2. 1. Introduction
What exactly is violence?
2. Examples of works in which violence is solved:
a) in a violent way
› in Polish literature
› in worldwide literature
b) in a non-violent way:
- in literature

3. Violence is the use of physical force or power, threatened or actual,
against oneself, another person, or against a group or community,
which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in
injury, death, psychological harm or deprivation.

4. It is quite hard to find more vivid example of violence in
literature. After all, isn’t the death of the main character, enough? As
we all know (or at least should remember), Janko is accused of trying
to steal the violin, gets horribly beaten and as a consequence dies. The
thing that has been worrying me for quite a long time is why Prus’s
„Novels” are given to such young children. They are discussed at
schools by children aged 7-9.

5. „Balladyna” is a drama written by one of the most recognisable
Polish writers- Juliusz Słowacki.
It tells the story of a young woman, whose name entitles the whole
book, that murders her sister in the woods because she
cannot stand the failure- they both were competing on being
a future wife of a noble, rich man.
Balladyna, after having killed her sister, becomes a queen and kills
more people, one by one, to cover the first accusation. In the
end, she pays for her faults- a thunder strikes her and she
dies.
This story shows that through evil we cannot achieve anything for a
long period of time and it is good that always wins.

6. „Macbeth” by William Shakespeare is a drama that most of
people know, if not from the story, then by name.
It tells the reader about a knight, a noble man that chooses
evil and ends his inner conflict by killing an innocent
man. As always, to cover this, he has to kill the others
too. He ends up unhappy and finally dies.
This work shows us, as many others by Shakespeare, that
through evil a man will not get what he wants.

7. It is actually very hard to find a work that would show a
way of non- violent solution to any conflict or problem.
Authors generally even put an emphasis on the cruelty of
the characters to show how badly they end up because of
what they did and they make us come to the conclusion
that if the character had done something different, his life
could look much better in the end.
However, there is a number of books that might be taken
as an instance of the non-violent way of dealing with
something difficult.

8. „Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens is a
story everyone knows.
It tells us about a man, who acts in such a
way that nobody considers him a good
person.
After meeting ghosts, he changes his life,
there is no violence in it and the
character actually gets a solution to his
problems with others- he becomes
friendly and hospitable.

9. The aim of this presentation was to show how literature deals with the problems and with
the topic of aggression itself.
It is easy to see that there are multiple examples of works which use the state of
aggression to show that it is bad to use it and nobody will end up well if they choose to
use it.
Even though there are not many of the other type of books (non- violent), we can sum it
up with the conclusion that friendliness wins only compared to evil and hostility.
By this it is even more visible.
Literature gives us a lot and if we are attentive enough, we can find something that can
change our lives.