"Within the limits of photography, I could point out certain aspects of human behavior as contrasted with collective behavior." The nonverbal expression of this contrast became extremely important. Since the verbal expression of ideas could be more closely defined through convention, the nonverbal allowed Kosinski to create an explanation of what he observed in the culture and society around him, but with more freedom of interpretation in the highly politicized, Stalinist ideology. The accoutrements of photography also became important and none more so than the darkroom, a place of privacy in which the outside world could be legally excluded and the individual could preserve his own self-identity and escape from the collective state. "The photographic darkroom emerged as the perfect metaphor for my life. It was one place I could lock myself in (rather than being locked in) and legally not admit anyone else. For me it became a kind of temple....Inside I would develop my own private images; instead of writing fiction I imagined myself as a fictional character. I identified very strongly with characters of both Eastern and Western literature [Petrourin, Romashov, Julien Sorel, and occasionally Rastignac]....I wrote my fiction emotionally; I would never commit it to paper." Thus, within a collective society, Kosinski managed at once to alienate himself from the conventions of conformity and to employ this alienation to transcend the imposed limits of this social organization.
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