“BLESSED INNOCENCE”: A SMALL MAN CHARACTER IN THE MODERN BRITISH LITERATURE
DOI: 10.23951/1609-624X-2020-3-86-95
Introduction. In the modern novel “The Senility of Vladimir P” a typical image of a “small man” is created and the myth of Russia as a multi-layered system of stereotypes recognizable by the Western recipient is constructed. The purpose of the study is to characterize the stereotypical image of the Russian “small man” in the modern British novel and to determine its functions in the meta-myth of Russia. Material and methods. The methodology of comparative studies, in particular, imagology is used as its the interdisciplinary nature allows one to study the image of the “Other” in the social, cultural and literary consciousness of another country at intertextual, contextual and textual levels upon the concept of stereotypes (according to J. Leerssen). “The Senility of Vladimir P” by M. Honig is a material for research. Results and discussion. Under a scandalous headline, the author offers us a story about life in Russia through the prism of the theme of “small man”. The main character, Nikolay Sheremetyev, is not inclined to reflection until the situation of loss appears and his beloved nephew is arrested. From this moment on, the narrative is gaining momentum, the main character is changing: reality acquires more and more grotesque features, and reader witnesses painful transformation of Sheremetyev, the “small man”, the last honest person in Russia, who makes a deal with his conscience and begins to act within the framework of English-Saxon tradition. The image of the “Other” is presented by Honig precisely from the perspective of the Anglo-Saxon tradition in which all the other characters are actually written out: Russians only by entourage and consistent with the Western stereotype, but infected with Western individualism. The characters of the novel are classified by type depending on the model of behavior and prototype. Conclusion. M. Honig builds a grotesque, absurd image of Russia in the middle of the XXI century. Ethnotype characters act in conditional situations without author pretending to psychologize the image and reveal characters, because they must create the most complete, comprehensive picture of Russian reality, reflect Russian national features as they fit into the British myth of Russia that is familiar to the British. Honig constructs the ethnotype of Russian citizens of the mid-XXIst century from 1) the image of a small man (Nikolai Sheremetyev), traditional for Russian literature; 2) the media image of Russian elite formed mainly by Western media and Russian liberal media; 3) an exaggerated and schematic image of a typical Russian, featured in Western cinema of the late twentieth century. Before us there is a conflict not only of different attitudes, but the opposition of the Russian and English (more broadly Anglo- Saxon) worlds at the cultural and civilizational level. Honig’s novel is an example of secondary actualization, when a fiction text constructed under the influence of the media begins to be perceived as a non-fiction model, becoming a kind of simulacrum of reality.
Keywords: imagology, ethnotype, image of Russia, British literature, small man, myth, Russian myth
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Issue: 3, 2020
Series of issue: Issue 3
Rubric: TOPICAL ISSUES OF LITERARY CRITICISM
Pages: 86 — 95
Downloads: 729