The archetypal subtext of the plots of Somerset Maugham's short stories
DOI: 10.23951/1609-624X-2025-4-33-40
The linguistics of the text as a modern direction is able to reveal the archetypal essence of the storyline including the author's text. The texts of Somerset Maugham's short stories in this aspect are an example of the synergy of the author's plots and archetypal subtext, due to the semantic premise of the author himself as a "metamorphosis" of the plot. The subtext meaning of Maugham's plots is a manifestation of the immanence of the archetype, which, in our opinion, has a transcendental basis, but is transmitted as the Author's message to the Reader. The article is devoted to the description of the archetypal linguistic concept of "Mother" in the texts of Somerset Maugham's stories. The goal is achieved by solving several tasks: determining the logic of the Author's plot; describing speech portraits of heroes and characters from the point of view of ironic victimization of the plot (scenario); demonstrating the possibility of an axiological approach to the text. The methodological basis of the study are the cognitive and discourse analyses of the fiction along with the descriptive method. It turned out that in the texts of S. Maugham's stories it is possible to identify the binarity of the archetype "Mother" - "Mother" and "Stepmother". At the same time, the complexity of the Maugham's scenario is revealed when the so-called "Mother" in the process of narration "turns" into a "Stepmother", thereby revealing the category of ironic victimization of the plot (scenario). The article analyzes the texts of short stories: "Unconquered", "The Mother", "Louise".
Keywords: the stories of S. Maugham, Author, Reader, ironic victimization, plot, archetype, archetypal concept of "Mother", metamorphosis, transcendence, immanence, scenario
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Issue: 4, 2025
Series of issue: Issue 4
Rubric: THEORETICAL AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS
Pages: 33 — 40
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