Shades (story)

"Shades" is one of Bolesław Prus' shortest micro-stories. Written in 1885, it comes from a period of pessimism in his life caused partly by the 1883 failure of Nowiny, a Warsaw daily that he had been editing for less than a year. Prus, the "lamplighter" who had striven to dispel darkness and its attendant "fear, madness, and mischief," had failed to sufficiently interest the public in Nowiny, his Positivist "observatory of societal facts,".

Themes

"Shades" is one of several micro-stories by Bolesław Prus that were inspired partly by 19th-century French prose poetry.
Prus scholar Zygmunt Szweykowski writes:
Prus' micro-story "Shades" comprises two parts. The first half evokes the above-described atmosphere of dread, via Prus' description of an eternal contest between light and darkness. The second half describes the efforts of one of a number of nameless lamplighters to dispel the darkness, for as long as his finite lifespan permits.