THEATER AND THEATRICALITY IN NINA BERBEROVA’S SHORT STORIES OF 1930–40S
DOI: 10.23951/1609-624X-2017-11-154-160
The paper analyzes Nina Berberova’s narrative experimentations in her short stories written in 1930s. They are connected with theatricality used both as a method of characters’self-reflection and as a mode to represent the émigré reality on behalf of the author. Berberova’s interest to theatricality started with extended attention to means to represent dialogical character of communication without dominating narrator. Her work on Madame (staged in 1938) influenced narrative structure of some of her prosaic texts as well. Several ideas find their way into the text in connection with theater and theatricality as a quality of reality. One of them is lack of independence on behalf of an actor; the other is interference between the actor and their part in a play. Depiction of theatricality is not static and its function develops from oppressing a character and forcing him out of life for non-conformance, through theater as an asylum from perils of life, to a global power, which is while alien, is not antagonistic but indifferent to human endeavors. Aesthetic principle serves as uniting the reality and the author hails its understanding as an important distinction of a character. Characters of latter stories are trying to enjoy the spectacle instead of rebelling against it. Putting aesthetic in the center of the world pushes Berberova from her earlier associations with writers in the style of human document closer to Vladimir Nabokov.
Keywords: émigré prose, short prose of Nina Berberovа, narration, theatrics
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Issue: 11, 2017
Series of issue: Issue 11
Rubric: PROBLEMS AND POETICS OF THE RUSSIAN LITERATURE OF THE XIX–XX CENTURIES
Pages: 154 — 160
Downloads: 722