which shows that children not just joined the game, but can create it by themselves.
The author uses for creation of mental space of game such images that can scare a child in the real life or in their imagination. For instance, many children are afraid of storm, darkness or stories about dragons, or believe that giant can eat them.
It is necessary to say that fear was the main part of upbringing. "The pedagogics of fear was very popular in the 19th century. However, even nowadays parents or teachers try use fear in upbringing. A child as homo ludens (not wishing to be homo macabricus) to neutralize his fear tries to play with it" [9, p. 9].
Children in the book "Our mother is Enchantress" and their mother playing with scaring things and narrator-son tells about it. Therefore, this mental space belongs to child subculture. Joanna Papuzinska says that children subculture belongs to the sphere of autonomics play of the child. It is developing in the absence of adults and there control [10, p. 85]. That is why, nobody can know for sure what it is: real situation of the text space or just a childish game with surroundings. However, for sure, they play with things that can scare in real life or in other fairy tales. Meeting it is a funny thing for a child, a joke that is not dangerous [11, p. 81].
In the analyzed text children go from turn ludens into homo gaudens. All their mysteries have a real reason, they are clear, that is why nobody scares at the end. For instance, a giant is a boy who was too much proud of itself. Everything in this text is a joke even its structure. It looks like a magic fairy tale, but it is not: 1) the time is not determined (narrator does not tell as when exactly everything happens); 2) the repeating of some elements (the repeating in titles); 3) orbis interior (native home and family) and orbis exterior (surroundings: forest, sea, village, city); 4) absolutely good and bad characters (in our case just good); 5) 3-elements line: going out, initiation, coming back (for instance, heroes go by toy car and came back with new knowledge).
Let us see how it goes in the episode "How our mother saved a boat from a storm".
The episode tells us about sea-journey with fishermen. When the black cloud appeared on the sky, mother asked a fisherman to take it like he takes a fish. When he did it, she washed a cloud in the seawater and said: "Now you can see: you decorate the sky and not scare fishermen". The sky was clear and heroes could continue their trip. The structure of this story is as following: 1) No determined time just: "It happened when we had holidays"; 2) The repeating process of taking a cloud; 3) Orbis interior -the boat, orbis exterior -the sea; 4) All heroes are positive; 5) 3-elements line: normal journey, an episode with cloud, coming back to normal journey. The act of initiation -understanding that the darkness can be destroyed by kindness and to make a good deal is very simple in the world of childhood. Therefore, we have the imitation of magic fairy tale, just a play. Such play we have in other stories. For instance, there is a giant, who is not a real one, there is a dragon, who eats only vegetables.
The last part "A miracle for a Mother": 1) No determined time just: "Mother's birthday"; 2) The repeating process of taking pillows; 3) Orbis interior -the home, orbis exterior -the night; 4) All heroes are positive; 5) 3-elements line: quite evening, flying, coming back. Joanna Papuzińska has created a special double reality, which related to our real world and opposed to it by its accuracy, in the stories for children.
Such modeled reality potentially sends readers back to the image of Poland. Onyms, usual things that are used in literary texts, play the role of connectors; they serve as the points of contact between the mental space created by the author and the mental space organized in the reader's mind. Thus, the reader is equipped with a coordinate system, the vector of accepting the textual fairy reality.

CONCLUSIONS
Modeled reality in Papuzińska's novel has a double-level structure consisting of the real world and fairy world, where children get involved with the help of their mother's game.
Inside the text, there is also a play with magic fairy tale. The mother-enchantress has multiple roles to play in the book: she saves the local belfry by knitting a hood for it; she helps the pine-tree to find a shadow which was occasionally removed by an old lady named Gzheliakova; she zooms a toy car through her magic glass and waits until her children becomes sick and tired driving to find them back home; finally, she also washes the clouds.
It is only she who has got a unique right to create miracles. In order to do all these, she needs something special: to be a mother, to have a needle and cotton, a piece of dough, a magnifying glass, knitting needles, some kilograms of salad and a little bit of imagination and charity.
All events in the novel take place in the world as we know it, but this world is a miracle for a child. The mother character is shown in terms of a child's imagination because the mother is the most important person who teaches everything important in life. The ability to talk, walk and read is not a miracle either. The plot of the tale is shaped by an imaginary act of creating a special mental space of game with a child-narrator, who suggests his own vision of the world where there is enough place for reality, miracle and game.