Antek's shotgun

Antek's shotgun is the weapon Antek carries into the forest during the villagers’ confrontation with the manor, and its most consequential appearance comes when he aims it at his father, Boryna. He does not fire. As the woodsman strikes Boryna down, Antek throws the shotgun aside and hurries to his wounded father, turning the weapon into a measure of the violence he almost commits and the filial urgency that overtakes it.

Possession and Concealment

As the villagers set out for the forest, Antek, who had hidden in the tavern when Boryna appeared, obtains a shotgun from the Jewish man there. He conceals it beneath his sheepskin and makes for the forest across the fields, apart from the orderly crowd following his father. The weapon is therefore present from the beginning of the confrontation, but Antek keeps it hidden as he approaches the violence.

Aiming at Boryna

In the forest, Antek draws the shotgun and aims at Boryna’s head while his father is struggling with the woodsman. He crosses himself unconsciously, but before he can pull the trigger, the two men stagger to their feet. Antek raises the gun to his eye again, yet fear grips him: his hands shake, his vision darkens, and he cannot shoot. The weapon makes the possibility of patricide immediate, while his paralysis prevents that possibility from becoming an act.

The Weapon Cast Aside

The woodsman then smashes Boryna’s head with the butt of his own gun, and Boryna falls, bleeding and still alive. Coming to his senses, Antek throws aside the shotgun and leaps to his father, lifting him in his arms and crying out that he has been killed. The sharp change—from aiming at Boryna to holding him—gives the shotgun its defining narrative significance: it stands at the threshold of an act Antek cannot carry through, then is abandoned as he responds to the violence actually done to his father.