The essay concentrates on the opening scenes of Ferdydurke in which Gombrowicz introduces the reader to the world of his fiction. I try to demonstrate that the way in which the author creates the novel’s hero, who is situated between the immature world of youth and the mature world of adults, gives us the key to understanding his writing as a whole. This is because all the protagonists of Gombrowicz’s novels and dramas are constructed in a very similar way – they always distance themselves from the “game of mugs” that is played at the social level.